Ken Burns on His War of Independence Film Series: ‘We Won’t Work on a More Important Film’
The veteran filmmaker has evolved into beyond being a documentarian; he is a brand, a prolific creative force. When he has documentary series arriving on the small screen, everybody wants a part of him.
Burns has done “countless podcast appearances”, he notes, approaching the conclusion of nine-month promotional tour featuring numerous locations, 80 screenings and innumerable conversations. “I think there are 340.1m podcasts, one for every American, and I’ve done half of them.”
Happily Burns possesses boundless energy, as loquacious behind the mic as he is accomplished in the editing room. The 72-year-old has gone everywhere from prestigious venues to mainstream media outlets to promote his latest monumental work: The American Revolution, a monumental six-part, 12-hour documentary series that dominated the past decade of his life and arrived this week on public television.
Classic Documentary Style
Similar to traditional cooking amidst instant gratification culture, this documentary series proudly conventional, more redolent of The World at War rather than contemporary online content new media formats.
But for Burns, whose professional life exploring national heritage spanning various American subjects, the nation’s founding transcends ordinary historical coverage but essential. “I recently told collaborator Sarah Botstein the other day, and she agreed: we won’t work on a more important film Burns reflects during a telephone interview.
Comprehensive Scholarly Work
Burns and his collaborators along with writer Geoffrey Ward utilized thousands of books and primary source materials. Numerous scholars, spanning age and perspective, offered expert analysis together with prominent academics from a range of other fields such as enslavement studies, first nations scholarship plus colonial history.
Distinctive Filmmaking Approach
The documentary’s methodology will feel familiar to fans of historical documentaries. The unique approach incorporated slow pans and zooms across still photos, abundant historical musical selections and actors reading diaries, letters and speeches.
That was the moment Burns built his legacy; decades afterwards, currently the elder statesman of documentary filmmaking, he seems able to recruit any actor he chooses. Participating with Burns at a recent event, renowned playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda noted: “A call from Ken Burns commands immediate acceptance.”
Remarkable Ensemble
The lengthy creation process provided advantages regarding scheduling. Filming occurred at professional facilities, in relevant places through digital platforms, a tool embraced throughout the health crisis. Burns explains working with Josh Brolin, who found a few free hours in Atlanta to record his lines as the revolutionary leader before flying off to subsequent commitments.
The cast includes Kenneth Branagh, Hugh Dancy, Claire Danes, established Hollywood talent, diverse creative professionals, multiple generations of actors, Samuel L Jackson, Michael Keaton, Tracy Letts, Damian Lewis, Laura Linney, Tobias Menzies, versatile character actors, Wendell Pierce, Matthew Rhys, Liev Schreiber, plus additional notable names.
Burns emphasizes: “Truly, this might be the most exceptional group ever assembled for any movie or television show. Their contributions are remarkable. They’re not picked because they’re celebrities. I got so angry when somebody said, ‘So why the celebrities?’. I go, ‘These are actors.’ They represent global acting excellence and they animate historical material.”
Historical Complexity
Still, the lack of surviving participants, visual documentation compelled the production to lean heavily on historical documents, combining the first-person voices of nearly 200 individual historic figures. This methodology permitted to present viewers beyond the prominent leaders of the revolution along with multiple who are seminal to the story”, several participants never even had a portrait painted.
Burns also indulged his personal passion for geography and cartography. “I love maps,” he notes, “featuring increased geographical representation in this film than in all the other films I’ve done combined.”
Global Significance
The team filmed at nearly a hundred historical locations throughout the continent plus English locations to capture the landscape’s character and partnered extensively with historical interpreters. These components unite to tell a story more brutal, complicated and internationally important versus conventional understanding.
The film maintains, represented more than local dispute concerning territory, taxes and political voice. Instead the film portrays a violent confrontation that finally engaged numerous countries and unexpectedly manifested described as “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 vicious internal war, dividing communities and households and turning communities into battlegrounds. In one segment, the historian Alan Taylor observes: “The greatest misconception concerning independence struggle is that it was something that unified Americans. This ignores the truth that it was a civil war among Americans.”
Nuanced Understanding
According to his perspective, the independence account that “generally is drowning in sentimentality and wistful remembrance and lacks depth and doesn’t have the respect for what actually took place, every individual involved and the widespread bloodshed.”
The historian argues, a revolution that proclaimed the transformative concept of the unalienable rights of people; a brutal civil war, dividing revolutionaries and royalists; plus an international conflict, the fourth in a series of wars between imperial nations for dominance in the New World.
Unpredictable Historical Moments
The filmmaker also sought {to rediscover the
