First of all, the Ken Burns film isn't near completion, and it seems mere rumor surrounds the improper portrayal of Mark Twain as described by certain entities. Mr. Ken Burns has been a first rate filmaker, and I personally doubt very much that he or any of his staff would ever sacrifice truth in a film for mere material gain. Regarding the rumors now at the forefront of our attention, a few comments can be made. The observation that statements such that the Hartford residence of Mark Twain was in any way responsible for his powers of literature or was any sort of center for Mark Twain's creative powers is indeed a mistake in many respects. Mark Twain's thinking was mainly a function of his own body, namely his brain, not any house he ever lived in. All places he ever visited or lived in made some sort of impression, and when it was significant enough Mark Twain himself wrote about it. Any inference that Hartford in any way influenced Mark Twain's thinking more than any other place on earth would make the mistake of ignoring or overlooking the entire span of time Sam Clemens experienced from his birth in 1835 through the time he started living in Hartford. Any claim that Mark Twain wrote Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn within the walls of his Hartford home would be absolutely wrong, as any true Twain scholar knows. This is by no means is "hair-splitting" anything. It would simply be fact. Indeed it would be very easy for any legitimate Mark Twain scholar to show that the influences WEST of the mighty Mississippi were by far and away much more influential in the development of the writer Mark Twain than any located east of the Mississippi. Two people who were eastern influences, namely his wife Livy and friend W.D. Howells were tranquilizing influences on the mighty Twain, so even they cannot be credited with true, raw Mark Twain creativity. They can be credited with properly "containing" Mark Twain. It can be said that the years in which the Clemens family occupied the Hartford home were probably among the happiest days of Mark Twain's life, which I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that some of the rumors and scholars were trying to say the same thing and not succeeding. Truly A Twainiac, Bob Slotta