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 mailto:[log in to unmask]