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The veteran filmmaker has evolved into beyond being a filmmaker; he represents an institution, a prolific creative force. Whenever he releases documentary series premiering on the PBS network, everyone seeks an interview.

The filmmaker completed “more fucking podcasts than I ever thought possible”, he says, nearing the end of his extensive publicity circuit that included four dozen cities, dozens of preview events plus countless media sessions. “There seems to be a podcast for every citizen, and I believe I’ve appeared on most of them.”

Thankfully Burns possesses boundless energy, equally articulate in interviews as he is productive during post-production. The 72-year-old has appeared at locations ranging from Monticello to popular podcasts to promote one of his most ambitious projects: his Revolutionary War documentary, a monumental six-part, 12-hour documentary series that dominated the past decade of his life and arrived recently through the public broadcasting service.

Classic Documentary Style

Comparable to methodical preparation in today’s rapid-consumption era, Burns’ latest project is defiantly traditional, reminiscent of traditional war documentaries than the era of online content and podcast series.

However, for the filmmaker, whose professional life chronicling strands of US history including baseball, country music, jazz and national parks, the revolutionary period is not just another subject but foundational. “I said this to my co-director Sarah Botstein the other day, and she agreed: no future work will carry greater importance,” Burns contemplates by phone from New York.

Massive Research Effort

The filmmaking team and screenwriter Geoffrey Ward drew upon thousands of books and primary source materials. Dozens of historians, representing diverse viewpoints, offered expert analysis along with leading scholars covering various specialties such as enslavement studies, first nations scholarship and imperial studies.

Signature Documentary Style

The style of the series will feel familiar to devotees of The Civil War. Its distinctive style featured slow pans and zooms through archival photographs, generous use of period music featuring talent voicing historical documents.

That was the moment Burns built his legacy; a generation later, presently the respected veteran of historical films, he can apparently summon numerous talented actors. Appearing alongside Burns at a New York gathering, the Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda observed: “A call from Ken Burns commands immediate acceptance.”

Remarkable Ensemble

The lengthy creation process provided advantages regarding scheduling. Sessions happened in recording spaces, on location using online technology, a tool embraced throughout the health crisis. The director describes the experience with performer Josh Brolin, who made time in Atlanta to voice his character as the revolutionary leader before flying off to subsequent commitments.

Additional performers feature numerous acclaimed actors, respected performing veterans, diverse creative professionals, household names and rising talent, accomplished dramatic artists, international acting community, versatile character actors, Wendell Pierce, Matthew Rhys, Liev Schreiber, Dan Stevens, Meryl Streep.

Burns emphasizes: “Truly, this might be the most exceptional group ever assembled for any movie or television show. They do an extraordinary service. Their celebrity status wasn’t the criteria. It irritated me when questioned, regarding the famous participants. I responded, ‘These are performers.’ They are among the world’s best performers and they animate historical material.”

Nuanced Narrative

Nevertheless, the absence of living witnesses, photography and newsreels required the filmmakers to lean heavily on historical documents, integrating personal accounts of nearly 200 individual historic figures. This methodology permitted to present viewers not only to the “bold-faced names” of that era but also to “dozens of others essential to the narrative, several participants never even had a portrait painted.

Burns additionally pursued his personal passion for territorial understanding. “I have great affection for cartography,” he comments, “and there are more maps in this project compared to previous works I’ve done combined.”

Global Significance

Filmmakers captured footage across multiple important places throughout the continent plus English locations to capture the landscape’s character and worked extensively with re-enactors. Various aspects converge to tell a story more violent, complex and globally significant than the one taught in schools.

The revolution, it contends, transcended provincial conflict concerning territory, taxes and political voice. Rather, the series depicts a violent confrontation that finally engaged multiple global powers and improbably came to embody termed “mankind’s greatest hopes”.

Brother Against Brother

Initial complaints and protests leveled at London by far-flung British subjects in 13 fractious colonies rapidly became a vicious internal war, setting brother against brother and turning communities into battlegrounds. During the second installment, academic Alan Taylor comments: “The greatest misconception concerning independence struggle centers on assuming it constituted a consolidating event for colonists. This omits the fact that colonists battled fellow colonists.”

Historical Complexity

For him, the revolutionary narrative that “for most of us suffers from excessive romance and nostalgia and lacks depth and fails to properly acknowledge actual events, every individual involved and the extensive brutality.

The historian argues, an uprising that declared the transformative concept of inherent human rights; a bloody domestic struggle, dividing revolutionaries and royalists; plus an international conflict, continuing previous patterns of conflicts between Britain, France and Spain for dominance in the New World.

Contingent Historical Events

Burns also wanted {to rediscover the