Product Description

1934. The Dustbowl. The last great age of magic. In a time of titanic sandstorms vile plagues drought and pistilence - signs of God's fury and harbingers of the Apocalypse - the final conflict between good and evil is about to begin. The battle will take place in the Heartland of an empire called America. And when it is over man will forever trade away wonder for reason. See the conflict of good vs. evil played out against a pair of vivid and unusual backdrops: a traveling carnival working the American Dustbowl circuit and an evangelical ministry in California.Running Time: 720 min.System Requirements:Running Time 720 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 026359885723 Manufacturer No: 98857

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4441 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2004-12-07
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Original language: English, French, Russian
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 6
• Dimensions: 1.20 pounds
• Running time: 720 minutes

Amazon.com
Carnivàle doesn't waste any time making its--wildly ambitious--aims clear. As carnival manager Samson (Michael J. Anderson, Twin Peaks' diminutive backwards-talker) notes in pilot episode "Milfay," directed by Rodrigo García (son of Gabriel García Marquez), "To each generation [is] born a creature of light and a creature of darkness." With that the story begins. The year is 1934, the setting the Oklahoma dustbowl. In short order, Ben Hawkins (In the Bedroom's Nick Stahl) loses his mother and his home. He's poor, he's alone--he needs a job. So he joins Samson's carnival, en route to the West. Hawkins, naturally, is the good guy. Waiting for him in California is the not so good Brother Justin Crowe (Clancy Brown, The Shawshank Redemption), a fire and brimstone preacher with supernatural powers and a fiercely loyal sister (Amy Madigan). Hawkins, as it turns out, has similar powers....

Created by Daniel Knauf (Wolf Lake), Carnivàle feels like David Lynch (weird, slow, occasionally kinky), plays like American Gothic (Shaun Cassidy's cult series about a good kid and an evil sheriff), and looks like John Ford's Grapes of Wrath. It features one of television's most colorful casts of characters. They include Sophie (Clea DuVall), who reads fortunes--with her comatose mother's assistance, the vaguely sinister Lodz (Patrick Bauchau), blind absinthe-drinker and mentalist (he can see both the future and the past), and Ruthie (Adrienne Barbeau), snake charmer, strongman's mother, and all-around maternal figure. By the final episode of the season ("The Day That Was the Day"), also directed by García, one of these characters will be dead. Carnivàle won five richly deserved technical Emmys for its first year, including awards for cinematography and art direction. Like HBO's edgy Deadwood, it's period drama for people who don't normally like period drama. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

A Mythic Story; A Realistic Canvas
The first thing that drew me into this series was the setting; the 1930's dustbowl in the American Midwest. The second things was the vehicle of a carnival. The third thing was the 'tag' about the time period being the last age of magic. I was not prepared, however, for the mythic scope of the story and the depth of background created by the writers for characters and plot. This series is 'mythic' in the sense that it attempts to tell-again the story of antique, cosmic themes (specifically the struggle of 'light' and 'dark;' 'good' and 'evil'), yet brings them to manifest narrative form on a unique stage; with characters drawn from rural Americana; gritty and full of moral and existential ambiguities.

This is the first of two seasons that were completed before the show was cancelled. Without giving anything away, I can say that the story is intruiguing, well-written, full of salient revelations and considerations, and deeply satisfying. The end of the second season completes one "arc" in the original six-season plot-line the writers had worked out. As such, it doesn't leave you hanging; rather, it leaves you at a fecund juncture in the story, having resolved enough to satisfy, while portending much more to come (which you can imagine for yourself, as the show was cancelled). There is so little good television; this series is one of a handful of really outstanding dramas.

Not as good as I expected
I'm a huge tv on dvd fan and own over 75 season sets. A big chunk of them are shows I've only heard about. I heard about Carnivale, and both seasons were on sale for $20 each so I figured why not try them out? Well I recieved them in the end of December and am still on episode 9. Only halfway through as I got bored actually...
I mean its not horrible, but I find it very slow paced and boring. And I'm a HUGE fan of Six Feet Under so was really disappointed by this series. I'll watch the rest but I suggest renting before buying.

Extremely Unique and Imaginative!!
Unlike most series, this one doesn't start out slow and boring, it catches your attention beginning with the very first episode. I had to do a project for a college class where we watched a show without the sound on, to try and figure out what was occurring via the nonverbal communication used. Then we were to view it again, but with the sound, to see how well we caught on to what was happening. I wanted to use something I had never seen before, and had been meaning to watch the series for over a year. I can't believe I put it off for as long as I did... Of course, I used episode one of season one for the project, and after watching it, I had to finish season one off within the week, then immediately moved on to season two. If I wasn't working full time, going to school, and watching my kids on my days off, I would have just plunked myself down in front of the tv right then and there, and watched them all straight through without budging for anything. Now that says a lot for me. I have a very large genre spread for what I like viewing, but the only other series I have ever liked enough to sit down and watch back to back are Firefly and Wonderfalls. Unfortunately, HBO cut Carnivale off before it was truly finished. They answered many questions with what they did in the two seasons that were produced, but there is still enough to go on that they could make an awesome movie to wrap up all the loose ends and not end up beating a dead horse like so many series go on to doing. I totally understand the fact that they wanted to end on a high note and not run the series into the ground by dragging it out when they have run out of new content ideas, so lets hope they decide to hit the big screen with the final moments of Clayton Jones, Sofie, Ben Hawkins, and all the other unique souls that make up the Carnivale. It worked for Firefly, with the movie Serenity, so why not them as well?