Create Your Own Ken Burns Civil War Documentary

(Source: PBS)

Ken Burns’s popular Civil War documentary aired on PBS more than thirty years ago. It’s been the subject of a good deal of criticism in recent years and has inspired at least one fellow historian to work toward producing a new film that better reflects the current state of scholarship and one which speaks to Americans today.

I’ve written quite a bit about the film on this site. Overall, I think it holds up quite well, though there are certainly places where it falls short.

[Check out my -part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4]

Critics often zero in on the emphasis given to Shelby Foote or the fact that historian Barbara Fields gets so little air time. I’ve often wondered about the decisions behind how and when to use the historical advisers throughout the film.

What would it be like if you could reedit the film and utilize these individuals to your liking? Now you no longer have to wonder thanks to the American Archive, which includes outtakes of the interviews of Fields, Oates, Safire and the rest of the gang.

Want to include more Barbara Fields in your updated version of The Civil War? No problem. Ed Bearss, Stephen Oates, William Safire, and James Symington make only brief appearances throughtout the film, but you can sift through hours of interviews that would dramatically reshape the focus of the film.

One of the most fascinating interviews was with Daisy Turner, the daughter of a formerly enslaved man, who passed away at 104, less than a year after she was interviewed by Burns. I often thought that she deserved more exposure throughout the film.

Unfortunately, I can’t locate the outtakes of Shelby Foote, though perhaps you prefer not to give him additional space in your new documentary. You can, however, find additional footage on YouTube.

I was mildly shocked to learn that Burns interviewed both the Yale historian C. Vann Woodward as wellas poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren, but chose not to use any of this footage. Warren wrote eloquently about the lasting influence of Civil War memory on the nation at mid-century and authored The Legacy of the Civil War, which was published at the beginning of the Civil War Centennial in 1961.

Including Woodward and Warren would have dramatically shifted the focus and tone of Burns’s documentary.

I have no plans to sift through the countless hours of interview outtakes, but it would make for a fascinating student project.

[Thanks to Andrew Houck for inspiring this post.]