From the Daily Beast:
“Why Ken Burns’ ‘The American
Revolution’ Is The TV We Need Right Now”
The American Revolution was one
of the most radical acts in human history, casting aside centuries of
monarchical despotism in favor of a representative system of rule—and the
inherent rights of man—that had never before been attempted, and which would forever
change the world.
Arriving on the cusp of the
country’s 250th birthday, Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David P. Schmidt’s The
American Revolution is a celebration of that groundbreaking event, charting its
evolution from a dispute over landowners’ rights into a full-blown rebellion
against British tyranny.
As befitting its maker’s
illustrious reputation, it is at once thorough, nuanced, and moving,
investigating the paradigm-shifting uprising from numerous micro and macro
angles that bring it to vibrant, inspiring life. A 12-hour opus (divided into
six two-hour installments) that’s the equal of the documentarian’s finest work,
it’s must-see viewing, especially at this perilous moment for the nation’s
democracy.
Premiering Nov. 16 on PBS, The
American Revolution is an epic recap of the United States’ origin story,
focused on the large-scale political and military maneuvers that defined it,
and the intimate thoughts and feelings of everyone from the Founding Fathers to
the farmers, foreigners, Native Americans, and enslaved African-Americans who
were invariably caught up in its chaos.
The value of Burns, Botstein and
Schmidt’s series is, first and foremost, its comprehensiveness. Yet its
greatness comes from its alternately detached and up-close-and-personal vantage
points—dual perspectives that allow it to be at once analytical and urgent, as
well as to simultaneously uphold, and upend, the most common assumptions about
the conflict. Far from a black-and-white battle between good and evil, it
portrays the Revolution as a conflagration ignited by a raft of incendiary
contradictory forces.
The American Revolution is both
the saga you remember and the one you don’t: a fight against empire that was
also a fight for empire; a war for freedom except for those deemed unfit for
it; a mission to fashion a united republic that was threatened by terrible
disharmony between the 13 colonies; a campaign for independence that was only
successful due to the assistance of foreign powers; a local clash that had
global ramifications; and a struggle against the British that ultimately pitted
American against American in a brutal civil bloodbath.
As Burns, Botstein and Schmidt
brilliantly lay out, the Revolution was many opposing things at once, and they
capture its crazy dynamics with one eye on the grand ideals that drove it and
the other on the myriad on-the-ground twists and surprises that complicated an
easy resolution.
At every turn, The American
Revolution reveals something unexpected, be it that enslaved Americans
frequently sided with the British (because they promised them the freedom the
rebellious Patriots did not), or that celebrated battlefield commanders were often
less than shrewd in their tactical maneuvers, such as Britain’s General William
Howe, who in the aftermath of seizing control of New York City allowed General
George Washington and his battered Continental Army to live to fight another
day. Miraculous second chances, astonishing victories, and cruel betrayals
(namely, by the dastardly Benedict Arnold) were the norm throughout the
Revolution, and the series dramatizes them in bracing detail, segueing smoothly
from talk about military strategies to snapshots of individual and familial
trials and tribulations, the latter conveyed via the private correspondence of
those on and around the front lines.
Predictably, The American
Revolution’s chronological account touches upon the war’s most famous
incidents, among them the Stamp Tax, the Boston Tea Party, the Dunmore
Proclamation, the creation of the Continental Congress, Thomas Paine’s Common
Sense, Thomas Jefferson’s penning of The Declaration of Independence,
Washington crossing the Delaware, and the battles of Bunker Hill, Long Island,
Brandywine, Saratoga, Charleston, and Yorktown.
It is, to a large degree, a
textbook lesson in television form. Yet its storytelling is vivid,
multifaceted, alive. Written by Geoffrey C. Ward and narrated by Peter Coyote,
it follows Burns’ trademark template, employing illustrations, paintings, maps,
newspapers, pamphlets, period music, and dramatic recreations alongside
talking-head commentary from informative historians and writers.
Moreover, its countless
letters—written by both eminent and forgotten individuals—are read by a who’s
who of Hollywood stars, including (but not limited to) Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep,
Paul Giamatti, Ethan Hawke, Edward Norton, Jeff Daniels, Samuel L. Jackson,
Laura Linney, Kenneth Branagh, and Morgan Freeman. It’s Josh Brolin, however,
who gets the de facto lead part in The American Revolution, as he’s tasked with
voicing its true center of attention: George Washington. Though Jefferson,
Benjamin Franklin, Sam Adams, and Alexander Hamilton all naturally factor into
the proceedings, it’s the iconic general who takes center stage throughout. Burns, Botstein and Schmidt’s series depicts
him as a titanic presence whose courage, nobility, and resolve were
instrumental in waging and winning the war, and whose example—for his men, whom
he kept together through unbelievable hardships; and for the colonies, whose
togetherness he championed no matter the obstacles—was the shining light that
led the Patriots through their dark night.
As with everyone in this tale,
Washington is painted as fallible; his support of slavery and disregard for
Native American land claims in the West are openly addressed. Nonetheless, he
remains the hero of this non-fiction affair, “the greatest character of the
age,” his leadership posited as not just central to the cause, but the
invaluable force that kept it from crumbling.
Burns and his co-directors get
just about everything relevant into The American Revolution, whether it’s the
caught-in-the-middle predicament of Native Americans or the wartime strains
caused by financial difficulties, waning public support, and—in the case of the
British—considerations about the ramifications of the Revolution for their
other colonial holdings.
It’s a sprawling tapestry of the
big and the small, the valiant and the treacherous, the uplifting and the
shameful, and in its examination of the tensions between American Loyalists
(committee to the Crown) and Patriots (those on the side of independence), it
provides an all-too-prescient reminder that this country has, for its entire
lifespan, been divided between those who favor autocracy and those who advocate
for liberty.
Burns doesn’t have to draw
one-to-one parallels between then and now because, at each captivating
juncture, his latest makes plain that our past is all-too-relevant today. This
nation may be founded on the loftiest of ideals, it contends, but the quest to
live up to them in service of crafting a “more perfect union” is everlasting.
^ I can’t wait to see this
tonight. ^
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