{alltv} Burns' 'Civil War' DVD re-released

On Tuesday, Americans mark a significant anniversary in their country's growth, but it is not the kind of event that people celebrate conventionally. Instead, the day will initiate a collective pause, a sigh, a solemn moment of reflection. On April 12, 1861 -- 150 years ago -- the first shots were fired in the U.S. Civil War, one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history.

To mark that anniversary, Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment and PBS Home Video are re-releasing Ken Burns' monumental series, The Civil War. The sterling box set is available in DVD-only and collects together the nine episodes, plus bonus materials, on five discs. As a home entertainment experience, The Civil War is an extraordinary accomplishment that enlightens, provokes and deepens our understanding of the event. And this series is just as essential now -- if not more so -- than when Burns made it in 1990.

"The Civil War is the guide to who we are," Burns explains recently from his home office in New Hampshire. He is talking about the war, not his series, but it could apply. "It is the Rosetta Stone of American experience. It is always there. Everything before led up to it. Everything since has been a consequence of it. And it is so interesting how aspects of the Civil War are present in our national life -- for good and for ill."

Burns feels his series is useful for Americans, who continue to grapple with the root causes of the war. And it is useful for outsiders. He recalls getting a letter from a Canadian after the series debuted. "He wrote: 'I finally understand my complicated neighbour to the south!' And he meant now!"

Burns has an extraordinary track record in his work, touching on topics as varied as jazz, baseball, early American pioneers, legendary politicians and now -- in a current project -- the prohibition era. These films reinforce why he feels The Civil War series is so important today.

"I think in almost all the films I've done, one is always struck by the Biblical indication that there is nothing new under the sun. You realize that the more things change, the more they stay the same. That the past is prologue, that history is not what was but is, as William Faulkner said."

Burns is concerned is that, with a fragmented media and political factions ruling public life in America, that his country mirrors the effect of the fable in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. "We have been divided into so many bucket-carrying brooms and nobody ever carries the wholeness of people. That is why we need long form and we need epic stories and we need to have a kind of Homeric response to our people, or we're lost."

With a project as massive and profound as The Civil War, there is still bickering about it 20 years after the fact. Some doubters rejecting it as "liberal propaganda," a ridiculous charge.

"We had no bias other than we were opposed to slavery," Burns says now. "If that is 'liberal' I am guilty. We are seen to be relieved that the union survived. If that is 'liberal' I am guilty."

But he does have a sense of humour when satirized for his technique -- especially the use of still photographs -- in what has become known as the Ken Burns Effect. The Simpsons, Family Guy, Jay Leno, and political cartoonists have all sent him up.

"We collect them," Burns says. "We love them! It's a hugely important part of what's good about our society, that nobody should take themselves too seriously. Unfortunately, too many people do and that's where we end up with such rigid positions." Even after 150 years, the great American debate.