Ken Burns, the preeminent documentary filmmaker of his generation, knows how to captivate audiences, whether it’s with history or a quip.
When he told hundreds of fans at a Wayne State University auditorium on Sept. 26 that the doors were being locked for a screening of all 12 hours of his latest project, he earned an appreciative laugh.
“You must be so relieved that you don’t have to watch until 7 tomorrow morning,” he said just before the lights went down for an hour of clips from the “The American Revolution” documentary series that premieres on PBS in November.
Documentary maker Ken Burns spoke to a Wayne State University crowd about his new PBS series, “The American Revolution,” on Sept. 26, 2025.
Burns, who grew up in Ann Arbor, was in Detroit as part of a national tour to introduce the six-episode documentary series that he directed with Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt. Friday night’s event was hosted by Detroit PBS.
“The American Revolution” tells the story of the war for independence fought by 13 British colonies seeking to establish a united government — a complex quest that would become an epic historical moment and influence democratic movements through the centuries.
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The docuseries adds a rich layer of context by following the lives of numerous people from different backgrounds, not just politicians and solders but also Native Americans, enslaved and free African Americans, European foes and allies, and more.
Their real-life memories are drawn from sources like letters and diaries and voiced by an all-star cast that includes southeast Michigan’s Jeff Daniels, who narrates the words of Thomas Jefferson.
In his opening remarks, Burns acknowledged with regret that this would be his last film underwritten by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is shutting down as the result of the spending clawback requested by President Donald Trump and passed by Congress that eliminated federal funding for the CPB.
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After the sneak preview, Burns joined Botstein and historian Kathleen DuVal (who appears in the series) for a discussion led by “American Black Journal” host and “One Detroit” contributor Stephen Henderson.
Journalist Stephen Henderson, left, documentary maker Ken Burns, co-director Sarah Botstein and historian Kathleen DuVal were part of a panel discussion about Burns’ new documentary series, “The American Revolution,” at Wayne State University on Sept. 26, 2025.
Burns shared that there is a neon sign in his editing room that says, “It’s complicated.” He talked about wanting to deliver a narrative that would honor “the complexity of not only the story (and) the storytellers but also the audience and treat them with the kind of intelligence that they so clearly have.”
Burns didn’t delve into the divisive nature of contemporary America, but did say “it might be helpful to go back to the beginning” and understand more about the origins of the nation and wide range of people who were part of the history of the revolution.
“We are hoping that this film could help put the us back in the U.S.,” he said.
Discussing the decade-long process of making “The American Revolution,” Botstein joked that it is “the shortest big film I’ve ever worked on,” referring to her collaborations with Burns on projects like “The Vietnam War,” an 18-hour series,” and “Jazz,” which ran 19 hours.
DuVal spoke about how, over the 50 years since the 1976 bicentennial celebrations, historians have been “taking what used to, too often, be a narrow story of the American Revolution and broadening it out, saying, “What do all different kinds of men, women and even teenagers and children think about the revolution, do in the revolution, hope to get out of the revolution.”
Seeing how the docuseries put all of that scholarship and research into an immersive experience felt “almost miraculous,” said DuVal, who won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in history for her book “Native Nations: A Millennium in North America.”
For more information on “The American Revolution” for viewers and classrooms, go to the PBS.org page on the docuseries and the Detroit PBS page on America’s 250th birthday.
Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ken Burns gives Detroit audience a sneak peek at new history series
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