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List Price: $24.99 | | Label: PBS Paramount
Salesrank: 35200
Released: September 28, 2004 |
| Our Price: $22.74 |
| Used Price: $8.19 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
The complicated life of Thomas Jefferson is the subject of this excellent documentary by noted filmmaker Ken Burns. Using techniques that will seem comfortably familiar to viewers of other films by Burns, historians and writers (including Joseph Ellis, Daniel Boorstin, Garry Wills, and Gore Vidal) appear on camera to speak about Jefferson, a cast of actors read the words of Jefferson and others. The visuals include beautifully photographed shots of Jefferson's famed estate, Monticello, other locations where Jefferson lived and worked, and a vast number of period drawings and paintings. Jefferson, who was born into a prosperous Virginia family but lost his father when he was young, became a skilled lawyer despite his natural shyness. And the story of how he became a public figure and rose to prominence during the American Revolution is told intelligently. Commentators, including the noted African American historian John Hope Franklin, grapple with the peculiar inconsistencies of Jefferson's life. The man who wrote the Declaration of Independence owned slaves, and some of what he wrote about race is both troubling and puzzling. This film (which covers Jefferson's entire life, including his two terms as the young country's president and his later years in Virginia) doesn't sidestep controversy but provides a balanced account of one of the most fascinating of all Americans. --Robert J. McNamara
Thomas Jefferson: A Film by Ken Burns Reviews:
great introduction to Thomas Jefferson 
2009-11-30 - What a great introduction to Thomas Jefferson! There are touches on controversies that seem nicely balanced. The thesis that Gore Vidal voices that Jefferson is the spirit of the American narrative in the flesh - that he is it - is beautifully substantiated by the emphasis on the paradoxes that we can find in Jefferson's life and match those with the same paradoxes in the life of the nation. There is a very nice development of the relationships between Jefferson and his contemporaries - especially Adams. Lots of scenes of Monticello and a wealth of resources gathered from a world of sources all make this a great learning tool and entertaining at the same time.
I learned more about Thomas Jefferson than I did in school.. 
2009-11-15 - Children would become more interested in history if
more schools taught like this series(with the exception
of a few facts.)
Very well done and interesting DvD.
I always percieved Thomas Jefferson as a larger than Life
personality when actually he was very shy...
At an early age he liked books more than people..taught
himself 2 languages by the time he was 6 years old...
1. he encourged the Lousiana purchase that doubled
the size of America..
2. His father died when he was very young, personal
tragedy followed him all of his life.
3. His wife died young...and 5 of his 6 children died.
4. He was an enigma that wrote "all men are created equal" but
was one of the largest slave owners in Virginia..
5. He helped establish schools that anyone could attend
for free...and didn't want government interferance.
6. Jefferson and John Adams were friends
became adversaries when Jefferson wanted the people
freedom to dissent when needed and John Adam believed
in larger government later in life when both were
more aged they started writing to each other and settled their
differences.
7. Jefferson and Adams passed away on the same day..
July 4th 1826...the 50th anniversary of our
independance they helped achieve.
this DVD explores much more about the man himself and
I became interested when I saw the John Adams HBO series
i will watch this dvd over and over...
Thomas Jefferson
2009-11-05 - Extremely well done documentary on Thomas Jefferson. Every citizen should be required to watch, and learn.
Thomas Jefferson - A film by Ken Burns
2009-10-01 - Excellent, it has gone into my T.J. Library! Like him, My robot IS his Monicello...it will be finished, someday.
In The Time Of The Promise Of The American Republic
2009-06-18 - Parts of this review have been used previously in reviewing John Dos Passos' "The Shackles of Power". Many of the points addressed in that review on Jefferson and the nature of the Jeffersonian period in American history apply here as well.
I have spent gallons of ink around this July 4th celebratory time every year, and I believe justifiably so given the objectives of this site, drawing some strong distinction between various periods of the common American historical experience. I have extolled the early days of the American Republic when it held out, to paraphrase what Lincoln noted later in the crucible of the Civil War, another high point in the American experience, the promise that the "America democratic experiment represented the last, best hope of mankind". And Lincoln was right then. In contrast I have heaped scorn, and that is an appropriate word here, on later periods lambasting the turn to the American imperium that we still suffer under. Of course, none of this periodization is all cut and dried but today; at least, I want to go back to that earlier, more hopeful period of the birth of the American Republic.
Normally, when one thinks of the early period of the American Republic one's thoughts turn to the struggle for independence from impetuous British imperialism, the subsequent fights to create some workable form of government and the consolidation of the American state, against all comers, as a factor in world history. The names Washington, Adams, Morris, Franklin and the like come easily to mind in that narrative. Moreover, lately, the period had been worked over almost to exhaustion as if resurrecting that heroic period will shed some reflected light on today's ugly political scene.
Today, though, in reviewing master documentary filmmaker Ken Burn's "Thomas Jefferson" I want to look at, as I did in reviewing John Dos Passos' older historical narrative (1966), "The Shackles Of Power", the period just after that consolidation when the contours of the disputes that would form the two major political philosophies that govern American politics got pushed center stage. This is the time of Jefferson and his acolytes, Madison and Monroe, and their partisans in the various state Democratic Republican organizations centered on the plebeian-supported local newspapers. And it is also the time when the original Hamiltonian federalist impulse that governed the firs period of American life petered out in that form with the passing away of its old leadership, its cranky secessionist politics and its elitist conceits. That is a good enough time span for our work, basically the period from Jefferson's hotly contested election in 2000 (oops, 1800) through the period formerly known as "the era of good feelings" (quaint, right?) to the period, today, now, tentatively, in the academy known as the period of the rise of "Jacksonian democracy". This is the heart of the Burns documentary and the part that makes for the most interesting aspect of the film.
Those last points in the paragraph above are germane to Burns view of the Jeffersonian story. This is, after, all the age where the Alexander Hamilton-led Federalist pro-mercantile strong central government policies and the Jefferson-led Democratic Republican weak central government, strong state governments pro-"yeoman farmer" policy fights came front and center. Those trends, in various guises, have continued to this day in the hurly-burly of every day democratic politics. Needless to say, this little capsule comment of mine concerning the outlines of the disputes is merely that, an outline. As with any documentary, Burns is confronted with that same problem of merely outlining the various political struggles. Take this documentary as a primer on the period. Not as the final word
One of Burns virtues as a literary-oriented film man is that he, unlike many professional historians some of whom like Gary Wills populate this production, brings a snappy literary style to his narrative. Thus, he spends less time on the arcania of the internal politics of the Federalist and Democratic Republicans and more on outcomes. Thus, although Thomas Jefferson is the central character of this work, plenty of space is given to other secondary characters central to this narrative like the on/off relationship between Jefferson and his predecessor John Adams, the rise of James Madison and James Monroe in the early 1800's as adherents of the Jeffersonian tradition. And so on.
Of course no history of this period is complete without a nod to Jefferson's inspired acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase as an important, if not defining, aspect of creating what would be come the American nation-state, the development of an internal transportation system, the rise of public education fostered by the post-presidential Jefferson and the increasing politicization of the governing process through increased literacy, broadening the suffrage franchise and the formation, in embryo, of the party system.
As I mentioned in the Dos Passos review, obviously a history documentary , well researched or not, that dates from an earlier time (even if here only ten years) will neither reflect the evolving tendencies in historical studies, such as they are, or the incredible increase in material sources to be drawn from that have become available since then. For example, the now "hot" issue of Jefferson's relationship with his slave mistress, Sally Hemings, and their children is a case in point. The "talking heads", including Professor John Hope Franklin, that always drive documentaries , reflecting the received wisdom of the time pass on a rather agnostic view of their relationship, if not outright acceptance of the `evidence' for denial of the relationship. Also far too little critical mention is given to the importance of slave ownership to Jefferson's personal financial fate, whatever his philosophical views on the matter. Jefferson, in effect, is given pass on this issue. If a greater presidential figure like Abraham Lincoln can "take heat" for his racial views from today's historians then the slave-owner Jefferson does not deserve that pass. Notwithstanding those problems this is a good Jefferson primer. Watch it.
