The Way West (1995)

Director, Writer, and Producer Ric Burns’s THE WAY WEST, a six-hour documentary series chronicling the way the West was lost and won between 1845 and 1893, broadcast nationally on PBS in May 1995 as part of WGBH’s American Experience.  The film looks at the final decades of the American frontier from the time of the Gold Rush until after the last gasp of the Indian wars at Wounded Knee.  Newsweek called THE WAY WEST   “a masterly piece of nonfiction, less a documentary than a tragedy in four 90-minute acts,” and the Los Angeles Times described the series as “simply a breathtaking masterpiece of history television.”

Video

Credits

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY: Ric Burns

CO-PRODUCER: Matt Butcher

SERIES HOST: David McCullough

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Norman Cohen

EDITED BY: Bruce Shaw and Li-Shin Yu

CO-EDITOR: Edward Barteski

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Chris White

CINEMATOGRAPHY BY: Allen Moore and Buddy Squires

MUSIC BY: Brian Keane

SOUND EDITOR: Ira Spiegel

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER FOR AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: Judy Crichton

SENIOR PRODUCER: Margaret Drain

AWARDS: 

The Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Silver Baton Award
The Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement, 1995