The American Civil War - A Union Divided: In my most recent order from Deep Discount, I ordered for myself a bunch of low priced documentaries, mostly on the Civil War, for review and for something to put on to fall asleep to (nothing soothes me to sleep like the sound of talking heads.) In reviewing them I am watching them pretty much all at the same time as you will see in upcoming reviews. Some are crap but this one I have to say is worth looking at.

After Ken Burns released his epic documentary, The Civil War to PBS all those years ago, everyone from The History Channel to fly by night companies have attempted to make
something that serves as somewhat of a replacement or companion to the 11 hour documentary. Clocking in at just over three hours is this release from British based Eagle Media.

A Union Divided is done more in the style of the History Channel documentaries than the Ken Burns style. There are plenty of photos and talking heads mixed in with the usual re-enactment footage and live action scenery filming. The re-enactment footage tries to keep brief but I for one am no real lover of using it as documentary padding. CGI animation is used on the maps to illustrate battles. If I have any real complaints on the cinematography it would be that some shots show modern day cities like New York and Washington when plenty of vintage photographs would work just fine.

The extras are quite nice with dramatic readings of letters home and songs of the Civil War being the best features. All in all I would say this is a good documentary and definitely worth picking up when you can get it under $10 like I did.

Labels: Civil War, Documentary, History