Ken Burns reflecting on His Latest Revolutionary War Film Series: ‘This Is Our Most Crucial Work’
The acclaimed documentarian is now considered not just a filmmaker; his name is a franchise, a one-man industrial complex. With each new television endeavor heading for the television, everyone seeks his attention.
The filmmaker completed “countless podcast appearances”, he says, wrapping up of his marathon promotional journey comprising four dozen cities, 80 screenings and hundreds of interviews. “I think there are 340.1m podcasts, one for every American, and I’ve done half of them.”
Fortunately the filmmaker is incredibly dynamic, as expressive in conversation as he is prolific while filmmaking. The 72-year-old has gone everywhere from historical sites to mainstream media outlets to talk about one of his most ambitious projects: his Revolutionary War documentary, a monumental six-part, 12-hour documentary series that consumed the past decade of his life and debuted recently on PBS.
Classic Documentary Style
Similar to traditional cooking in today’s rapid-consumption era, The American Revolution intentionally classic, more redolent of The World at War as opposed to modern digital documentaries and podcast series.
But for Burns, whose entire filmography exploring national heritage covering diverse cultural topics, the revolutionary period is not just another subject but essential. “I recently told collaborator Sarah Botstein the other day, and she agreed: no future work will carry greater importance,” Burns reflects during a telephone interview.
Extensive Historical Investigation
The filmmaking team plus scripting partner Geoffrey Ward drew upon thousands of books plus archival documents. Numerous scholars, representing diverse viewpoints, contributed scholarly insights along with leading scholars covering various specialties like African American history, Native American history and the British empire.
Characteristic Narrative Method
The documentary’s methodology will feel familiar to devotees of The Civil War. The unique approach incorporated gradual camera movements across still photos, extensive employment of contemporary scores with performers voicing historical documents.
That was the moment Burns established his reputation; years later, presently the respected veteran of historical films, he seems able to recruit any actor he chooses. Appearing alongside Burns during a recent appearance, the Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda observed: “When Ken Burns calls, you say ‘Yes.’”
Remarkable Ensemble
The extended filming period also helped regarding scheduling. Sessions happened in recording spaces, at historical sites through digital platforms, a tool embraced amid COVID restrictions. Burns explains working with Josh Brolin, who scheduled a brief window during his travels to voice his character as George Washington before flying off to other professional obligations.
Brolin is joined by numerous acclaimed actors, Jeff Daniels, Morgan Freeman, Paul Giamatti, diverse creative professionals, Tom Hanks, Ethan Hawke, Maya Hawke, Samuel L Jackson, Michael Keaton, Tracy Letts, British and American talent, skilled dramatic performers, television and film stars, and many others.
Burns adds: “Frankly, this may be the best single cast ever assembled for any movie or television show. Their contributions are remarkable. They’re not picked because they’re celebrities. I became frustrated when someone asked, about the prominent cast. I explained, ‘These are artists.’ They represent global acting excellence and they vitalize these narratives.”
Historical Complexity
Nevertheless, the absence of living witnesses, photography and newsreels required the filmmakers to lean heavily on historical documents, weaving together the first-person voices of nearly 200 individual historic figures. This approach enabled to introduce audiences not only to the “bold-faced names” of the founders but also to “dozens of others crucial to understanding, many of whom never even had a portrait painted.
Burns also indulged his particular enthusiasm for maps and spatial representation. “Maps fascinate me,” he notes, “featuring increased geographical representation throughout this series versus earlier productions I’ve done combined.”
International Impact
The production crew recorded at nearly a hundred historical locations across North America and British sites to preserve geographical atmosphere and partnered extensively with historical interpreters. These components unite to present a narrative more violent, complex and globally significant versus conventional understanding.
The documentary argues, transcended provincial conflict over land, taxation and representation. Instead the film portrays a blood-soaked struggle that ultimately drew in more than two dozen nations and improbably came to embody what it calls “mankind’s greatest hopes”.
Brother Against Brother
Early dissatisfaction and objections directed toward Britain by colonial residents throughout multiple disputatious regions quickly evolved into a bloody domestic struggle, dividing communities and households and creating local enmities. In episode two, the historian Alan Taylor observes: “The main misapprehension about the American Revolution centers on assuming it constituted a consolidating event for colonists. This omits the fact that Americans fought each other.”
Historical Complexity
For him, the revolutionary narrative that “for most of us is overwhelmed by emotionalism and idealization and lacks depth and insufficiently honors for what actually took place, every individual involved and the incredible violence of it.
It was, he contends, a revolution that proclaimed the transformative concept of fundamental personal liberties; a vicious internal conflict, dividing revolutionaries and royalists; and a worldwide engagement, continuing previous patterns of wars between imperial nations for control of the continent.
Uncertain Historical Outcomes
The filmmaker also sought {to rediscover the
