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Don't miss it. Two episodes in, it's a masterpiece. Appears it'll be available to view anytime on the PBS website until December 15 -- at least that's what the screen says for each of the first two episodes. Says that even when I'm not logged in, so I'd guess it's probably not only for Passport members.
It's remarkable how well it's being done without the benefit of any photography.
It's amazing what they did on that score, so compelling. Ken B. and Sarah B. did an interview on Firing Line last Friday, and it came out that Sarah was the overall mastermind of the imagery. (Haven't sat thru all the credits yet to see how many names there are in that department.) Plus the reenactment scenes are effective without being overwhelming, at least to this kid.
It is just astoundingly complex, back and forth, literally multifarious, reminding me of the Vietnam years, to some degree. The screwing-over of the Natives is more astonishing and disheartening than ever. What a freaking mess.
Yeah, remember the very beginning of the first episode, the description of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederation as Ben Franklin's idea of a model for the colonies to emulate.
It seems to me that many of the founders of the United States were somehow able to bifurcate their minds: to be able to think all of the majestic philosophical thoughts about freedom for the new country that they were building, and at the same time, totally rejecting freedom for so many other humans living with them and alongside them.
As if they just shrugged and said, "Oh well, that's just the way it is", but certainly didn't feel that way about themselves.
Very disheartening, the whole thing.
Sort of brings all those folks whom I held in great respect down to the level of the people who form our government right now. Except that the current bunch couldn't think a single majestic philosophical thought if their lives depended on it.
In the interview on Firing Line, Ken B. made that point right out front that these were flawed human beings who somehow succeeded in making it possible for real freedom and equality under the law to blossom. But progress in that direction isn't guaranteed, and it's only happened in fits and starts since, with major steps backward along the way.
Friends and I were listening to the ancient Neil Young album After the Gold Rush recently, and it was really striking that "Southern Man" could be so realistically awful 100 years after a civil war that supposedly fixed that racist/slavery problem.
In 1967 I read Pauline Kael's NewYorker review of the great In the Heat of the Night and noted her comment (not quoting exactly) that one problem w West Coasts liberal filmmakers was this automatic 'Hate the South' penchant. Being an overeducated East Coast libtard (same as now) born and reared in the southern Midwest and with Oberlin-educated parents and grandparents, I thought, uh, okay, possibly a fair point there, but really?
Now I know (and have known for decades but needed periodic refreshing) that you cannot have enough contempt for some of those types, many of those types, unto today. And now they (still, again) rule. As the quip (turned into a book) goes, What if the North had won the Civil War?
Comments
Note: Jos. Plumb Martin also gets a brief mention toward the end of Ken Burns' The Civil War.
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2012/07/04/news/revolutionary-war-soldier-settled-in-maine-decried-military-treatment-of-veterans/
My estimation of Henry Knox has fallen considerably.
It seems to me that many of the founders of the United States were somehow able to bifurcate their minds: to be able to think all of the majestic philosophical thoughts about freedom for the new country that they were building, and at the same time, totally rejecting freedom for so many other humans living with them and alongside them.
As if they just shrugged and said, "Oh well, that's just the way it is", but certainly didn't feel that way about themselves.
Very disheartening, the whole thing.
Sort of brings all those folks whom I held in great respect down to the level of the people who form our government right now. Except that the current bunch couldn't think a single majestic philosophical thought if their lives depended on it.
Friends and I were listening to the ancient Neil Young album After the Gold Rush recently, and it was really striking that "Southern Man" could be so realistically awful 100 years after a civil war that supposedly fixed that racist/slavery problem.
Caution: long guitar solo ahead.
Now I know (and have known for decades but needed periodic refreshing) that you cannot have enough contempt for some of those types, many of those types, unto today. And now they (still, again) rule. As the quip (turned into a book) goes, What if the North had won the Civil War?