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New Burns documentary series premiers ahead of U.S. 250th anniversary · DEEP INSIGHT

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  Speaker 1: From Baseball to the Civil War.
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  Speaker 2: Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is highlighted the stories that have
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  Speaker 2: bound our nation together and tested our collective resolve.
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  Speaker 1: Ahead of America's two.
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  Speaker 2: Hundred and fiftieth birthday next year, He's now turning his
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  Speaker 2: attention to the story It started it all, The American Revolution,
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  Speaker 2: a six part, twelve hour epic premiering tonight on PBS,
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  Speaker 2: and ken Burns joins us right now, congratulations on the
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  Speaker 2: new documentary. I've started watching it, just terrific. Is this
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  Speaker 2: your most ambitious project yet?
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  Speaker 3: I don't know if it's the most ambitious.
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  Speaker 4: Vietnam was really hard, the Civil War was really hard,
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  Speaker 4: Baseball was really hard.
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  Speaker 3: But I'll say this about the American Revolution.
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  Speaker 4: We and that's my co directors, David Schmid and Sarah Bodstein,
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  Speaker 4: we won't work on a more important project than this one.
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  Speaker 2: And one of the things remarkable in this again not
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  Speaker 2: unique to your work, but really comes out here is
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  Speaker 2: you have tapped some of Hollywood's biggest stars.
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  Speaker 1: Help bring to life the words.
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  Speaker 2: Of those that were there, that were part of the
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  Speaker 2: American founding of the Revolutionary War. I want to play
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  Speaker 2: Claire Danes reading the words of Abigail Adams, something she
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  Speaker 2: wrote just after the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
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  Speaker 1: Take a listen.
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  Speaker 5: What a scene has opened upon us. If we look back,
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  Speaker 5: we are amazed at what is passed. If we look forward,
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  Speaker 5: we must shudder at the view. Our only comfort lies
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  Speaker 5: in the justice of our cause. All our worldly comforts
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  Speaker 5: are now at stake. Our nearest and dearest connections are
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  Speaker 5: hazarding their lives and properties. God give them wisdom and
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  Speaker 5: integrity sufficient to the great cause in which they are engaged.
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  Speaker 2: Abigail Adams is writing as if she knows that two
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  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty years later we would still be reciting
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  Speaker 2: her words.
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  Speaker 1: You know, she's obviously a terrific writer.
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  Speaker 2: But I just get a sense, and so many of
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  Speaker 2: the founders seem to know that they were not just
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  Speaker 2: engaged in an epic battle, but they were changing the
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  Speaker 2: course of history.
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  Speaker 3: Oh they did, you know. And they're writing to us,
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  Speaker 3: They're talking to you and to me.
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  Speaker 4: They're saying, you know, John Adams, her husband, is saying,
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  Speaker 4: you know, this is something that's going to affect untold
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  Speaker 4: millions that are yet born.
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  Speaker 3: You know, this is a big deal. For the first
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  Speaker 3: time in human history.
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  Speaker 4: People are not going to be under authoritarian rule, subjects, ignorant, superstitious,
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  Speaker 4: distracted by conspiracies. But they're going to be citizens, which
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  Speaker 4: is going to require a lot of responsibility. And as
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  Speaker 4: Abigail fears, you know, they do have the justice of
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  Speaker 4: the cause, but they're up against the greatest military power
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  Speaker 4: on earth, with the most far flung empire on Earth.
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  Speaker 4: How the hell are these people who have just been
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  Speaker 4: mowed down on Lexington Green and finally fought back at
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  Speaker 4: the North Bridge and conquered and harassed the British already
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  Speaker 4: back to Boston. How are they in April of seventeen
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  Speaker 4: seventy five, six and a half years later at Yorkdown
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  Speaker 4: gonna win? And that's the story of our twelve hours.
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  Speaker 4: We don't have photographs, we don't have newsreels.
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  Speaker 3: We don't have them talking to the camera.
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  Speaker 4: What we have are their words. What we have are
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  Speaker 4: the places that they transformed. And what we have are
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  Speaker 4: groups of dedicated people who've been doing these reenactments for
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  Speaker 4: years and years, which we collected over six or seven
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  Speaker 4: years of filming in every time of day, of night,
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  Speaker 4: and every season, in every location from Maine to Georgia,
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  Speaker 4: getting a sense of what it was like to be
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  Speaker 4: in that revolution, and including everybody, not just the opaque,
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  Speaker 4: top down people who we think we can give you
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  Speaker 4: a real sense of who they were, particularly George Washington,
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  Speaker 4: the most important person to this thing, but also the
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  Speaker 4: women who are hugely important keeping the resistance alive, Native Americans,
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  Speaker 4: Black Americans, both enslaved and free.
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  Speaker 3: It is a dynamic.
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  Speaker 4: Story of a revolution, but a civil war and a
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  Speaker 4: World war all at once. And it's the Fourth World
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  Speaker 4: War over the prize of North America.
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  Speaker 1: And you presented in all its complexities.
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  Speaker 2: Before you go, I want to bring to you something
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  Speaker 2: that Thomas Jefferson wrote after all of this.
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  Speaker 1: He wrote after.
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  Speaker 2: Shay's rebellion, famous quote where he says, God forbid we
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  Speaker 2: should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The
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  Speaker 2: tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time
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  Speaker 2: with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
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  Speaker 1: Is it your sense that they believed.
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  Speaker 2: After spending so much time immersing this, that they believe
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  Speaker 2: that this project would still be underway two hundred and
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  Speaker 2: fifty years later.
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  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I think that Jefferson kind of regretted
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  Speaker 4: that people have used this now his quote is a
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  Speaker 4: kind of an excuse for violence. He said in the
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  Speaker 4: declaration itself that things shouldn't be changed for light or
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  Speaker 4: transient reasons, but they did want the idea of the
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  Speaker 4: United States to be fluid. Remember, he does say in
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  Speaker 4: that document the pursuit of happiness.
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  Speaker 3: We can debate what happiness is.
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  Speaker 4: They meant lifelong learning, but it's the keyword, is the
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  Speaker 4: pursuit or later in the Constitution, a more perfect union.
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  Speaker 4: We're a nation in the process of becoming and that's
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  Speaker 4: been my beat. That's what I've done for the last
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  Speaker 4: fifty years, is try to understand what it is about
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  Speaker 4: the story of the United States that is so unusual
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  Speaker 4: and so complicated and has so much undertow and yet
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  Speaker 4: is so inspiring.
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  Speaker 3: So the Revolution is the big bang of this universe.
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  Speaker 4: So it is about the story of the expanding American promise.
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  Speaker 4: And that's what's so to me, just exhilarating about diving
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  Speaker 4: into the American Revolution.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Ken, I wish we had another five parts in
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  Speaker 2: another eleven or twelve hours to go with.
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  Speaker 1: This interview, but I am out of time. I hope
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  Speaker 1: to talk to you again soon. Again.
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  Speaker 2: Congratulations on the documentary. Out tonight, appreciate it very much.