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.
