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The acclaimed documentarian has evolved into beyond being a filmmaker; he is a brand, a prolific creative force. Whenever he releases documentary series heading for the small screen, everyone seeks an interview.

The filmmaker completed “countless podcast appearances”, he says, approaching the conclusion of nine-month promotional tour featuring 40 cities, dozens of preview events and innumerable conversations. “With podcasts numbering in the hundreds of millions, I feel I’ve participated in a substantial portion.”

Thankfully Burns possesses boundless energy, as loquacious behind the mic as he is accomplished in the editing room. The veteran director has appeared at locations ranging from prestigious venues to mainstream media outlets to talk about his latest monumental work: The American Revolution, a monumental six-part, 12-hour documentary series that consumed a substantial portion of his recent years and debuted currently on public television.

Classic Documentary Style

Like slow cooking in an age of fast food, The American Revolution is defiantly traditional, more redolent of traditional war documentaries rather than contemporary digital documentaries new media formats.

However, for the filmmaker, whose professional life documenting American historical narratives spanning various American subjects, the revolutionary period transcends ordinary historical coverage but foundational. “I said this to my co-director Sarah Botstein the other day, and she agreed: this represents our most significant project Burns reflects from his New York base.

Massive Research Effort

Burns, co-directors Botstein and David Schmidt and screenwriter Geoffrey Ward referenced numerous historical volumes and primary source materials. Multiple academic experts, spanning age and perspective, offered expert analysis along with leading scholars covering various specialties such as enslavement studies, Native American history and imperial studies.

Distinctive Filmmaking Approach

The film’s approach will seem recognizable to fans of historical documentaries. The unique approach featured slow pans and zooms over historical images, generous use of period music and actors voicing historical documents.

This period represented Burns established his reputation; decades afterwards, currently the elder statesman of documentary filmmaking, he can attract numerous talented actors. Participating with Burns at a New York gathering, renowned playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda noted: “Nobody declines an invitation from Ken Burns.”

All-Star Cast

The extended filming period proved beneficial in terms of flexibility. Filming occurred in studios, in relevant places using online technology, a method utilized amid COVID restrictions. Burns explains working with Josh Brolin, who scheduled a brief window while in Georgia to record his lines as the revolutionary leader before flying off to other professional obligations.

The cast includes multiple distinguished artists, established Hollywood talent, emerging and established stars, multiple generations of actors, accomplished dramatic artists, Damian Lewis, Laura Linney, Tobias Menzies, versatile character actors, television and film stars, and many others.

Burns adds: “Truly, this might be the most exceptional group recruited for any project. They do an extraordinary service. Selection wasn’t based on fame. I became frustrated when someone asked, ‘So why the celebrities?’. I go, ‘These are actors.’ They’re the finest actors in the world and they vitalize these narratives.”

Nuanced Narrative

However, the lack of surviving participants, visual documentation required the filmmakers to rely extensively on historical documents, combining individual perspectives of multiple revolutionary participants. This allowed them to present viewers not only to the “bold-faced names” of the founders plus numerous additional essential to the narrative, several participants never even had a portrait painted.

The filmmaker also explored his personal passion for maps and spatial representation. “Maps fascinate me,” he observes, “with greater cartographic content in this film than in all the other films across my complete filmography.”

Global Significance

The team filmed across multiple important places across North America plus English locations to capture the landscape’s character and worked extensively with re-enactors. Various aspects converge to present a narrative more brutal, complicated and internationally important than the one taught in schools.

The revolution, it contends, represented more than local dispute concerning territory, taxes and political voice. Rather, the series depicts a brutal conflict that ultimately drew in multiple global powers and improbably came to embody described as “the noble aspirations of humankind”.

Internal Conflict Truth

What had begun as a jumble of grievances aimed at the crown by American colonists across thirteen rebellious territories rapidly became a brutal civil conflict, setting brother against brother and neighbour against neighbour. In episode two, scholar Alan Taylor notes: “The greatest misconception regarding the Revolutionary War is that it was something a unifying experience for colonists. It leaves out the reality that colonists battled fellow colonists.”

Nuanced Understanding

In his view, the independence account that “for most of us suffers from excessive romance and idealization and is incredibly superficial and doesn’t have the respect the historical reality, every individual involved and the widespread bloodshed.”

Taylor maintains, a revolution that proclaimed the revolutionary principle of inherent human rights; a vicious internal conflict, dividing revolutionaries and royalists; and a worldwide engagement, another installment in a sequence of wars between imperial nations for dominance in the New World.

Uncertain Historical Outcomes

Burns also wanted {to rediscover the