🔗 Share this article

The veteran filmmaker has evolved into more than a documentarian; his name is a franchise, an unparalleled production entity. With each new project premiering on the PBS network, everybody wants an interview.

The filmmaker completed “more fucking podcasts than I ever thought possible”, he remarks, approaching the conclusion of nine-month promotional tour comprising four dozen cities, numerous film showings and hundreds of interviews. “With podcasts numbering in the hundreds of millions, I feel I’ve participated in a substantial portion.”

Thankfully the filmmaker is incredibly dynamic, as loquacious behind the mic as he is accomplished in the editing room. At seventy-two has gone everywhere from historical sites to mainstream media outlets to discuss one of his most ambitious projects: this historical epic, an extensive six-episode, twelve-hour film project that occupied ten years of his career and premiered currently on PBS.

Classic Documentary Style

Like slow cooking amidst instant gratification culture, The American Revolution is defiantly traditional, more redolent of traditional war documentaries than the era of digital documentaries new media formats.

But for Burns, who has built a career exploring national heritage covering diverse cultural topics, its origin story is not just another subject but foundational. “I recently told collaborator Sarah Botstein during our discussions, and she shared this view: we won’t work on a more important film Burns reflects during a telephone interview.

Extensive Historical Investigation

Burns, co-directors Botstein and David Schmidt along with writer Geoffrey Ward referenced countless written sources and other historical materials. Dozens of historians, representing diverse viewpoints, provided on-air commentary together with prominent academics covering various specialties like African American history, first nations scholarship and the British empire.

Signature Documentary Style

The film’s approach will feel familiar to devotees of The Civil War. Its distinctive style incorporated slow pans and zooms across still photos, abundant historical musical selections featuring talent reading diaries, letters and speeches.

That was the moment Burns built his legacy; years later, now the doyen of documentaries, he seems able to recruit numerous talented actors. Appearing alongside Burns during a recent appearance, acclaimed writer Lin-Manuel Miranda commented: “A call from Ken Burns commands immediate acceptance.”

Extraordinary Talent

The extended filming period provided advantages in terms of flexibility. Recordings took place in recording spaces, in relevant places through digital platforms, a method utilized during the pandemic. Burns explains the experience with performer Josh Brolin, who scheduled a brief window while in Georgia to perform his role as George Washington then continuing to subsequent commitments.

The cast includes Kenneth Branagh, Hugh Dancy, Claire Danes, Jeff Daniels, Morgan Freeman, Paul Giamatti, Domhnall Gleeson, Amanda Gorman, Jonathan Groff, Tom Hanks, Ethan Hawke, Maya Hawke, Samuel L Jackson, Michael Keaton, Tracy Letts, British and American talent, skilled dramatic performers, Wendell Pierce, Matthew Rhys, Liev Schreiber, and many others.

Burns emphasizes: “Honestly, this could represent the finest ensemble gathered for any production. They do an extraordinary service. They’re not picked because they’re celebrities. It irritated me when questioned, about the prominent cast. I responded, ‘These are performers.’ They’re the finest actors in the world and they can bring this stuff alive.”

Nuanced Narrative

Still, no contemporary observers remain, visual documentation forced Burns and his team to rely extensively on primary texts, weaving together the first-person voices of multiple revolutionary participants. This allowed them to introduce audiences not only to the “bold-faced names” of that era but also to “dozens of others crucial to understanding, many of whom never even had a portrait painted.

Burns additionally pursued his individual interest for geography and cartography. “Maps fascinate me,” he observes, “and there are more maps in this project compared to previous works I’ve done combined.”

Worldwide Consequences

Filmmakers captured footage across multiple important places across North America plus English locations to document environmental context and partnered extensively with historical interpreters. Various aspects converge to depict events more bloody, multifaceted and world-changing than the one taught in schools.

The documentary argues, was no mere parochial quarrel about property, revenue and governance. Instead the film portrays a blood-soaked struggle that eventually involved more than two dozen nations and improbably came to embody described as “the noble aspirations of humankind”.

Brother Against Brother

What had begun as a jumble of grievances leveled at London by far-flung British subjects in 13 fractious colonies rapidly became a brutal civil conflict, pitting family members against each other and turning communities into battlegrounds. In one segment, scholar Alan Taylor notes: “The primary misunderstanding about the American Revolution centers on assuming it constituted a consolidating event for colonists. This ignores the truth that Americans fought each other.”

Historical Complexity

In his view, the independence account that “generally suffers from excessive romance and wistful remembrance and remains shallow and doesn’t have the respect the historical reality, all contributors and the extensive brutality.

It was, he contends, an uprising that declared the world-changing idea of the unalienable rights of people; a brutal civil war, pitting Patriots against Loyalists; plus an international conflict, another installment in a sequence of struggles among European powers for the “prize of North America”.

Contingent Historical Events

The filmmaker also sought {to rediscover the