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.