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American Masters Season 21 Episodes
Season 21 Episode Guide
9 Episodes 2007 - 2007
Episode 1
Novel Reflections on The American Dream
Wed, Apr 4, 2007
The American novel is a powerful story. It unifies us, it motivates us, it gives meaning to our lives. It is a story assuring us that we can, indeed, define our own destiny. Yet, experience tells us there is another American story.
Episode 2
Atlantic Records: The House That Ahmet Built
Wed, May 2, 2007
Ahmet Ertegun created a new genre of music that combined the African-American music of 1940s Washington, D.C., with the European sensibility.
Episode 3
Les Paul: Chasing Sound
Wed, Jul 11, 200790 mins
The Authorized biography of Les Paul, " The Wizard of Waukesha". The name Les Paul is synonymous with the electric guitar. As a player, inventor, and recording artist(Paul had two #1 hits with his wife Mary Ford), Paul has been and innovator from the early years of his life. In 1928, thirteen-year-old Les Paul borrowed a phonograph needle from the family Victrola, stuck it under the strings of his Sear Roebuck guitar, and wired the contraption to a telephone mike and two radio speakers, thus achieving not only amplification but a crude stereo effect. The pioneering young musician then went on to invent scores of ingenious recording techniques, including overdubbing and multi-track recorders, as well as the solid-body electric guitar at the heart of the rock and roll revolution. Still spry at age 90, Les Paul tells his own classic rags-to-riches story in a feature-length HD documentary-with a soundtrack of greatest hits from Bing Crosby, Chet Atkins, B.B. KIng, and rock legends Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards and Paul McCartney.
Episode 4
David Hockney: The Colors of Music
Wed, Jul 18, 2007
From painting to photos to collage, lithographs and set design, it seems artist David Hockney has done it all. The Colors of Music explores the painter's set designs while providing personal and career highlights.
Episode 5
John James Audubon: Drawn from Nature
Wed, Jul 25, 2007
John James Audubon is best known for The Birds of America, a book of 435 images, portraits of every bird then known in the United States - painted and reproduced in the size of life. Its creation cost Audubon eighteen years of monumental effort in finding the birds, making the book, and selling it to subscribers. Audubon also wrote thousands of pages about birds (Ornithological Biography); he'd completed half of a collection of paintings of mammals (The Viviparous Quadrapeds of North America) when his eyesight failed in 1846. His story is a dramatic and surprising one. Audubon was not born in America, but saw more of the North American continent than virtually anyone alive, and even in his own time he came to exemplify America - the place of wilderness and wild things.
Episode 6
Tony Bennett: The Music Never Ends
Wed, Sep 12, 200787 mins
This cinematic portrayal of Tony Bennett caps a year-long celebration of a singer who celebrated his 80th birthday last August. Bennett's most recent chart topping CD, "Tony Bennett Duets: An American Classic," has also reached another milestone for the singer, becoming the biggest selling album of his career. "Duets" was awarded three Grammy Awards last Sunday in the categories of "Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album," "Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals" and "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)."
Episode 7
Orozco: Man of Fire
Wed, Sep 19, 2007
The life of Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949), a life filled with drama, adversity, and triumph, is one of the great stories of the modern era.
Episode 8
Good Ol' Charles Schulz
Mon, Oct 29, 200784 mins
For 50 years, Charles M. Schulz captivated and comforted millions with PEANUTS-his innovative daily chronicle of cruelty, hope, and heartbreak in the younger set. But unprecedented worldwide success did not quiet his own Charlie-Brown-style doubts. Instead, the outwardly mild-mannered Schulz relentlessly revisited the turbulent realities of his lost childhood in search of elusive answers. Like Citizen Kane (a film Schulz watched up to 40 times), GOOD OL' CHARLES SCHULZ tries to decipher an iconic, enigmatic American success story. Interviews with those who knew him best-including the real-life Linus and Little Red-Haired Girl-propel this 90-minute documentary. With full access to Peanuts strips and specials and to Schulz's personal archives, the film explores his life, his work, and the complex ways the two intersected. Filmed in wide screen, GOOD OL' CHARLES SCHULZ also connects the cartoons to the fading world of his Midwestern youth in visually innovative ways.
Episode 9
Carol Burnett: A Woman of Character
Mon, Nov 5, 2007
Comedienne Carol Burnett's early show business aspirations were to perform in live theater on Broadway, craving the instant gratification from a live audience. Her sensibilities were shaped by going to "happy" movies in the 1940s and 1950s, the story lines for which made it seem like anything was possible. These movie going experiences were in part a mechanism to escape her difficult home life, which was nonetheless loving. Based on her early work, professionals around her saw her comedic talents and steered her in the direction of stand-up and sketch comedy. Her life in sketch comedy on television, both on The Garry Moore Show (1958) and her own show, The Carol Burnett Show (1967) was one of fun and play acting, which translated to what the audience saw. Her own show was pioneering as she was the first woman to host her own sketch comedy show. Unlike most sketch players, she relished in the interaction with her audience as seen through the Q&A's on her show. One thing she was uncomfortable with was her singing, a character which she needed to hide behind to feel comfortable to sing. Some say that there is a fine line between comedy and tragedy, with her fine dramatic acting skills displayed in such television movies as Friendly Fire (1979) and Seasons of the Heart (1994). Tragedy unfortunately struck her personal life in having to deal with a drug addicted daughter, 'Carrie Hamilton (I)' and after Carrie's drug recovery her untimely death at age 38 from cancer.