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American Masters Season 20 Episodes
Season 20 Episode Guide
8 Episodes 2005 - 2006
Episode 1
John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker and the Legend
Wed, May 10, 200697 mins
John Ford and John Wayne - a friendship and professional collaboration that spanned 50 years, changed each others' lives, changed the movies, and in the process, changed the way America saw itself.
Episode 2
The World of Nat King Cole
Wed, May 17, 200655 mins
Edited version of an 89 minute UK documentary on the life of the singer with recollections from family, friends, and famous fans.
Episode 3
Woody Guthrie: Ain't Got No Home
Tue, Jul 11, 200685 mins
Hear the story of Woody Guthrie's creative energy, personal imperfections and family tragedy.
Episode 4
Marilyn Monroe: Still Life
Tue, Jul 18, 200655 mins
Explores Monroe as the icon of the 20th century via photography, perhaps, her greatest "love affair".
Episode 5
Walter Cronkite: Witness to History
Wed, Jul 26, 2006
Walter Cronkite was the man who gave us the news for two tumultuous decades in the late 20th century. As historian, journalist and author David Halberstam says in praise of the great CBS newsman: "Most Americans really learned of the evening news and learned of Vietnam and learned of the civil rights movement and learned of Watergate with Walter Cronkite as the man who ushered it into their homes. And did it with great professionalism over a very long time and was I think absolutely true to himself." In AMERICAN MASTERS Walter Cronkite: Witness to History, a documentary narrated by Katie Couric, historians, fellow journalists and CBS colleagues appraise the career of the man who was called "the most trusted man in America." CBS writer and commentator Andy Rooney, legendary producer/director Don Hewitt, correspondents Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Lesley Stahl and Barbara Walters, columnists Molly Ivins and Helen Thomas, Senator John McCain and President Jimmy Carter guide the viewer from Cronkite's early days as a foreign correspondent in World War II through his thirty-year career at CBS News. The film opens with Cronkite's beginnings as a journalist - his decision at the age of twelve to become the best possible reporter he could be. His ambition was honed during his early years with the United Press wire service. Battling constant deadlines, he developed a keen sense of competition - and a keen sense of what mattered to the American public. In the nascent years of television, when even the networks weren't sure what the medium could do, Cronkite was among the first to shine - as a newsman and as the host of the enormously popular You Are There series. Chosen to anchor the CBS Evening News, Cronkite would become involved in every major event of the post-war years: the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam war and the anti-war movement, the race to space and the moon, the Watergate scandal and the impeachment of Richard Nixon, the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel. When he retired from the anchor desk in 1981, the press viewed the event as the passing of an icon and an era. One magazine editor wrote that Walter Cronkite leaving the air was "like George Washington's face leaving the dollar bill."
Episode 6
Andy Warhol: A Documentary
Wed, Sep 20, 2006240 mins
Rare archival film footage and interviews illustrate filmmaker Ric Burns' tribute to art-world icon Andy Warhol. Much of the material Burns uses was shot by Warhol himself during his heydey in the 1960s and '70s. Interviews include art dealer Irving Blum, Warhol's brother John, Paul Morrissey and art critic Dave Hickey.
Episode 7
Sketches of Frank Gehry
Wed, Sep 27, 200683 mins
A look at the life and career of architect Frank Gehry (1929 - ), a visit to four buildings (the Vitra Museum in Germany, Maggie's Centre, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and the Disney Concert Hall in L.A.), and an inquiry into creativity in conversations between Ghery and Sidney Pollack, whom Gehry asked to make this picture. Early experiences (playing with blocks with his grandmother, drawing with his father, hearing Alvar Aalto lecture), discovering computer-assisted design, finding a psychoanalyst, experimenting on his own home, and bringing an artist and sculptor's sensibility to architecture are part of Gehry's story. Friends, artists, critics, and curators comment.
Episode 8
Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens
Wed, Jan 3, 2007
Annie Leibovitz enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute intent on studying painting. It was not until she traveled to Japan with her mother after her sophomore year that she discovered her interest in taking photographs.
