WEBVTT

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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I do think there's an
arrogance we in the present

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have about things and
people that went before us.

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And so one of the
jobs that I feel

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is incumbent upon the
writing of documentary films

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and the making of
documentary films

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is to restore to those
now dead people, now gone

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people, the fullness
and the degree

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of complication of their life,
their humanness, back to them.

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of complication of their life,
their humanness, back to them.

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That's our work-- is
to restore humanity

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to the human beings
that went before that

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don't speak for themselves.

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They do if you
take their diaries.

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They do if you write in a
way that brings them alive.

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They do if you treat
that old photograph

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as moving and not static--

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all of those things.

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If you play their music
on the instruments

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that they heard it on, then
you have the possibility

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of willing them to life.

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of willing them to life.

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You have the possibility
of waking the dead.

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You have to liberate
your characters

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to their full human dimension,
whether they're historical

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or not.

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In my world, in the
world of documentary,

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of nonfiction historical
work, these people

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exist more out of my film
than they do in my film.

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And so I am trying to distill
an essence of an accurate

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And so I am trying to distill
an essence of an accurate

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aspect of it, knowing full
well that the things I'm

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drawn to and the things
that I'm distilling

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reflect, however unconsciously,
my own biases and emotions

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and inclinations.

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So I'm always selecting
to build a character here

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and mindful that I can't
make it some perfect image,

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the white hat or the dark
hat, that the hero will

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have significant flaws, will
be wounded in certain ways,

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and that the villains will
have their own humanity

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and that the villains will
have their own humanity

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and their own
attractive aspects.

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That's hugely important.

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But I also know they still exist
in a kind of historical reality

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that I also have
to be mindful of.

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And that makes
the making of what

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we do a kind of three
dimensional chess game.

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And so being hyper aware of
it on your own part as you

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struggle to make
a character real

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means that you have to
permit a darker side,

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that Lincoln was tardy
on slavery, that he

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that Lincoln was tardy
on slavery, that he

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was a depressive, that he didn't
do this and he didn't do that.

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He suspended habeas
corpus in Maryland.

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And I mean, the greatest
assault on the Constitution

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is by the guy who saved the
United States of America.

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Abraham Lincoln-- you've got
to be able to understand that.

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What we think is, and
storytelling tells us,

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we must have a beginning,
middle, and end

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to every character that we
have, in addition to the arc

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to every character that we
have, in addition to the arc

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of a story in general.

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And in some ways,
that's fraudulent.

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Some people aren't like that.

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Some people die early.

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Some people flame out
early, whatever it is.

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But it is possible,
in some way, to see

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how you introduce a character.

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So Frederick Douglass
comes in, say,

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in "The Civil War"
in the first episode.

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And we understand that
this is, as we put it,

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and as he put it, someone who
stole himself from slavery.

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So he appears there,
in the beginning,

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as a kind of
representative in lots

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as a kind of
representative in lots

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of different ways of an
aspiring group of people,

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the black African slaves
stolen from their homeland,

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forced to abandon their
culture, their language,

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and their religions to live
and serve without pay a master

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growing cotton or tobacco
or whatever it might be,

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under the worst
of circumstances.

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And the very first
chapter of "The Civil War"

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is how bad it was in slavery.

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It's called "All Night Forever."

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And it begins with a quote from
Frederick Douglass about how

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And it begins with a quote from
Frederick Douglass about how

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beautiful the country is.

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But when he thinks
about, you know,

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all the tears of his
sisters and brothers

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and the blood that washes
freely into its rivers,

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I am filled, he said,
with unutterable loathing.

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So it's a pretty good entrance.

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And then you find
out a little bit

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later about how he is as
part of the abolitionist

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and emancipation movement.

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And then he has a middle
in which he's constantly

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a thorn in the side of
Lincoln, urging him farther

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than Lincoln's willing to
go, negotiating with him.

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Admiring Lincoln, but also
understanding how tardy

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Admiring Lincoln, but also
understanding how tardy

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he is on what's right.

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Douglas is there like a
conscience on his shoulder.

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That's his middle.

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And his end is as an old man.

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Some student asked
him what he should do.

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And he said, agitate,
agitate, agitate.

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And so the end of the arc
of Frederick Douglass,

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with an arc of the whole nine
episodes of "The Civil War"

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is something-- it's a message
that comes right to moment.

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Without knowing it, back in
1989 when we finished the film,

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Without knowing it, back in
1989 when we finished the film,

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he was talking about Black
Lives Matter and Trayvon Martin,

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and you know, Michael
Brown, and Eric Garner,

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and everybody else--

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who has to be sacrificed
in order for us to continue

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to not live out,
as Dr. King said,

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the true meaning of our creed.

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And that is not judging people
on the color of their skin,

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but on the content
of their character.

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And so Douglass forms with us,
even unconsciously knowing it,

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that arc, serving a
larger arc of many people.

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that arc, serving a
larger arc of many people.

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The driving engine of story, of
narrative, of arc is conflict,

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is tension.

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And that tension can
be within a character.

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That is to say, certain
flaws within that person

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that are working at cross
purposes, that, you know,

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it's, like, don't do that,
you're saying to yourself.

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Or you know, please do this.

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No, choose him, not her.

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No, choose him, not her.

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Right?

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And then, of course,
more often than not,

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it's between individuals or
between things that we do it.

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And the best stuff
understands that both

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occur at the same time.

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So that often, in order to
serve the external conflicts

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and tensions, we make
people one dimensional--

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good guys all good,
bad guys all bad.

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When we do more
psychological things,

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we understand the dimensions and
the conflicts within a person,

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good or bad, and
we play to that.

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good or bad, and
we play to that.

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But the best films
permit external drama

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to be complicated and internal
drama to be complicated.

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And they only serve
each other, and you

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begin to understand that there
could be more than one truth

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to a situation.

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Most recently in
our "Vietnam" film,

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we had the great
privilege of interviewing

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a very, very complicated
marine named John Musgrave.

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And we are with him
on the battlefield

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as he is trying to negotiate
staying alive, killing

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as he is trying to negotiate
staying alive, killing

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the enemy, not being
killed by them,

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understanding dynamics of
warfare that are elemental.

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And he's also dealing
with his government.

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And he's in conflict
with some of the things

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that they're suggesting
that he does.

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He's also in complete
sync with the government.

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He's volunteered for
the Marine Corps.

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He wants to be in the varsity,
fighting his country's enemies.

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That's what he wants to do.

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His wounding is one of
the most climactic things

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we've ever done in a film.

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we've ever done in a film.

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[GUNFIRE IN BACKGROUND]

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I mean, I've got a hole
through my chest big enough

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to stick your fist through.

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And I'm dying, and I know it.

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And I heard this horrible
screaming going on.

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And I was trying to figure out
who was screaming like that,

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because it sounded so--

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and then I realized it was me.

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And he disappears for a
while, and we come back to him.

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And he disappears for a
while, and we come back to him.

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Now he's living on
a campus, trying

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to keep the loud
noise of this horror

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that he's been
through quiet, trying

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to negotiate a country
that's now opposed to the war

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that he thought he
was nobly fighting.

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And he himself undergoes an
extraordinary transformation

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over the rest of the film
that mirrors, in some ways,

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the entire country.

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I remember when the kids
were killed at Kent State.

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And I thought, my God, we're
killing our own children.

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And I thought, my God, we're
killing our own children.

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We've really gone mad.

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And I wasn't-- that's when
I was hiding from things.

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I wasn't in anybody's
movement then.

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I was just drinking.

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But that was one of
the things that told me

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America needed a wake up call.

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[CROWD NOISE]

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So he engages in
the anti-war movement.

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So we spend our time with him
in his internal conflicts.

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But more importantly,
we're also covering

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the conflicts he's having
at war and after war

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in the anti-war thing.

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And what he permits you
to do is to walk with him

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and see all of the dynamics
of those conflicts, both inner

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and outer.