Brooklyn Bridge

Ken Burns scored an Academy Award nomination for his engrossing debut, which functions as both a history lesson on the construction of New York’s iconic Brooklyn Bridge and a poetic study of what the bridge came to represent to future generations. Firmly establishing his trademark documentary style, Burns uses photos, readings from the diaries and letters of the family who designed and built the bridge, and other historical texts to tell the story of how the Brooklyn Bridge came to be. Then, once the bridge has been erected, Burns mixes interviews with iconic New Yorkers like Arthur Miller and film clips which feature the bridge to show how it came to stand for much more than just a transportation pathway in the collective mind of America.