After 10 years of work, $30 million, and the use of 60 voice actors and 18,000 maps, the first of the six-episode “The American Revolution” series premieres Sunday.
Along with Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, the film is co-directed by Ken Burns, whose past documentaries — “Civil War ”(1990), “Baseball” (1994), “Lewis & Clark” (1997), “Mark Twain” (2001), “The National Parks” (2009), “Vietnam” (2017) — have made him one of the most celebrated chroniclers of all things American.
Yet among all past and future projects, the renowned documentarian has said in the lead-up to this release, “I won’t work on a more important project.”
After talking to many about the project, producers say people are “thirsty” to understand history more deeply. Yet, in a day of short reels and low engagement, they also acknowledge it is a lot to commit 12 hours to absorbing details of America’s founding story.
“We understand that,” Schmidt tells the Deseret News. “But these people deserve it. These millions of people of the Revolutionary generation sacrificed so much; you can give them 12 hours.”
He adds that this story “can’t be reduced to the paragraph that I think a lot of people want to reduce everything to these days.”
Neither cynical nor romanticized
It’s easy to look back on the past, either with “unquestioned reverence,” or with an attitude of, “Oh, look how much better we are than they were,” Schmidt says.
Both attitudes can distort the truth in different ways, Botstein adds. “You can be patriotic and prideful about the American experiment and not overdo it either way,” Botstein says, pushing back on the forced choice between “just a marble statue or a terrible traitor. Neither is helpful.”
“People are complicated, and they have all sorts of different motivations,” Schmidt says. “I think it’s worth at least understanding that they’ve got other things going on in their head, (rather) than what you just immediately jump at thinking that they’re thinking.”
“Maybe if you look at them with some generosity and some grace, you might look at yourself or your community or your country with a little generosity and grace,” he adds.
Generosity as a part of seeing truthfully
“We are not a cynical bunch, and we are not naively optimistic either,” Botstein says, characterizing their documentary team’s interest in “forward motion and trying to make good on the promises that infused the history of the American Revolution.”
Botstein describes the directors of the film as “all deeply patriotic.” They are also deeply committed to presenting the American story with “as much empathy and context and understanding as we can infuse history with,” she adds.
For example, Botstein says, Thomas Jefferson “was an enormously enlightened human being who owned other people.”
However confusing that contrast can be, she suggested “that’s the human question for all of us: ‘how can you know something is wrong and still do it?’”
Reflecting on historical characters, Burns adds in a separate interview: “If you’re looking for perfection, you’re never going to find it. ... If you want to find somebody most responsible for why you and I are talking here, it’s George Washington.”
For example, a person does not have to avoid right and wrong in order to tell the story of Washington or Jefferson well, Botstein says. But he or she also must “have empathy and kindness and generosity and context, or you can’t get at the history.”
“I don’t think cynicism and darkness get us very far,” Burns says.
All of our history
With Thanksgiving approaching, Schmidt notes there doesn’t seem to be many “safe topics” anymore. “Maybe our shared history can be that.”
“It belongs to everybody,” he emphasizes, expressing his personal hope that their production “helps with some of that healing.”
We’ve “made this film for everybody” Burns tells “Today” show’s Craig Melvin, noting that he’s shared the same message with Joe Rogan that he has with The New York Times editorial board and inner city kids in Charleston and Detroit.
“This is our story; this is how we came about. And I think if we could revitalize and understand what … made us who we are, it might help us.”
Deeper history, deeper love
Referring to the societal division that can feel “a mile wide,” Burns says, “I would like to get through that, to figure out how to have another 250 years after this celebration.”
“I think when you’re in trouble, you want to go back and figure out what your origin is,” Burns adds. Yet his co-director Schmidt tells the Deseret News, “We don’t often think about the American Revolution that much. If we do, it’s in an oil painting, you know, or even looking at the dollar bill or the flag. It’s detached.”
But the true history of the American nation involved profound suffering, death and sacrifice, he says. “There’s war refugees. People died of disease. It’s a really messy thing, war.”
“But I love my country so much more, having undertaken the time to understand this history — to understand what people were sacrificing for what they achieved.”
Schmidt says it is important to understand that in times of “deep uncertainty” — like the Revolution itself — “there’s opportunity and there’s possibility.”
Having spent years detailing the whole saga, he says, “all of it makes me care an awful lot about this place we call the United States.”
Seeing the revolution with fresh eyes
Rather than just an American war, Burns highlights this historic conflict as “the fourth global war over the prize of North America” — as well as the first of two civil wars in the country.
And “we did not win alone,” Botstein adds. “We won with the incredible aid of our French allies, and then the French were major losers after the war.”
Along with the leaders highlighted throughout history, these filmmakers showcase the experience and contributions of Native Americans, women and free Black Americans.
Burns quotes Benjamin Rush, a physician who signed the Declaration of Independence and “later said the American Revolution is still going on, meaning, we are a country in the process of becoming.”
Referencing the ongoing evolution of our understanding of “all men are created equal,” Burns adds, “so we’re in the process of opening up the American story.”
Seeing ourselves in the history
Botstein notes “the founders wanted us to be an educated and virtuous and thoughtful Republic.”
Schmidt says producers had aspirations for “reaching and welcoming as many people into the story as possible.”
Speaking personally, he admitted that even after a decade of work on the project, he felt even more curious about the past.
“I hope they watch the whole thing,” Botstein says of viewers. Like reading a whole book, she says, “you don’t really understand what we’re trying to get at unless you watch the whole thing. So I’d ask viewers to reserve judgment till the last shot in the last episode, because it’s saying something.”
Accompanying educational materials are being prepared for 3rd to 12th grades.
The first episode premieres Sunday at 5 p.m. MST on PBS or livestreamed through the PBS app, PBS.org or other station-branded PBS platforms
Through their 12-hour unfolding, Botstein says, “We want to give you enough time to find yourself and your family and your people you know in them, to share some kinship with them.”
