- Network: PBS
- Series Premiere Date: Oct 2, 2011
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Critic Reviews
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Great historical documentaries not only enlighten us about the past, but tell us things about our own times as well, either directly or implicitly. Prohibition, the latest project by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, states the implicit links between the passage of the 18th Amendment and contemporary politics so loudly, you'd have to be drunk on bathtub gin not to get the message.
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The lively script by Geoffrey Ward covers a lot of ground and offers keen insights via interviews, not only with experts but regular folk who lived through the era.
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In the end, it may be the most fun you'll ever have with a Ken Burns film.
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Taken together there is in these 5 1/2 hours, breathtaking in their scope and detail, nothing approaching a dull moment.
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Prohibition is a merry, bullet-sprayed study of the era's rampant criminality. [10 Oct 2011, p.40]
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An enthralling film.
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The 18th Amendment--that "Noble Experiment" that turned out to be one of the country's biggest civic failures--is the subject of a fascinating new documentary by Ken Burns.
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Talking heads such as Daniel Okrent are eloquently pithy. And narrator Peter Coyote is as soothing as a tumbler of fine Scotch.
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More than any of Burns' documentaries except The Civil War, Prohibition provides viewers with a real feel for the times as well as new and surprising information.
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With deft detail, and the usual sparkling mix of vivid archival footage and jazzy period music, we're treated to an evocative portrait of a young nation wracked by alcoholism and a debauched saloon culture, taking drastic measures to ban the manufacture and sale of alcohol.
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Prohibition is barely more than a gulp next to Burns benders like "Baseball" and "Jazz," but it packs a punch, both as a cautionary tale and as entertainment.
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Over three nights and five and half hours, Prohibition provides a very fine analytic survey of the noble experiment, and most criticisms of it are quibbles.
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The series presents an often-engrossing look at a unique cultural moment in America, when high-mindedness was in the saddle yet lawlessness was never so pervasive.
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Mr. Burns and Ms. Novick, commendably, don't beat you over the head with the obvious lessons for those today who would legislate personal behavior; they largely let the story of Prohibition speak for itself.
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Prohibition provides a detailed, engaging postmortem of a very, very bad idea.
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[It manages] to be extremely entertaining, packed with amusing details and highly relevant to today's politics.
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What the show doesn't say, but wouldn't mind our noticing, is that even today we should be very careful about giving up some part of our freedom because someone tells us it will "solve" some other problem.
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At something more than five hours, Prohibition, while interesting from moment to moment, is longer than it needs to be, and made even longer by Burns' habitual stateliness.
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It's rare for Burns and Novick to get lost in their own material, but it happens here.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 18
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Mixed: 1 out of 18
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Negative: 1 out of 18
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Dec 21, 2011
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Oct 4, 2011