The veteran filmmaker has become more than a documentarian; his name is a franchise, a one-man industrial complex. Whenever he releases project premiering on the television, everybody wants a part of him.
Burns has done “countless podcast appearances”, he remarks, wrapping up of his extensive publicity circuit comprising 40 cities, numerous film showings and innumerable conversations. “There seems to be a podcast for every citizen, and I believe I’ve appeared on most of them.”
Fortunately the filmmaker is incredibly dynamic, as expressive in conversation as he is prolific in the editing room. The 72-year-old has traveled from prestigious venues to popular podcasts to discuss his latest monumental work: this historical epic, a monumental six-part, 12-hour documentary series that occupied the past decade of his life and arrived currently through the public broadcasting service.
Like slow cooking in today’s rapid-consumption era, this documentary series proudly conventional, evoking memories of historical documentary classics than the era of online content and podcast series.
For the documentarian, whose entire filmography exploring national heritage spanning various American subjects, the nation’s founding transcends ordinary historical coverage but foundational. “As I mentioned to directing partner Sarah Botstein during our discussions, and she shared this view: no future work will carry greater importance,” Burns contemplates from his New York base.
Burns, co-directors Botstein and David Schmidt along with writer Geoffrey Ward drew upon numerous historical volumes plus archival documents. Multiple academic experts, spanning age and perspective, offered expert analysis together with prominent academics representing multiple disciplines such as enslavement studies, indigenous peoples’ narratives and imperial studies.
The documentary’s methodology will appear similar to viewers of Burns’ earlier work. The characteristic technique incorporated slow pans and zooms over historical images, abundant historical musical selections with performers reading diaries, letters and speeches.
Those projects established Burns established his reputation; decades afterwards, currently the elder statesman of documentary filmmaking, he seems able to recruit virtually any performer. Collaborating with the filmmaker at a New York gathering, renowned playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda noted: “When Ken Burns calls, you say ‘Yes.’”
The extended filming period proved beneficial concerning availability. Sessions happened in studios, on location using online technology, a tool embraced amid COVID restrictions. Burns explains the experience with performer Josh Brolin, who made time while in Georgia to voice his character as the revolutionary leader then continuing to other professional obligations.
Brolin is joined by numerous acclaimed actors, respected performing veterans, diverse creative professionals, Tom Hanks, Ethan Hawke, Maya Hawke, celebrated film and stage performers, Damian Lewis, Laura Linney, Tobias Menzies, versatile character actors, Wendell Pierce, Matthew Rhys, Liev Schreiber, 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 became frustrated when someone asked, ‘So why the celebrities?’. I responded, ‘These are performers.’ They represent global acting excellence and they animate historical material.”
Nevertheless, no contemporary observers remain, photography and newsreels forced Burns and his team to depend substantially on historical documents, combining the first-person voices of multiple revolutionary participants. This allowed them to show spectators beyond the prominent leaders of the revolution but also to “dozens of others essential to the narrative, numerous individuals never even had a portrait painted.
Burns also indulged his individual interest for geography and cartography. “I have great affection for cartography,” he notes, “featuring increased geographical representation throughout this series versus earlier productions I’ve done combined.”
The production crew recorded at nearly a hundred historical locations throughout the continent plus English locations to preserve geographical atmosphere and collaborated substantially with living history participants. These components unite to depict events more brutal, complicated and internationally important compared to standard education.
The film maintains, transcended provincial conflict over land, taxation and representation. Rather, the series depicts a blood-soaked struggle that ultimately drew in more than two dozen nations and surprisingly represented what it calls “mankind’s greatest hopes”.
Initial complaints and protests aimed at the crown by American colonists throughout multiple disputatious regions rapidly became a brutal civil conflict, setting brother against brother and turning communities into battlegrounds. In episode two, scholar Alan Taylor notes: “The main misapprehension about the American Revolution centers on assuming it constituted a unifying experience for colonists. This omits the fact that Americans fought each other.”
In his view, the revolution is a story that “typically suffers from excessive romance and wistful remembrance and is incredibly superficial and doesn’t have the respect actual events, all contributors and the widespread bloodshed.”
The historian argues, a revolution that proclaimed the transformative concept of the unalienable rights of people; a vicious internal conflict, pitting Patriots against Loyalists; and a global war, continuing previous patterns of struggles among European powers for control of the continent.
Burns also wanted {to rediscover the
