Ken Burns has evolved into more than a historical storyteller; he represents an institution, a prolific creative force. With each new television endeavor arriving on the television, everyone seeks an interview.
The filmmaker completed “more fucking podcasts than I ever thought possible”, he remarks, approaching the conclusion of his extensive publicity circuit featuring 40 cities, dozens of preview events and innumerable conversations. “I think there are 340.1m podcasts, one for every American, and I’ve done half of them.”
Fortunately the filmmaker is incredibly dynamic, equally articulate in interviews as he is accomplished while filmmaking. The 72-year-old has appeared at locations ranging from Monticello to The Joe Rogan Experience to discuss one of his most ambitious projects: The American Revolution, an extensive six-episode, twelve-hour film project that occupied ten years of his career and premiered this week on PBS.
Similar to traditional cooking in an age of fast food, The American Revolution proudly conventional, evoking memories of traditional war documentaries as opposed to modern digital documentaries audio documentaries.
But for Burns, whose entire filmography documenting American historical narratives covering diverse cultural topics, the revolutionary period is not just another subject but essential. “I said this to my co-director Sarah Botstein during our discussions, and she shared this view: we won’t work on a more important film Burns contemplates from his New York base.
Burns, co-directors Botstein and David Schmidt plus scripting partner Geoffrey Ward drew upon countless written sources and other historical materials. Dozens of historians, representing diverse viewpoints, provided on-air commentary together with prominent academics covering various specialties including slavery, indigenous peoples’ narratives plus colonial history.
The film’s approach will seem recognizable to fans of historical documentaries. The characteristic technique incorporated gradual camera movements over historical images, generous use of period music featuring talent voicing historical documents.
Those projects established Burns established his reputation; years later, presently the respected veteran of historical films, he can attract any actor he chooses. Collaborating with the filmmaker during a recent appearance, renowned playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda noted: “Nobody declines an invitation from Ken Burns.”
The decade-long production schedule provided advantages concerning availability. Filming occurred in recording spaces, in relevant places using online technology, an approach adopted during the pandemic. Burns explains collaborating with actor Josh Brolin, who made time while in Georgia to voice his character portraying the founding father before flying off to his next engagement.
The cast includes multiple distinguished artists, established Hollywood talent, Domhnall Gleeson, Amanda Gorman, Jonathan Groff, multiple generations of actors, celebrated film and stage performers, Damian Lewis, Laura Linney, Tobias Menzies, skilled dramatic performers, small and big screen veterans, Dan Stevens, Meryl Streep.
Burns adds: “Frankly, this may be the best single cast recruited for any project. They do an extraordinary service. Their celebrity status wasn’t the criteria. I got so angry when somebody said, about the prominent cast. I responded, ‘These are performers.’ They represent global acting excellence and they animate historical material.”
However, the lack of surviving participants, photography and newsreels forced Burns and his team to depend substantially on primary texts, combining the first-person voices of numerous historical characters. This approach enabled to show spectators not just the famous founders of the revolution plus numerous additional essential to the narrative, numerous individuals remain visually unknown.
Burns also indulged his personal passion for territorial understanding. “I have great affection for cartography,” he comments, “with greater cartographic content in this project compared to previous works throughout my entire career.”
Filmmakers captured footage at nearly a hundred historical locations throughout the continent plus English locations to document environmental context and collaborated substantially with living history participants. All these elements combine to depict events more bloody, multifaceted and world-changing than the one taught in schools.
The revolution, it contends, transcended provincial conflict about property, revenue and governance. Instead the film portrays a blood-soaked struggle that finally engaged numerous countries and improbably came to embody termed “mankind’s greatest hopes”.
Early dissatisfaction and objections leveled at London by far-flung British subjects throughout multiple disputatious regions rapidly became a vicious internal war, pitting family members against each other and neighbour against neighbour. During the second installment, the historian Alan Taylor observes: “The main misapprehension regarding the Revolutionary War is that it was something that unified Americans. This ignores the truth that it was a civil war among Americans.”
For him, the independence account that “for most of us suffers from excessive romance and nostalgia and is incredibly superficial and doesn’t have the respect the historical reality, and all the participants and the widespread bloodshed.”
The historian argues, a movement that announced the world-changing idea of the unalienable rights of people; a vicious internal conflict, dividing revolutionaries and royalists; and a worldwide engagement, the fourth in a series of wars between imperial nations for dominance in the New World.
Burns also wanted {to rediscover the
Elara is a seasoned writer and digital storyteller with a passion for exploring diverse literary genres and empowering others through words.
