🔗 Share this article

The acclaimed documentarian has evolved into not just a filmmaker; he represents an institution, a prolific creative force. Whenever he releases documentary series heading for the small screen, all desire his attention.

The filmmaker completed “countless podcast appearances”, he notes, approaching the conclusion of nine-month promotional tour featuring four dozen cities, 80 screenings and innumerable conversations. “There seems to be a podcast for every citizen, and I believe I’ve appeared on most of them.”

Happily Burns possesses boundless energy, as expressive in conversation as he is productive during post-production. The veteran director has appeared at locations ranging from prestigious venues to popular podcasts to talk about his latest monumental work: The American Revolution, a monumental six-part, 12-hour documentary series that occupied ten years of his career and premiered recently through the public broadcasting service.

Defiantly Traditional Approach

Like slow cooking in today’s rapid-consumption era, this documentary series intentionally classic, more redolent of traditional war documentaries as opposed to modern streaming docs new media formats.

For the documentarian, whose professional life chronicling strands of US history including baseball, country music, jazz and national parks, its origin story is not just another subject but fundamental. “I said this to my co-director Sarah Botstein recently, and she concurred: we won’t work on a more important film Burns contemplates from his New York base.

Extensive Historical Investigation

The filmmaking team along with writer Geoffrey Ward drew upon numerous historical volumes plus archival documents. Dozens of historians, representing diverse viewpoints, provided on-air commentary together with prominent academics covering various specialties like African American history, Native American history and the British empire.

Distinctive Filmmaking Approach

The documentary’s methodology will seem recognizable to viewers of Burns’ earlier work. Its distinctive style featured methodical photographic exploration across still photos, abundant historical musical selections with performers reading diaries, letters and speeches.

That was the moment Burns established his reputation; years later, presently the respected veteran of historical films, he can apparently summon any actor he chooses. Collaborating with the filmmaker at a recent event, the Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda observed: “A call from Ken Burns commands immediate acceptance.”

All-Star Cast

The decade-long production schedule proved beneficial in terms of flexibility. Filming occurred in studios, at historical sites and remotely via Zoom, an approach adopted throughout the health crisis. Burns explains working with Josh Brolin, who made time during his travels to record his lines portraying the founding father before flying off to other professional obligations.

Additional performers feature numerous acclaimed actors, respected performing veterans, diverse creative professionals, multiple generations of actors, celebrated film and stage performers, British and American talent, versatile character actors, television and film stars, Dan Stevens, Meryl Streep.

Burns emphasizes: “Honestly, this could represent the finest ensemble ever assembled for any movie or television show. They do an extraordinary service. Selection wasn’t based on fame. I became frustrated when someone asked, regarding the famous participants. I responded, ‘These are performers.’ They’re the finest actors in the world and they animate historical material.”

Historical Complexity

However, the lack of surviving participants, visual documentation required the filmmakers to depend substantially on the written word, combining personal accounts of numerous historical characters. This approach enabled to show spectators not just the famous founders of that era but also to “dozens of others who are seminal to the story”, many of whom never even had a portrait painted.

Burns additionally pursued his individual interest for maps and spatial representation. “I love maps,” he comments, “with greater cartographic content throughout this series versus earlier productions throughout my entire career.”

International Impact

The production crew recorded across multiple important places throughout the continent and in London to capture the landscape’s character and worked extensively with living history participants. All these elements combine to tell a story more bloody, multifaceted and world-changing versus conventional understanding.

The revolution, it contends, was no mere parochial quarrel concerning territory, taxes and political voice. Rather, the series depicts a violent confrontation that finally engaged more than two dozen nations and unexpectedly manifested what it calls “mankind’s greatest hopes”.

Civil War Reality

What had begun as a jumble of grievances leveled at London by far-flung British subjects in 13 fractious colonies quickly evolved into a bloody domestic struggle, setting brother against brother and creating local enmities. During the second installment, the historian Alan Taylor observes: “The primary misunderstanding concerning independence struggle involves believing it represented that unified Americans. This omits the fact that colonists battled fellow colonists.”

Historical Complexity

According to his perspective, the independence account that “typically is overwhelmed by emotionalism and wistful remembrance and lacks depth and doesn’t have the respect the historical reality, every individual involved and the widespread bloodshed.”

Taylor maintains, an uprising that declared the transformative concept of the unalienable rights of people; a brutal civil war, separating rebels and supporters; plus an international conflict, another installment in a sequence of conflicts between Britain, France and Spain for control of the continent.

Uncertain Historical Outcomes

The filmmaker also sought {to rediscover the