Movie
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio
1991 · 113 min
A stately, elegiac documentary that unfolds like a melancholy history lesson, rich in archival voices and quiet tragedy.
- Directed by
- Ken Burns
- Genres
- Documentary, History
- Starring
- Jason Robards, Red Barber, Erik Barnouw
- Overview
- For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.
- How it feels
- Measured and needs your attention.
- About
- Technology, ambition, betrayal, obsession
- Content
- No violence, gore, sexual content or swearing.
- Note
- Written by AI, so it can be wrong. Full breakdown
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Add to a list: Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio
In the USNo streaming, rental or purchase options known.
- Directed by
- Ken Burns
- Genres
- Documentary, History
- Starring
- Jason Robards, Red Barber, Erik Barnouw
