WEBVTT - Interview Only w/ Ken Burns - Lessons From History On America’s 250th Birthday 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.360 This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:06.240 by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:11.280 frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, artisonal pastries, and 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:14.800 fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently baked in twenty 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.759 five minutes or less. Unlike many store brought options, Wild 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.880 Grain uses some simple ingredients you can pronounce and a 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.480 slow fermentation process that can be a lot easier on 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.080 your belly, little gut health there right, and richer in 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:32.600 nutrients antioxidants. There's also no preservatives and no shortcuts. The 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.800 Wild Grain boxes are fully customizable. 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I hate this cliche, but sometimes some 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.280 people actually live the cliche. This person needs no introduction. 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:04.639 It's ken Burns, and he is as I was joking 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.280 with him before in my own team. I may season 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.480 pass subscriber to ken Burns, and yet there are still 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:15.760 ken Burns documentaries. I have not fully consumed. My biggest 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.920 regrets so far, as Jazz, I have not fully consumed Jazz, 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:23.320 I will make that confession. But you know, it's one 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:25.360 of those cases where every time you think there isn't 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.240 a new story to tell, there's a new story to tell, 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:30.680 and Ken burnsfuys that story to tell. Ken, It's good 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:31.040 to see you. 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:33.040 It's good to see you too, Check, thank you. You know, 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.519 I think if I were given a thousand years to live, 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.280 which I will not, I wouldn't run out of topics 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:44.000 in American history. And there's something just incredibly wonderful about 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.840 saying that, particularly in tough times where we're sometimes avoid 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.000 the tough times. But history's so instructive. You know, we're 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.560 way more divided during our Revolution, way more divided obviously 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.480 during our Civil War, way more divided during depression, way 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:02.079 more divided during the Vietnam year. I mean, we tend 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:06.160 to think, as kind of narcissist Dick Chicken littles that 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.120 our time is the worst. It's got to be bad, 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.880 and there's history is there to say, you know what. 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.799 I had a friend in the financial services you'll appreciate 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.600 this who came to me in the after the eight 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.480 meltdown and he said, this is a depression, and I 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.800 just I said, you know, in the depression, in many 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.800 American cities, the animals in the zoo were shot and 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:29.600 the meat distributed to the poor. And that happens. 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:30.959 It's a depression. 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:33.560 Yeah, it's a depression. And so like right now, we're not. 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.520 I don't want to minimize whatever pain he was personally 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.000 going through or professional going through. But I do think 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.960 having perspective is a really important thing in history. Is 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:46.280 the best teacher there is for giving you a kind 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:46.960 of perspective? 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.400 No, And obviously we're having an argument on history sometimes, 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.400 right we're having I and I actually this I want 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.320 to begin here. I think the most remarkable accomplishment you 0:03:56.440 --> 0:04:03.200 made with American Revolution was how limited the critiques were, 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:06.600 what I would call the partisan critiques. I know you felt. 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:08.320 I'm sure you saw them, and I'm. 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:10.960 Sure you're right. You're right, you're right. I mean my 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.200 feeling is and I do this with every film. You know, 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:16.520 Mark Twain once said, if you if you tell the truth, 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.279 you don't have to remember anything. So I said the 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:23.200 same thing in the year of promotion of this thing 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.599 last year to Joe Rogan and Theo vanas I said 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:28.720 to the New York Times editorial board as I said 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.880 to inner city school kids in Charleston and Detroit, and 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.520 suburban kids in Chicago and the forty cities we went 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.240 to in the eighty different screenings and the six million podcasts, 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.000 I felt like I did, and all the other interviews, 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:45.200 and because I was trying to reach everybody, this is 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.680 a story for everybody. And problem is that right now 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.479 we've gotten to a place where we want to limit everything. 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:52.719 It's you have to pass a litmus test, you have 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:57.840 to sign a loyalty oath and nda to your real feelings. 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:00.400 And I want to speak to everyone. And so I 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.479 assumed if I could just get to October before the 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.479 mid November broadcast would be okay. Well, October came and went, 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.120 and then November broadcast came, and in the middle of 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.520 it there were a couple half hearted this is woke, 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:18.560 sort of superficial dismissals. It was really clear that the people, 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.800 the authors of two or three of these things had 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:22.680 watched maybe twenty minutes of the thing. 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:23.719 And this is a. 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.679 Film, by the way, that suggests that the American Revolution 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.400 is the most important event in world history in the 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:32.800 last two thousand years, and that, oh, by the way, 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:34.840 a guy I'm sure you've never heard of named George 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.960 Washington is the person most responsible for our success in 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.599 the creation of our country. And somehow because there were 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:44.159 women in it, and somehow because they were oh my god, 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:46.520 black people in it, and somehow because they were Native 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:50.000 Americans and there were other people from other countries who 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:52.240 were engaged in this World war in addition to our 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.520 revolution and a bloody civil war, that somehow this is woke. 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.039 And then you realize where is the wokeness? Actually is 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.960 it in the litmust of one side of what it 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.359 should be? And that's what it is. Wokeness is just 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:08.120 a miss test that is fearful of the truth. And 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.040 it occurs in both ends of the spectrum. And and 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:12.520 in fact, I don't think there ends. 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:13.160 I think there. 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.039 You know, we discussed this before. You know, a third 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.880 of Bernie's supporters stayed home, a third voted for Hillary, 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.360 and a third voted for Trump. So you've got a 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:24.800 circle here in which the far left and the far 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.000 right are often much closer than we would think. 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:30.440 No, I mean, that's why you know, we're all taught 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.560 the pendulum right when it comes to that, is that 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:38.159 at some point the two ends could meet. And you know, 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:40.719 in fact, I like to warn some of my friends 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.560 in the business community, watch out if there is a 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.679 if the populace on the right drop their cultural grievance 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:52.960 and you just have all of the economic grievance parts 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:57.280 of the electorate unite, we would call it the FDR coalition, 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:04.480 and it could It could end up not be pretty transformational. 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:05.719 I don't want to say I agree. 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:07.960 You know, for a couple of different times in a 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:12.120 coup role of different positions standing in very different political 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:16.760 ideological places, the Republican Party has been the most successful 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:18.880 political party on Earth, and a lot of ways in 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.360 the last fifty years, is getting. 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:25.920 The most successful third party. 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.440 Right, Yeah, exactly started it, by the way, in a 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.360 schoolhouse in rip On, Wisconsin, in eighteen fifty four with 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:32.760 one platform out of the Demond dispute. 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.560 There's still a dispute between a place in Illinois and 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:36.440 a place in Wisconsin. 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:38.640 Yeah, I know, I hear that all the time. I'm 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.720 opting for rip But the whole idea is that they're 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.640 anti slavery, you know. And so then you come full 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.360 circle where you know it's successful in that it's gotten 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.560 so many people to vote against their economic self interest 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:54.240 because they've been able to interpose enemies. The great bugaboo 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:58.520 of political distraction and ledger domain in sight of hand 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.760 is to say it's oh, it's them, and to create them. 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:03.840 And I can tell you right now, I mean, my 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.400 bottom line is I've been making films about the US, 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.120 but I've been also making films about us, right the 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.160 lower case two lighter thing. And there's only us, there's 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:16.240 no them. And whenever anyone tells you there's them, you're 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.920 having the woe pulled over your eyes. You're having a 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.080 distraction take place in order for you to think it's 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.960 actually an economic interest that is of central value to 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.320 me is not as important as the thing that those 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:32.480 people might be doing to me. 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.800 What's always helpful about your documentaries is that I do 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:39.679 think they have a point of view, but it's not 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.960 this left right point no, no, no, no, it is it 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:47.839 is more of a larger, you know, sense of you know. 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:50.880 Just so, how would you describe, for instance, your point 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.760 of view for the American Revolution? You clearly at a 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:56.400 framework that you want to do and check the story with. 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.160 Not really, because what happens is when any whenever you 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.040 say yes, and your heart and your gut, whatever you choose, 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:06.120 you don't know anything about it. I mean, I got 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:08.160 the general edgic, I got a good education. I know 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.959 a lot about history. And yet when you say I'm 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:12.640 going to do country music or I'm going to do 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.120 baseball something I grew up playing, oh well, finally a 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:18.840 subject I know about. Each day of baseball was a 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:22.160 humiliation of what I didn't know. And so revolution you 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.920 just automatically, so you're not looking. You've got a chronological structure. 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:28.360 It's already there, that is to say, and then and 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.080 then and then, so then how you begin to put 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:36.000 it together. You're absolutely right that there's no political thing. 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.079 You just want to say what happened, and you want 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:41.640 to call balls and strikes. And I would suggest that 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:46.360 in our media culture, as diverse and as multitudinous as 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:50.160 it is a kind of tsunami of information, it's relatively 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.920 the same. And so we become a kind of highlight reel. 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.240 Babybruth only hits home runs. Well, Baybruth struck out way 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.880 more times than he hit home run. And more importantly, 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.080 bab Ruth only comes up once every nine times at 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.120 bad So sometime as the last World Series showed you 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.240 a second basement, a middle infielder, not the star, becomes 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.400 central to the outcome of a very dramatic thing. And 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.200 so what we've tried to do is always keep that 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:20.040 in mind. Do you scrimp on your biography of Babe Ruth, No, 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:21.960 you tell a complete one. In this case, the Babe 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.679 Ruth is George Washington. We don't have a country without him. 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:27.280 But then you also introduce people to scores of other 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.440 characters that are bottom up, probably for the most part, 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:36.080 but they also are central to what happened. They're the 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.240 calling of balls and strikes, and I think there's something 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:44.280 exhilarating in that complexity. And this notion that, certainly among authoritarians, 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.840 that you want to reduce it to some simplistic slogans 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:50.360 is ridiculous. Ridiculous. 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:52.720 How do you deal with you know, one of my 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:56.600 one of the things that obviously the more you read 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.200 up on an historical event. I'm obsessed right now with 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:04.040 the period between eighteen sixty five and nineteen twenty eight. 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:06.640 We're making a film on it called Emancipation to Excess, 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.040 about reconstruction and the filon. 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:13.120 Period, and you know, it's it's you know Garfield's the 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.319 you know, I view Garfield as of all of our 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:23.520 assassinated presidents. You know what the modern myth making around 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.960 Kennedy was, actually that could have been Garfield, and Garfield absolutely, 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:28.800 you know, Garfield could assigned. 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:32.440 The Civil Rights Act has a great book on this right. 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:34.680 And there's a couple of them that I've read now. 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:38.000 But in order to understand eighteen eighty, you got to 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:41.760 understand eighteen seventy six. And this is my long winding 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:43.880 road to get to the eighteen seventy six. A lot 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.040 of people have written the book about the eighteen seventy 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.800 six election. There's all sorts of scholarship on it. And 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:53.720 what I've noticed is that the author's politics matter a 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:58.080 lot when you read, when you consume these books, and 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:02.840 it's become to the point where I am get frustrated 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:06.920 sometimes by his history books when you realize, no, the 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.560 author has their own point of view and they start 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:11.760 with it. And then and then it's sort of I 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:13.600 don't want to say it poisons it, because if you 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:15.520 know it in advance, you know it. 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.560 Does poison it. Chuck, because you're smart and discerning and 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.360 have read enough. But for the people who are picking 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:24.719 it up. They then become. 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:26.880 What if it's the only thing they read about it, 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.240 only that's what I always worried about it, Then that's 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.760 what I worry about too, And that's why I can't 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:32.240 do that. 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:36.520 I can't ignore that George Washington owned hundreds of human beings. 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.880 You can't, as the writer Rick Atkinson said, and you 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.560 know he's now two thirds the way through his Marvel's trilogy, 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:44.920 you can't square that circle that he makes, you know, 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.640 tactical mistakes, that he's rash on the battlefield. But all 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:51.079 the other things add up to something. And you don't 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:54.840 need to throw the baby out with the unforgiving revisionist bathwater. 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.760 Nor do you have to subscribe to the Parson Weems treaqily. 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.720 You know, never tell a lie, chop down on Jerry Dreeley, 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.160 throw a coin across the doll. You can you can 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:08.800 unsubscribe from both of these tyrannies and come to a 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:12.680 much more complex thing. And that's where you bother people. 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.920 Because they want things to fit in. They just want 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:17.840 it to be white, or they wanted to be male, 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:20.280 or they wanted to be simple, or they wanted to 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:22.920 be still entrusted with the barnacles. But we don't even 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:24.800 have to look at the big ideas that we're supposed 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:27.360 to be protecting, because if you look at those big ideas, 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:31.880 you begin to understand even further the complexity and the beauty. 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:33.520 You have to go into fiction. You have to go 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:35.120 into William Shakespeare to see all that. 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.280 So what I'm curious about is when you're dealing with 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:42.839 source material. Maybe it is Abigail Adams letters, right, maybe 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:48.079 it's Ben Franklin letters, and you really have to understand 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:51.920 the language of that day to get certain nuances. You've 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.160 got to understand that a turn of phrase that may 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.680 be meaningless to somebody reading it two hundred years later 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:01.520 actually was incredibly important. And I often find that sort 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:03.760 of what I would call the amateur historian, and I 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.319 would put myself in that where I could misinterpret reading 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:09.520 something because I'm reading it through the prism of today's 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:13.520 American English language, and I just think about those issues. So, 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:18.160 you know, when did you realize as you went through 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:22.560 this over decades that you've done this. I assume over 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.920 time you've now you're now almost an expert at seeing this. 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.040 But when you first ran into this challenge. You know 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:30.920 what were the what are the different ways to deal 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:31.240 with it? 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.880 Yeah, you know what? It manifested. I think I'm quite 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:38.200 lucky it manifested less as a challenge. It is always 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:42.680 a challenge than an exhilaration. The idea that information could 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:44.760 be delivered in a way that I wouldn't or you 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:49.840 wouldn't speak it suddenly becomes I mean, Lincoln didn't go 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.160 around saying four score and seven years ago. He was 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.040 just trying to ask you to think about eighty seven 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:57.760 years in a different way, that's all. And it was 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:01.040 a great rhetorical device for score in seven. So you 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:03.520 have to do the math yourself. He's got you. As 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.880 you're doing the math intention you're paying attention, and you've 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.560 been sucked in, and you begin to understand. And so 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:14.440 what you find in all of these parsing the last 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:18.040 sentence of the first inaugural taking, the Declaration of Independence, 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:21.000 A few phrases past the pursuit of happiness, we can 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:24.440 get to that which is really loaded and wonderful, particularly 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:28.680 for today. He says, all experience has shown that mankind 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.240 are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable. Maybe 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.240 you've read it at the picnic before on the fourth 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:37.240 of July, and just let it go over. Think about 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.200 what he's saying. He says, all experience has shown that 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.520 mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable. 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:47.560 Not hard to parse means Heretofore everybody, he has been 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.760 under an authoritarian's boot and have been willing to suffer 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.200 for that for a thousand years working someone else's land, 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.440 you know, for a thousand years being a slave without 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:01.480 even earning a farthing. Right. But this is going to 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:03.720 be a new era. This is going to be a 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:06.440 place where we're going to replace your subject hood with 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:10.120 something much more responsible, coled citizenship. So let's go back 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.120 to pursuit of happiness. So we've always assumed this is 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.880 the American license for freedom. He didn't follow John Locke 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.880 and said life, liberty, and property. He said pursuit of happiness. 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.840 And so happiness was not the acquisition of things in 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.160 a marketplace of objects, but lifelong learning in a marketplace 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.480 of ideas. If you did that, you would become more virtuous. 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:33.160 That was the free electron word throughout every episode of 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.440 the revolution. As we began to gather stuff. John Adams 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:41.160 is worrying about virtue. Abigail's worrying about that. George Washington, everybody, 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.360 even the folks at the so called bottom, are thinking 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:47.840 about it. And so virtue becomes a thing reaching back 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.680 across the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, back to antiquity, 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:56.800 the virtue that was going to make you able to 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.800 assume the mantle of this, and Adams, at one point 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.320 great worrier says, you know, there's too much avarice and ambition, 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.240 too much lust for profit, not enough virtue that I 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.520 wonder whether we have the ability to create a republic. 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.840 So what happens is by isolating these words, by getting 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.119 great actors, I have the best cast I think for 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:19.360 anyone ever made, bringing them to life in a way 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.600 that you say, oh, I now know what that means. 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:24.680 I get it, and you begin to see that those 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.199 differences which have held these people. They're wearing hoes and 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:31.120 breeches and they've got you know, powdered wigs. 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:31.879 They're not me. 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.119 There's no photograph of anybody, so they can't be like me, 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:38.840 and they are exactly like us, and they are. One 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:42.320 of the more moving things Chuck to me is that 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:46.280 they're speaking to us like all the time Washington and 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.080 Jefferson Adams too says about the millions yet unborn. They 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.880 are taking an idea that's never been tried. The chances 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.480 of success that, like Sington Green, are zero, and yet 0:17:56.480 --> 0:18:00.400 they're thinking about you and me. And so the strawdinary 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.159 story of our founding is the fact that, as the 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.120 Old Testament says, there's nothing new under the sun, guess 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.200 what on July fourth, seventeen seventy six, there was something 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.000 new under the sun. Now does that mean that there's 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.720 not the same quantities of virtue and venality and generosity 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.360 and greed. Nope, that's the same thing. And you can 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.199 find him in our story then, and it will echo or, 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:25.280 as Mark Twain said, rhyme with the present moment. But 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.480 you have to be disciplined as a storyteller not to 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.199 date your film by pointing arrows at isn't this so 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:34.240 much like today? I began this film when Barack Obama 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.359 had thirteen months to go in his presidency, right, lots 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:40.280 of water under the brid No one was talking to 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:42.719 fifty no one was celebrating. Now people are saying, oh, 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.359 you're so smart, you figured this out. You came out 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.880 exactly the right time. I went the total total luck 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:49.320 of the draw. 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:50.800 History is always the right time. 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.719 History is always the right time. There is no clearer 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.720 statement than that. And then when you do that, and 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:00.320 Mark Twain is right if he said he says history 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:03.960 doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes, you are aware. I mean, 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:06.840 I'll tell you there's a if our film is just like, 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.240 by chance, come out a year earlier than it did 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.520 in the Fall of twenty four. You knew what was 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:13.760 going on in the Fall of twenty four. Well, we follow, 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:17.280 among dozens of characters, one hundred and fifty different characters 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.040 in the film, the wife of a German general who's 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:24.400 heading to join Burgoyne's army and her husband for their 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.359 triumphant victory at Saratoga. Doesn't happen. The French come in 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:31.080 blah blah blah. I'll give away the punchline. However, she's 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.480 doing the perilous Atlantic crossing a little bit nervous because 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:40.160 she hears that Americans eat cats. Now, nobody said anything 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:42.640 this fall, but if it had come out, they'd go burns. 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:44.960 You know what he's trying to do, You know, I 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:46.840 mean there was a letter that didn't make it into 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.680 the film. But Jefferson's trapped during the Constitutional Convention in Paris, 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:54.119 and he writes a Madison who's writing the code. The 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.520 Constitution is not pros except for the preamble written by 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:01.480 Goriuvenor Morris in New York, but says what if someone 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:05.720 should lose an election and pretend false votes and reap 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:06.760 the whirlwind? 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:08.120 Right? 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.480 I mean they were trying to reverse engineer for all 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:13.120 the things. So the founders are no. 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:15.199 I mean I I look, the Constitution is such a 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:16.399 brilliant document. 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:18.600 Oh my god, four pieces they are still. 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:25.240 And it anticipated all of these issues we're dealing with today. 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.000 The thing that the Constitution that those that wrote this 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.440 Constitution didn't anticipate was that they were going to be 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:33.840 these five hundred and thirty five individuals who didn't bother 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:36.159 to read Article one. That's exactly what I was just 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:36.640 going to say. 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:39.399 Uve El eleven, the conservative scholar told me the Scott 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:41.720 the founders would not be surprised that someone who was 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:46.639 seeking monarchical powers is that Article one, the first article 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.080 that Article two is the executive that's the manager of 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.159 what Article one did. And the third article. Is the 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.159 judicial that is going to judge this and pass on 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:58.880 it is that they had abdicated their power. That would 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:03.080 be the great overwhelming disappointment on the part of the founders. 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.280