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Ken Burns has evolved into beyond being a documentarian; he is a brand, an unparalleled production entity. Whenever he releases documentary series premiering on the television, everybody wants a part of him.

The filmmaker completed “more fucking podcasts than I ever thought possible”, he says, wrapping up of nine-month promotional tour that included 40 cities, 80 screenings and innumerable conversations. “With podcasts numbering in the hundreds of millions, I feel I’ve participated in a substantial portion.”

Happily the filmmaker is incredibly dynamic, as expressive in conversation as he is accomplished during post-production. The veteran director has traveled from Monticello to The Joe Rogan Experience to talk about a career-defining series: The American Revolution, a monumental six-part, 12-hour documentary series that consumed ten years of his career and premiered recently on public television.

Defiantly Traditional Approach

Comparable to methodical preparation in today’s rapid-consumption era, The American Revolution proudly conventional, reminiscent of historical documentary classics as opposed to modern online content and podcast series.

But for Burns, whose entire filmography exploring national heritage spanning various American subjects, the revolutionary period represents more than another topic but fundamental. “I recently told collaborator Sarah Botstein recently, and she concurred: we won’t work on a more important film Burns states during a telephone interview.

Comprehensive Scholarly Work

Burns and his collaborators and screenwriter Geoffrey Ward drew upon countless written sources and other historical materials. Multiple academic experts, spanning age and perspective, provided on-air commentary in conjunction with distinguished researchers from a range of other fields such as enslavement studies, first nations scholarship plus colonial history.

Signature Documentary Style

The documentary’s methodology will feel familiar to devotees of The Civil War. Its distinctive style included methodical photographic exploration across still photos, abundant historical musical selections and actors voicing historical documents.

Those projects established Burns built his legacy; a generation later, now the doyen of documentaries, he can attract virtually any performer. Appearing alongside Burns at a New York gathering, the Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda observed: “When Ken Burns calls, you say ‘Yes.’”

Remarkable Ensemble

The decade-long production schedule also helped regarding scheduling. Sessions happened in recording spaces, on location using online technology, an approach adopted during the pandemic. Burns recounts the experience with performer Josh Brolin, who made time in Atlanta to perform his role portraying the founding father before flying off to subsequent commitments.

Brolin is joined by Kenneth Branagh, Hugh Dancy, Claire Danes, established Hollywood talent, emerging and established stars, Tom Hanks, Ethan Hawke, Maya Hawke, celebrated film and stage performers, international acting community, versatile character actors, small and big screen veterans, Dan Stevens, Meryl Streep.

Burns adds: “Frankly, this may be the best single cast gathered for any production. Their work is exceptional. They’re not picked because they’re celebrities. I got so angry when somebody said, regarding the famous participants. I responded, ‘These are performers.’ They represent global acting excellence and they animate historical material.”

Nuanced Narrative

However, no contemporary observers remain, modern media forced Burns and his team to depend substantially on historical documents, weaving together individual perspectives of numerous historical characters. This approach enabled to introduce audiences beyond the prominent leaders of that era but also to “dozens of others who are seminal to the story”, many of whom remain visually unknown.

The filmmaker also explored his individual interest for geography and cartography. “Maps fascinate me,” he comments, “featuring increased geographical representation in this film than in all the other films across my complete filmography.”

Global Significance

The team filmed across multiple important places in various American regions plus English locations to document environmental context and worked extensively with living history participants. All these elements combine to present a narrative more bloody, multifaceted and world-changing than the one taught in schools.

The film maintains, represented more than local dispute about property, revenue and governance. Rather, the series depicts a brutal conflict that eventually involved numerous countries and improbably came to embody described as “humanity’s highest ideals”.

Civil War Reality

What had begun as a jumble of grievances directed toward Britain by colonial residents in 13 fractious colonies rapidly became a brutal civil conflict, pitting family members against each other and creating local enmities. In one segment, academic Alan Taylor comments: “The greatest misconception about the American Revolution is that it was something a consolidating event for colonists. This omits the fact that Americans fought each other.”

Historical Complexity

According to his perspective, the revolution is a story that “typically is drowning in sentimentality and wistful remembrance and is incredibly superficial and doesn’t have the respect for what actually took place, every individual involved and the incredible violence of it.

The historian argues, a revolution that proclaimed the world-changing idea of fundamental personal liberties; a vicious internal conflict, dividing revolutionaries and royalists; and a global war, another installment in a sequence of struggles among European powers for control of the continent.

Unpredictable Historical Moments

Burns also wanted {to rediscover the