The Congress is a 1988 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 directed by Emmy Award

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

-winning director Ken Burns

Ken Burns

Kenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs...

. The Florentine Films production, which focuses on the United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

, aired on PBS

Public Broadcasting Service

The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

 in 1989. Narrated by David McCullough

David McCullough

David Gaub McCullough is an American author, narrator, historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award....

, the documentary features use of photographs, paintings, and film from sessions of Congress, in its implementation of the Ken Burns Effect

Ken Burns Effect

The Ken Burns effect is a popular name for a type of panning and zooming effect used in video production from still imagery.The name derives from extensive use of the technique by American documentarian Ken Burns...

. Scenes from the 11-time Academy Award-winning James Stewart

James Stewart (actor)

James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...

 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a 1939 American drama film starring Jean Arthur and James Stewart about one man's effect on American politics. It was directed by Frank Capra and written by Sidney Buchman, based on Lewis R. Foster's unpublished story. Mr...

 are also used. The work features numerous interviews from writers and historians including Charles McDowell, David McCullough, Cokie Roberts

Cokie Roberts

Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Roberts , best known as Cokie Roberts, is an American Emmy Award-winning journalist and bestselling author. She is a contributing senior news analyst for National Public Radio as well as a regular roundtable analyst for the current This Week with Christiane...

, George Tames

George Tames

George Tames was an American photographer for The New York Times from 1945-1985. As a newspaper photographer, Tames was a regular on Capitol Hill over a span of forty years.-Biography:...

, David Broder, James MacGregor Burns

James MacGregor Burns

James MacGregor Burns is an historian and political scientist, presidential biographer, and authority on leadership studies. He is the Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government Emeritus at Williams College and Distinguished Leadership Scholar at the of the School of Public Policy at the University...

, Barbara Fields, and Alistair Cooke

Alistair Cooke

Alfred Alistair Cooke KBE was a British/American journalist, television personality and broadcaster. Outside his journalistic output, which included Letter from America and Alistair Cooke's America, he was well known in the United States as the host of PBS Masterpiece Theater from 1971 to 1992...

. Many congressmen are specifically referenced, including Henry Clay

Henry Clay

Henry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...

, John C. Calhoun

John C. Calhoun

John Caldwell Calhoun was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent...

, Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...

, Thomas Brackett Reed

Thomas Brackett Reed

Thomas Brackett Reed, , occasionally ridiculed as Czar Reed, was a U.S. Representative from Maine, and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1889–1891 and from 1895–1899...

, Joseph Gurney Cannon

Joseph Gurney Cannon

Joseph Gurney Cannon was a United States politician from Illinois and leader of the Republican Party. Cannon served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1903 to 1911, and historians generally consider him to be the most dominant Speaker in United States history, with such...

, George William Norris

George William Norris

George William Norris was a U.S. politician from the state of Nebraska and a leader of progressive and liberal causes in Congress...

, Jeannette Rankin

Jeannette Rankin

Jeannette Pickering Rankin was the first woman in the US Congress. A Republican, she was elected statewide in Montana in 1916 and again in 1940. A lifelong pacifist, she voted against the entry of the United States into both World War I in 1917 and World War II in 1941, the only member of Congress...

, and Everett Dirksen

Everett Dirksen

Everett McKinley Dirksen was an American politician of the Republican Party. He represented Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate...

. The film also includes focus on the Congress' work during pivotal periods in United States history, including the Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, African-American Civil Rights Movement, and Women's suffrage

History of women's suffrage in the United States

Woman suffrage in the United States was achieved gradually, at state and local levels, during the 19th Century and early 20th Century, culminating in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provided: "The right of citizens of the United States to...

. The documentary was released by PBS, on DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 in 2004. Footage of the Capitol from the film was later incorporated into Ken Burn's later masterpiece work, The Civil War

The Civil War (documentary)

The Civil War is a documentary film created by Ken Burns about the American Civil War. It was first broadcast on PBS on five consecutive nights from Sunday, September 23 to Thursday, September 27, 1990. Forty million viewers watched it during its initial broadcast, making it the most-watched...

.

External links

• Official site