Fade From Tintype; Cue General Grant

THE hands of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant dash off a series of written orders. A trotting horse's legs dissolve into a lithograph of the bloody Battle of Shiloh. And the young Grant trains a horse in a Midwestern meadow. Viewers may not pay much attention to the discrepancy between these newly filmed...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe New York times
Main Author Everitt, David
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, N.Y New York Times Company 05.05.2002
EditionLate Edition (East Coast)
Subjects
Documentary films
Grant, Ulysses S (1822-85)
Public television
Television programs
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Summary:THE hands of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant dash off a series of written orders. A trotting horse's legs dissolve into a lithograph of the bloody Battle of Shiloh. And the young Grant trains a horse in a Midwestern meadow. Viewers may not pay much attention to the discrepancy between these newly filmed color sequences and the black-and-white archival images in ''Ulysses S. Grant,'' a two-part installment of ''American Experience'' on PBS beginning tonight. Partly this is because the new material is artfully integrated into the old. But there is another reason. Historical re-creations, a novelty some 10 years ago, have become commonplace in TV documentaries. The new Grant documentary lies somewhere in the middle. It enhances archival material with impressionistic sequences that refrain from showing clear views of the actors. When a stand-in for Grant, lost in thought, looks out a White House window, the scene is captured in a long shot bathed in hazy sunlight.
ISSN:0362-4331