The Pilgrims

I never knew the full story but this explained it very well. Nice cinematography too. I don't like this leftist political-correctness that's infiltrated almost everything, the 'white-guilt' thing that most film makers are using these days, as though white people should be bending over backwards and apologizing for all their ancestors actions. The truth is that it is simply human nature that stronger humans have always dominated and exploited weaker ones and even in this documentary it's mentioned that there were warring native tribes before Europeans arrived. Luckily there's not too much of it in this documentary but I knocked off 2 stars for what there was of it. Otherwise I would have given it a 10.

Mistake number one was having a sickly 71 year old man portray the key role of 30 year old William Bradford who became the colony's Governor. Good make-up and lighting can age a 30 year old actor into a senior citizen but it doesn't work the other way around. Inexplicably bad choice.

Mistake two was the dark, moody, often way out-of-focus photography that only draws attention to itself for no good reason.

Mistake three was a script that missed the message of why the Plymouth Colony succeeded better than most European settlements in the New World. It also failed to detail the symbiotic alliance between the Wampanoag natives and the English settlers.

For me, the only redeeming segment of the film was the interesting story of how Governor Bradford's detailed history of the Mayflower voyage and the Plymouth settlement was lost for a century and found only by accident.

There are other and much better versions of this story to be seen.

Choosing to portray William Bradford as old and sickly was a mistake, in my opinion. Every time the actor came on, it was like all the life was sucked out of the film, although the words he read were interesting. The history was difficult to follow. And the visuals were like many in Nova - fairly static and boring. There were some weird choices, for example when the landing party encountered an existing Native grave (they dug it up in hope of finding food), the confusion they felt was portrayed by blurring the images and moving the camera around. The story was mostly dependent on the narration, the visuals often seemed incidental. We did learn some stuff while watching it. 5/10.

Filmmaker Ric Burns' documentary 'The Pilgrims' tells the story of England's settlement of Plymouth in 1620. Its central figure is William Bradford who casts a tall shadow - from that a child orphaned at an early age to governor of the Plymouth Colony. The narrator underscores his role by saying, "To a remarkable degree, we would scarcely remember the Pilgrims at all and certainly not remember them as we do, if not for the unusual man who came to lead them in the New World and the unusual book he left behind." Throughout, quantities of stories are told and finely sharpened, both new and familiar.

The 'unusual man', Bradford, breathes a life of religious devotion mixed with harrowing difficulty. Among the points illustrated: that he was drawn to a religious sect with radical leanings; their conflict with the British monarch; the group's flight to Denmark, and later rejoin the British Empire as part of a risky journey to the New World. This is followed by their arrival in America. "Your carcasses shall fall," was a warning fulfilled (from the Bible, Hebrews 11) that first harsh winter. Indeed, it is remarkable those few surviving Pilgrims and English "Strangers" survived at all - it was a brutal and nasty business.

And yet after so much suffering the seeds of democracy fell, too, consecrated as literary scholar and author Kathleen Donegan says, by the bones of the Plymouth settlement's buried dead. Planted carefully are the dark and violent events communicated by Bradford's whispering voice and powerful words. They echo his search for Godliness, divine principle, unity and liberty, taken together and poetically clarified by extremes endured.

And in his 'unusual book' the colony's struggles were both revealed and hidden as part of a manuscript twenty years in the making, "a luminous text unlike any other account of early American settlement" - written, the experts observe, for some future audience, prosperity - and called 'Of Plimoth Plantations'. This volume plays its part in the film as national treasure, and author Nathaniel Philbrick rightly calls it "one of the great books of American literature and history." Two hundred years later, of course, this work became the basis for America's annual Thanksgiving celebration.

The film's narration by Oliver Platt is woven among appearances by Bradford, played by Roger Rees (whose diction is unclear) to whom the documentary is dedicated, together with many rich observations from an illuminating panel of commentators: historians, authors, and experts, those who have studied, lived and breathed this material, so captivating and dramatic.

Event follows tragic event as the indigenous Indians taunt, help, kill and are killed and finally decimated. Collectively the experts seem to ask, "How might we best appreciate this violent tale of our national origin?" And their answer: by reflecting on the suffering and success portrayed with critical appreciation of what is worthy and troublesome then as well as today, as history teaches. Human drama has rarely unfolded in a deeper fashion - an extraordinary gift, indeed, to remember.

One final note - it is recommended to use the closed caption option while viewing this film so as not to miss a word.

This is history re-enacted. This is not The Terminator. So if history bores you, then you may not think this is a 10. So I am not as concerned that an older actor played Bradford than if Justin Bieber played Bradford. This is the story of whats in Bradfords logs. Not so much the story of other peoples writings. So it is an intimate detailing of a founding member of Plymoth plantation. This makes it very enlightening as to the mindset of the way of life of the first Plymoth colony. Details they just don't teach in school. And I find it especially touching that the actor that played Bradford passed away at the end of this last performance. Id say he did an outstanding performance.