Production
The filmmakers wrote that the series filmed for 165 days at more than 150 locations, with weather often dictating logistics; they chased the solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 to the Adirondacks and rapidly staged winter shoots in Providence, Rhode Island, Charlestown, New Hampshire, Tivoli, New York, and Philadelphia over the MLK Day weekend. They also reported extensive collaboration with reenactors, including the Jersey Greys, who drilled at night in a snowstorm and built what the team believes is the largest redoubt in North America for the production. [4]
According to the filmmakers, the absence of photography led them to emphasize first-person testimony, period imagery, landscape cinematography, and limited-face reenactments to convey the "uncertainty" of the era. The team said it had created over 100 new maps under geographer Charles E. Frye, aligning scanned 18th-century cartography to modern satellite imagery and correcting for altered rivers, coastal infill, and missing colonial borders; Native nations and towns are prominently marked alongside settler sites. [5]
Reception
Writing in Vanity Fair, Jordan Hoffman characterized the series as "loaded with characters, ideas, and perspectives" that make "history feel urgent and new," and highlighted its "stacked ensemble" of voice performers. Hoffman also notes the film's "stately pace" and attention to Loyalists and lesser known participants in the events. [8]
Writing for The New York Times, Jennifer Schuessler described The American Revolution as a documentary that "aim[s] to strip away the barnacles of sentimentality and nostalgia" surrounding the founding of the United States. Schuessler noted that the series arrives "in the middle of a culture war," pointing to its "frank discussions of slavery and Native American dispossession" and its depiction of the Revolution as a "hyper-violent civil war that divided families and communities." She observed that the film "doesn't demonize Loyalists" and that its presentation of Native Americans as "members of powerful nations faced with complex choices" may be "the most eye-opening part of the documentary." The article also reported that Burns's "insistence on both inspiration and complexity has played well with audiences, including those well outside the PBS orbit." [9]
In The Hollywood Reporter, Daniel Fienberg described The American Revolution as "smart, thorough, [and] sincere in intent," calling it "rousing, if repetitive." He wrote that the series is "patriotic, pragmatic and familiar," noting that it "fits snugly into the unprecedented tapestry that Burns has been weaving since Brooklyn Bridge." Fienberg praised its attention to "the internal conflicts and hypocrisies of the American Revolution," particularly its treatment of "the celebrations of equality that excluded Blacks and Native Americans," while also remarking that the production "relies heavily on familiar Burnsian tracking shots and zooms" and can feel "dry and a little languid." He concluded that despite its flaws, the series conveys "the optimism that we sometimes forget as we squirm through the latest evolution or devolution of the American experiment." [10]
Writing for Politico, Nathaniel Moore reported that Burns frames the series as a unifying civic project grounded in a "shared past," and described the cut he saw as heavy on factual narration while inclusive of voices often omitted from Revolutionary histories; he concluded that the film was "entertaining enough" to draw multigenerational audiences together at public screenings. [11]
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