Ken Burns on His Monumental War of Independence Documentary: ‘We Won’t Work on a More Important Film’
The acclaimed documentarian is now considered more than a historical storyteller; he represents an institution, an unparalleled production entity. Whenever he releases project heading for the small screen, everyone seeks an interview.
Burns has done “more fucking podcasts than I ever thought possible”, he remarks, wrapping up of nine-month promotional tour featuring four dozen cities, 80 screenings and innumerable conversations. “I think there are 340.1m podcasts, one for every American, and I’ve done half of them.”
Fortunately Burns is a force of nature, as expressive in conversation as he is prolific while filmmaking. The veteran director has gone everywhere from Monticello to mainstream media outlets to talk about a career-defining series: his Revolutionary War documentary, an extensive six-episode, twelve-hour film project that occupied the past decade of his life and arrived this week through the public broadcasting service.
Classic Documentary Style
Similar to traditional cooking in today’s rapid-consumption era, Burns’ latest project proudly conventional, evoking memories of The World at War as opposed to modern online content audio documentaries.
For the documentarian, whose professional life chronicling strands of US history including baseball, country music, jazz and national parks, its origin story represents more than another topic but fundamental. “I recently told collaborator Sarah Botstein the other day, and she agreed: we won’t work on a more important film Burns contemplates from his New York base.
Massive Research Effort
The filmmaking team plus scripting partner Geoffrey Ward drew upon thousands of books plus archival documents. Numerous scholars, representing diverse viewpoints, contributed scholarly insights in conjunction with distinguished researchers representing multiple disciplines including slavery, first nations scholarship and the British empire.
Signature Documentary Style
The documentary’s methodology will seem recognizable to devotees of The Civil War. Its distinctive style incorporated slow pans and zooms over historical images, abundant historical musical selections and actors reading diaries, letters and speeches.
That was the moment Burns established his reputation; years later, presently the respected veteran of historical films, he can attract numerous talented actors. Participating with Burns during a recent appearance, the Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda observed: “A call from Ken Burns commands immediate acceptance.”
All-Star Cast
The lengthy creation process provided advantages regarding scheduling. Sessions happened in studios, at historical sites and remotely via Zoom, an approach adopted throughout the health crisis. Burns explains collaborating with actor Josh Brolin, who scheduled a brief window while in Georgia to record his lines as the revolutionary leader prior to departing to his next engagement.
The cast includes Kenneth Branagh, Hugh Dancy, Claire Danes, established Hollywood talent, Domhnall Gleeson, Amanda Gorman, Jonathan Groff, multiple generations of actors, accomplished dramatic artists, Damian Lewis, Laura Linney, Tobias Menzies, versatile character actors, Wendell Pierce, Matthew Rhys, Liev Schreiber, Dan Stevens, Meryl Streep.
Burns emphasizes: “Honestly, this could represent the finest ensemble ever assembled for any movie or television show. Their work is exceptional. Their celebrity status wasn’t the criteria. I became frustrated when someone asked, regarding the famous participants. I explained, ‘These are artists.’ They are among the world’s best performers and they vitalize these narratives.”
Nuanced Narrative
However, the absence of living witnesses, visual documentation compelled the production to depend substantially on the written word, weaving together the first-person voices of nearly 200 individual historic figures. This methodology permitted to show spectators not just the famous founders of the founders plus numerous additional essential to the narrative, many of whom lack visual representation.
The filmmaker also explored his particular enthusiasm for geography and cartography. “I love maps,” he observes, “and there are more maps throughout this series versus earlier productions I’ve done combined.”
Worldwide Consequences
The production crew recorded at numerous significant sites across North America and British sites to capture the landscape’s character and worked extensively with re-enactors. These components unite to present a narrative more violent, complex and globally significant than the one taught in schools.
The revolution, it contends, represented more than local dispute about property, revenue and governance. Conversely, the project presents a brutal conflict that eventually involved more than two dozen nations and improbably came to embody described as “mankind’s greatest hopes”.
Brother Against Brother
Initial complaints and protests aimed at the crown by American colonists in 13 fractious colonies rapidly became a brutal civil conflict, dividing communities and households and turning communities into battlegrounds. In episode two, academic Alan Taylor comments: “The primary misunderstanding concerning independence struggle involves believing it represented a unifying experience for colonists. This ignores the truth that it was a civil war among Americans.”
Sophisticated Interpretation
According to his perspective, the revolutionary narrative that “typically is drowning in sentimentality and wistful remembrance and is incredibly superficial and fails to properly acknowledge actual events, every individual involved and the widespread bloodshed.”
The historian argues, a revolution that proclaimed the revolutionary principle of inherent human rights; a brutal civil war, dividing revolutionaries and royalists; and a global war, another installment in a sequence of wars between imperial nations for the “prize of North America”.
Unpredictable Historical Moments
The filmmaker also sought {to rediscover the
