Ken Burns made documentaries cool. His early work, spanning back to the ‘70s, inspired generations to engage differently with documentaries. Reenactments, slow-burn pans across historic documents and paintings, and comfortable talking-head interviews with experts and historians – all the techniques Burns is known for to bring history alive – are used to good effect in this exploration of our country’s origins.
Burns brought an hour’s worth of clips to exhibitions at RIC and Brown shortly before the show’s mid-November premiere on PBS. He and coproducer and long-time associate Sarah Botstein also held Q&As after the screenings.
Among the hot topics at the QA, Burns revealed that this will almost certainly be his last production sponsored by PBS. This could have presented an opportunity to rant – the talkbacks were sponsored by the new RI conglomeration of PBS and NPR, all of which have been subjected to aggressive cuts in our political climate. But Burns was matter of fact about it and did not delve into current politics at all. His next project is finding funding elsewhere, and with his reputation and success, it seems likely future projects will find champions, just not within PBS.
Burns emphasized how much he had learned about the American Revolution during the years making this project. He speaks briefly of Native American democratic politics, calling them out as a generally unacknowledged but real inspiration for the new republic that emerges. He also emphasized just how chaotic and uncertain affairs were at the time. No one really knew where the revolution was heading, although it’s been recast as a form of philosophical manifest destiny, in hindsight. He also, interestingly, leaned toward the Great Man [Person] theory of history, saying at one point, “Without George Washington, there would be no America as we know it.” That theory is that particular, exceptional individuals can have a decisive impact on history, as opposed to the more common belief that most of human progress is fairly inevitable and driven by social movements among the masses, or groups of thought leaders.
Rhode Island does play a prominent role, highlights being The Gaspee Affair (if you don’t know, RI essentially did their own, far more drunken and random version of the Boston Tea Party a year and a half before Boston), and time spent with Nathanael Green, the general from Warwick, whom Burns called “Perhaps the second most important person in the war,” giving him substantial credit for the ultimate rebel victory.
Burns deftly and consistently dodged questions about the current political climate. Although he did concede that questions around the constitution, the origins of our country, and what it means to be an American, may be more relevant than at most other periods in our lifetimes, he did not go into more detail. Burns is part historian, and knows that these questions have always been present and consistently find new answers for new eras. While he’d be happy for viewers to apply knowledge gained from this documentary to current affairs, and also said, “History is always perceived through a lens,” his goal is to create a video monument to history as it was, and leave it to the viewer to extrapolate any modern lessons. His Civil War documentary, made in 1990, is as relevant, interesting, and accurate as it was 35 years ago. The American Revolution looks to be just as timeless – a capsule capturing the intentions, dramas, and uncertainties and letting you ponder any modern meaning.
Both talks were filled to capacity, proving Burns, a very robust 72, still has drawing power. Appropriate for someone who’s original slow pan is generally called the “Ken Burns Effect.” You can catch the 6-part, 12-hour series, or any part of it, on PBS or on PBS.org, here: https://www.pbs.org/show/the-american-revolution/.