Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns was on the Late Show with David Letterman this week promoting his latest project, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, a seven-part, fourteen hour film, which will air in this fall. Burns is known for spinning historical material into TV gold for PBS – Brooklyn Bridge, The Civil War. But the Roosevelts? What hasn’t been revealed? Those who passed high school US History know how the National Parks, the Panama Canal, and the New Deal came to be. And even those who didn’t pass the class know about Eleanor. Although Burns doesn’t out her in the film. “This is an intimate history, not a tabloid history,” Burns told The Hollywood Reporter.
The late historian Stephen Ambrose said of Ken Burns’ films, “More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source.” Is that a good thing? The Roosevelts will air on PBS stations Sept. 14-20, from 8-10 p.m. ET each night.
