Ken Burns shouldn't be let off the hook for shoddy research,
confusing compressions of fact and  a pronounced dependence on
contemporary "final authorities" just because the majority of his
audience is illiterate about the subject of  his documentary "Mark
Twain." What would be wrong  with filling in blank slates with the
most accurate picture possible? What is wrong with asking that Burns
hold to high standards with his high-powered,  financially flush
endeavors?


Burns did get a lot of things right and piqued interest in Twain.
That said, he made the same sort of errors in "Mark Twain" he has
made in much larger films  like "Baseball" and "Jazz." Even if he had
ten hours for Twain (and when was the last time PBS squeezed Burns
for time?) you have to figure that he'd still have Clemens calling
himself "the American."

The film didn't introduce Ken Burns' Mark Twain so much as Ken Burns'
Talking Heads' Mark Twain. I wish that Shelly Fisher Fishkin had been
permitted to do more of the talking (but that reflects my prejudice
as her Twain seems closer to mine). I also wish that Burns found (or
chose to include) someone saying "This is all well and good but for
goodness sake, don't let me tell you who Mark Twain was, let Twain
tell you. Even with his intentional obfuscations, he does a much
better job. Go read him, NOW!"

People so damned sure who Twain was and what he meant can intimidate
rank and file members of the Great Unread, the audience that
supposedly provides Burns alibi for less than exacting standards.
Unblinking authorities can make Twain seem inaccessible or even
boring -- like school. Huck Finn wasn't the last person who would
prefer to be anywhere but a classroom. If we are going to speak in
terms of the audience for this film, those terms should be
consistent. We should consider  what would make the film as
entertaining as possible because entertainment will sustain that
audience's interest. With Clemens, entertainment needn't take a back
seat.  However, repeated returns to Ron Powers' head and shoulders
(and no offense is meant to him) does not exactly pander to an
audience weaned on action films.

Carl Sagan simplified rocket science for the masses. Mark Twain was a
complex individual but he wasn't rocket science. The Voice of
Authority approach to this film may have unnecessarily complicated
Twain in the eyes of many viewers. It may have put him on a high,
hard-to-reach and stuffy shelf. According to Clemens his books were
water and meant for everyone. I'm not sure that Burns' talking heads
made Twain seem quite so potable. So the Sagan comparison isn't the
right analogy, it's its second cousin.

People can only begin to question Clemens' mysteries when they start
to delve into the copious source material he left behind. This film
implied we should read Twain but it didn't do a good job leading us
there. If the quotes from Twain were properly attributed many people
would have then found them in their original context and begun to
investigate specific areas of his actual writings. Then he'd have
them. This movie seems just as likely to provoke people to read Ron
Powers as Mark Twain.

Ken Burns has inspired interest in Mark Twain with his often good and
sometimes moving portrait of the great man. Considering the subject,
it would have been nearly impossible to fail to inspire interest.
Since Sam Clemens remains ahead of the times, I'd have preferred a
documentary that leaned more on him and less on contemporary
authorities.

Barry Crimmins

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