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'Death and the Civil War' PBS View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place |
"We felt it was very important to start the film with that experience, not an idea," Burns said. "It goes from there to describe how Americans, individually and collectively, struggled with these overwhelming experiences--on a scale that was completely unprecedented."
Unlike Montgomery's father, most family members probably wouldn't know anything about how their loved ones died, Burns said. Some 40 percent of the war's dead are unknown, he noted.
Yet the Montgomery letter, Burns said, was the perfect way to begin the two-hour documentary, which features commentary by historians David Blight, Mark Schantz, David Hacker and Vincent Brown, poet-undertaker Thomas Lynch and journalist George F. Will.
The filmmaker also interviewed Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust, author of "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War," the 2008 best-selling book on which the film is based.
"Her work has two signal qualities--it is deeply sorrowful and makes you think," said Burns, who praised his collaborator for her scholarship and sensitivity.
He and his team at Steeplechase Films were motivated to "honor those two striking features," he said.
Burns said he dived into the project three years ago, soon after hearing about Faust's book from PBS producer Mark Samels, who urged him to read it.
Burns had waited 20 years to tackle the topic again after "The Civil War," the ground-breaking 1990 series he crafted with his brother Ken. Since then, he had examined diverse subjects--Ansel Adams, Andy Warhol, Coney Island, the whaling industry. His eight-part series "New York: A Documentary Film" won a pair of Emmy Awards.
But after declining many offers to revisit the war, Burns said, he found Faust's book to be irresistible. In trying to translate Faust's words to the screen, Burns said, he was struck that kindness, in the worst of times, sometimes came alongside the 1860s' savagery.
"I hope the film speaks to many things that are still alive," he said, "that people can feel how close we are to the Civil War."
Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029
Email: cschemmer@freelancestar.com
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"Death and the Civil War," airing at 8 tonight on PBS, relies on archival images and letters to weave its tales of human dignity amid the horrors of battle. Scenes were filmed Viewers will see some familiar photos, but countless more that have never been screened before. Some of the most interesting ones were shot by photographers in the Fredericksburg area, where 100,000 fell in four major battles, making it the most blood-soaked place in the entire Civil War. You'll see Andrew J. Russell's famous 1863 wet-plate image of a dead Confederate soldier lying on Sunken Road after the Second Battle of Fredericksburg. In another photo, African-Americans bury a row of dead soldiers in what are now the streets of Fredericksburg. "Death and the Civil War," as it traces Americans' attempt to make sense of the bloodshed In the next few days, three local events will mark the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's preliminary proclamation, announced Sept. 22, 1862, and the prelude to the war. All of them are free. 7 P.M. FRIDAY: The University of Mary Washington will host "A Fireside Chat: Looking at the Emancipation Proclamation," an informal discussion with three top scholars--Edna Greene Medford, history department chairwoman at Howard University; Frank J. Williams, founding chairman of the Lincoln Forum; and Harold Holzer, author of several books on Lincoln. James I. Robertson Jr., Virginia Tech history professor emeritus, will introduce the panel. The event, in George Washington Hall's Dodd Auditorium, is sponsored by Virginia's Civil War sesquicentennial commission. Register at VirginiaCivilWar.org/emancipation or call 804/786-3591. 9 A.M.-NOON SATURDAY: Commemorate the August 1862 crossing of the Rappahannock River near Remington by slaves, an act of self-emancipation captured in one of the Civil War's most famous photographs. On the sesquicentennial of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, historians John Hennessy, Clark Hall and Dr. Dianne Swann-Wright will speak; the River Bank Choir will perform a hymn-sing; the crossing from Culpeper to Fauquier will be re-created; and names of Culpeper-born slaves will be read. 540/547-2395; thequestforhistory .blogspot.com. 2 P.M. SUNDAY: Tony Horwitz, author of the popular "Confederates in the Attic," speaks at the Culpeper County Library about his new book, "Midnight Rising," on John Brown and his raid on Harper's Ferry; clva.org. |