The Roosevelts: An Intimate History (2014)

Director: Ken Burns

Cast: Paul Giamatti, Edward Hermann, Meryl Streep, John Lithgow

Have I Seen it Before: We watched the first couple of parts as they aired, but we were moving into this house as it aired, and lost track of the series until quite recently after I got hooked up with PBS app and its comprehensive Ken Burns collection.

Did I Like It: Once again, it becomes somewhat impossible to effectively criticize Burns’ work. Within the framework of his genre, he is the best at what he does. Each film is immaculate, and I have seen more than a few imitators in the historical documentary, and it is imminently possible (in fact, likely the default) to screw it up.

So then this rumination must go to the subject, or in this case, subjects. With Burns’ fair eye, all three Roosevelts of particular note (Teddy, Franklin, and Eleanor) are given full credit for their strengths. With all seven parts running the viewer just shy of fourteen hours, it would have been a significant blunder for some key element of any of the three lives to be assessed. They each so fully engaged with their lives and the worlds in which they found themselves, that many, but not all sins can be forgiven.

They’re failures are given a substantial analysis as well. Teddy (it will truly be difficult to refer to the subjects with due deference, so I assume the reader will forgive undue familiarity) nearly completely whiffed on any degree of courage where race relations were concerned. Franklin was at his heart far too pragmatic to bring a foolproof reworking of the social contract and a perfect peace to a post-war world before succumbing to the ravages of infantile paralysis. That doesn’t even begin to cover the myopic, cowardly internment of Japanese-Americans. Even Eleanor viewed it as a necessity, and it is one of the few times she was confronted with a question of moral right and failed to meet the occasion. Had she been clearer-headed on that, and as steadfast as she had been on everything else, she could have very well turned her husband around on the matter.

Thomas Jefferson (1997)

Director: Ken Burns

Cast: Ossie Davis, Sam Waterston, Blythe Danner*, Philip Bosco

Have I Seen it Before: I want to say yes? Sometime in my misspent youth, I must have had a history teacher who had run out of energy and let this one run its course.

Did I Like It: There’s exceptionally little one can reasonably say about the craft of Ken Burns. At what he does, he is the absolute best. There is not a single flaw in any of his productions I have seen to date**. One might call his films long, but it’s hard to make that argument stick, when the films are intended to be viewed over multiple days (I’m looking in you direction, Zack Snyder...) One might dare to call them dray and boring, but I’m not sure I want to associate with such people, and would frankly rather you leave the site if that describes you.

So, what does one review about Burns’ films? It’s hard not to be tempted by the inclination to review the subject. Was Thomas Jefferson the genius of his (and possibly all) time? Was he a man of lofty words, but a depraved need to use the human beings around him? Was he both?

History evaluated—with the help of DNA evidence—subsequent to the production of this documentary created a consensus that he fathered the children of Sally Hemings. The film considers the possibility, but comes to no firm conclusions. He did use the people he owned, and he could not be bothered to fight the institution of slavery in any meaningful way. He saw the possibilities of the future needing to set aside the dogmas of his age, but that stance has fueled insurrectionists of today, just as much as it has liberalization of our laws.

For all of his brilliance, he failed at his ideals. The film is, therefore, a fascinating deep dive into one of America’s great enigmas.

On the rather trivial side of things, I am struck by the fact that Jefferson spent himself into penury, and did so almost exclusively in the process of buying too many books. That’s an all-too human failing which I could see myself falling into. I also can’t help but think his mind would have been blown by the prospect of a Kindle.

*And also Gwyneth too, briefly, while we’re at it, reading text from one of Jefferson’s granddaughters. It was undeniably a weird moment.

**And considering after the recent airing of Hemingway (2021), I bought into the PBS Passport hook, line and sinker, I will likely be taking in more of his oeuvre.

Hemingway (2021)

Director: Ken Burns, Lynn Novick

Cast: Jeff Daniels, Patricia Clarkson, Mary-Louise Parker, Keri Russell

Have I Seen it Before: No, at the time of this writing, the film is brand new. Is this my first review of a movie released in 2021? Looking over the records, I did post a review of Zack Synder’s Justice League (2021), but as I had no capacity to review such a thing, Lora wrote that review.

Did I Like It: And that should be pretty telling. I’m not sure at what point the prospect of spending four hours with superheroes became a chore, and the opportunity of spending 6 hours with a man of letters who was gleefully awful even to those closest to him. I must have become so fussy.

I realize I have reviewed very few documentaries here on the site. I’ve been watching a lot of them, but as they are part of screening duties for a festival, reviews never find their way here. Gene Siskel said once—and my memory fails, he might have been quoting someone else—that he had long since come to prefer documentaries, as it would be time spent with a better class of people.

Documentaries—even flawed ones—will evade the essential phoniness which will weigh down even the greatest narrative films. And, thankfully, as this comes from Ken Burns, there is hardly a flaw to find. Is there a filmmaker who came onto the scene with Brooklyn Bridge (1982)* and became ubiquitous with the documentary form as of The Civil War (1990)**, and has maintained that level of craft throughout nearly forty years? If there is such a master, their name escapes me.

And yet, am I spending time with a better class of person? The reams of words written—and for that matter, the hours of footage displayed—about Hemingway’s failings are too numerous to have any hope to contribute anything new here. He was a brute, a drunk, and in the last years of his life a hateful paranoiac. You can’t dismiss any of that because he knew how to put together an English sentence. Can you contextualize the man’s flaws and still appreciate the work? 

There are three types of failed people where the question of whether the work still has value despite their less-desirable traits. 

There are those whose political beliefs become—or always were odious. Think someone like Frank Miller. Hemingway’s politics were incidental, but in action nearly always to the left, or at the very least anti-facist.

There are those whose behavior is so fundamentally wrong, that even the work becomes revolting in retrospect. Think Woody Allen. If any of his wives, or his children, or F. Scott Fitzgerald were still alive, I think they would have a legitimate beef. Otherwise, I am willing to label being an asshole in the abstract as a venal rather than mortal sin.

Then there are those who wished to be good, but due to being felled by alcoholism, multiple concussions, and the general makeup of human failures, never succeed in being the good men they would have wished. This is Hemingway. A failure. The film is an inspiration and a cautionary tale in equal measure.

*Which—if I’ve seen it—I have since tragically forgotten it. Must make a point to track it down. With my new account with PBS.org, maybe that will be within reach.

**Which I’m nearly always up for re-watching.