Ever since the Ken Burns film aired, people have been asking me what I think
about it. I always ask them what THEY think--and the usual response is that
they thought it was very good, and that they learned a lot about Mark Twain.
If they still want to listen to me, I tell them that my reaction is mixed.

I liked a good bit of it very much--it was great to see a full outline of
his life and career, with visual accompaniment (I was not that bothered by
some of the inaccurate pictures), music (I play the mandolin, so I really
loved the soundtrack by Bobby Horton--there has been much positive comment
on the mandolin list I am on!), and the commentary by scholars and writers.
Many people were focusing on Twain, all over America, all at the same time.
I was conscious of that synchronous moment much of the time--it's the most
simultaneous communal attention on Mark Twain in a very long time.  Perhaps
since the Hal Holbrook special in the 60s?

My complaints about the film are not so much the small details, but some
larger aspects. As I wrote earlier, the claim that "A True Story" was word
for word bothered me--but that's a small example of my larger complaint. The
film seemed to me to accept too many stories and facts at face value--if
Twain said it, they seemed to buy it. Almost anything he said is liable to
some exaggeration, or maybe a tongue in cheek, or maybe an outright lie.  I
heard phrase after phrase and would say to myself, "Yes, but..."--thinking
about the controversy and doubt that lies behind so many episodes.  They
just took too much, too straight, it seems to me.

I liked the Twain scholars they used--Laura Skandera-Trombley, Shelly Fisher
Fishkin, and Jocelyn Chadwick did a very good job (and they managed to get
in Hamlin Hill for about four seconds!).  It was kind of cool, knowing these
people as friends, and hearing their voices before their faces came on,
knowing who it was before their faces popped up.  I would have preferred
more critical voices--as he got to certain points, I could think of specific
people who should have been talking, the true expert on that particular
point. No disrespect to Ron Powers, but on many of his MANY appearances, I
could think of somebody who was eminently more qualified to speak.  And
while novelists like William Styron have an insight into Twain that no
non-novelist does, I hated that the face time of such folks might have
knocked out somebody who had a deeper, broader knowledge.

I was actually relieved that Burns didn't ride race or any other thesis as
hard as I expected him to.  He is prone to do that, and it seriously marred
"Baseball" and "Jazz" for me.  And while the comments about Twain and race
were good overall (in my view), they failed to take into account all the
controversy--honest controversy. One might think it's just a happy, "we are
the world" when it comes to Mark Twain and race.  I guess that's my biggest
complaint:  it was all just too neat, too pat. That's where scholars and
critics bring in the questions, the ambiguities, the rough edges.  My first
reaction was to call this "Mark Twain for Dummies"--but then I decided on
the (perhaps) kinder, "Mark Twain Lite."

One more criticism: Burns as a filmmaker. I was moved by "The Civil War,"
but with each subsequent film, I am more and more put off by his style.
Where "The Civil War" was elegiac, "Baseball" and "Jazz" seemed to me
lethargic. His Twain was not as bad on that, but his sloooooow style gets on
my nerves after a bit. Even more, his films have become formulaic to the
point of total predictability, it seems to me.  Lugubrious tones from
sonorous narrator, slow slow slow pan over a still picture, the same song
over and over on the soundtrack (but at least it's a mandolin!), a
disembodied voice of the talking head while we see the still photo, then the
talking head pops in.  (But as I say, cooler when you know the talking
head...) And then the worst to me--the quotation from the subject, and you
know damn well who's words they are, and then the pause, and then "Mark
Twain."  Over and over and over.  I'm actually glad it was only four hours.
I must say I enjoyed the thirty minute excerpt this summer more than the
full film--some people teased me in Elmira because they said I was the first
one up to start the standing ovation. I'm not sure that's true, but I
honestly stood that night. Now, I would still applaud, for I did see much I
liked, but I'm less enthusiastic.

I did like much of it, but I wish it had been better, more accurate, fuller,
and explored the ambiguities a bit more.  An event like this only comes
along once in a generation or so, so this will be our Mark Twain for the
wider culture for a long time. Sandra Bradley had been working on a
documentary long before Burns popped in, and now I doubt hers can ever get
funding to be finished. And no scholar or critic or even popular writer is
going to get a mass audience like this.

So most people "learned a lot." I'm glad, truly glad, and hope it spurs them
to go to the source to learn more. I just wish this had been better, and it
could have been.
+++++++++++++++
John Bird
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