I guess I’m spoiled by Ken Burns. This documentary has actors, in period costumes, talking to the camera, reciting the lines where in a Burns documentary, we’d be treated to pictures, drawings, paintings etc. with an actor doing the voiceovers. I much prefer the latter as I found the use of actors talking to the camera distracting and at points even irritating, which detracted, for me anyway, from the documentary’s content.

The American Revolution encompasses four parts: 1) the lead-up; 2) the war; 3) the revolution/creation of American democracy; the continuing debate. This documentary clearly covers all aspects of the American drama by using period paintings, broadsides, music, recent actors, and academics. It is wonderfully narrated by Edward Herrman, and all together, they create a most remarkable story of how we evolved from the colonial social system of deference to “our social betters”, to personal liberty and democratic thought.

All the major players of the period are wonderfully portrayed by using current actors to re-create the actual writings of John Adams, Ben Franklin, King George, and a host of others. My favorite is Joseph Plum Martin brought to life by a young Philip Seymour Hoffman, as he fought through-out the entire war.

One of my favorite parts of the drama is the last part: the fight for the Constitution and its implications for today. In that the Revolution is still being waged and that we are all players in determining the final scope of “what the fundamental role of government is”. How big should the government be? What is its proper role? What is its proper relationship to the States? To the people? Who determines this, and what was the original intent and purpose of its authors? Here, George Will brilliantly deciphers James Madison by descriping how a vast republic of a “multitude of factions” would counteract each other. In other words, “ambition would fight ambition”.

Pauline Maier, acurately notes that American Revolution is often overlooked, and that credit is (wrongly) given to others such as the Russian or French Revolutions. The American Revolution and Constitution has exceeded the wildest expections of those who helped create it. CAN WE KEEP IT?