US EditionKen Burns Says His New Documentary Forced Him to Revisit Everything He Thought He Knew About the American Revolution
Ken Burns' six-part series took 10 years and a $30 million budget to depict the American Revolution’s complex racial and political history with nearly 20,000 historic materials.
- On Sunday, November 16 at 7 p.m., the six-part, roughly 12-hour series premieres on WTTW-Ch and streams free on the PBS App for four weeks.
- Ken Burns and co-directors Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt aimed to revisit familiar history with new complexity in the American Revolution series, ten years in the making to expose racial, political, and Native American struggles.
- Director Ken Burns, with co-directors Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, filmed on a budget of more than $30 million while historian Geoffrey C. Ward compiled nearly 20,000 historical items and Buddy Squires' crew captured reenactors across the original 13 colonies.
- Ahead of America's 250th anniversary, the series prepares American viewers for July 4 celebrations, with filmmakers hoping to unify those concerned about the country's direction despite PBS's recent congressional defunding.
- The filmmakers frame the Revolution as an incredibly brutal civil war and world war, humanizing both sides and presenting George Washington as founding leader and slave owner.
26 Articles
26 Articles
Ken Burns Says His New Documentary Forced Him to Revisit Everything He Thought He Knew About the American Revolution
Ahead of the PBS production's premiere, the legendary filmmaker and co-director Sarah Botstein share insights on their research process and the surprising, long-overlooked stories featured in the six-part series
New Hampshire Union Leader
TelegraphHerald.comTV Tinsel: Ken Burns tackles 'super fascinating story' of 'The American Revolution'
Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is on the war path again. He’s already created memorable series on the Vietnam War, the Civil War and World War II. Now he’s tracking the mother of those wars, the war for American independence.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
In ‘The American Revolution,’ Ken Burns’ filmmakers go back to the beginning
When the new Ken Burns documentary series “The American Revolution” premieres on PBS on Sunday, Nov. 16, it will mark the end of a filmmaking journey that began almost a decade ago. “Ken always says these films take 10 years,” says Sarah Botstein, who co-directed the series with David Schmidt and Burns. “From the second he goes, ‘We’re going to make “The American Revolution”‘ to when it broadcasts is 10 years.” That’s two years longer than the a…
Ken Burns Shows the Revolution Was No Storybook Fight
Ken Burns' new documentary, The American Revolution , is poised to reshape how viewers see the nation's founding conflict, writes George Will in a column for the Washington Post . Its six two-hour episodes, launching Sunday on PBS, present a "bewildering, sometimes dismaying, but ultimately exhilarating" take on the war, writes Will....
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