Ken Burns and National Recognition
Foote had regained his health before filmmaker Ken Burns first interviewed him in April 1986. At the time, Burns was working on his landmark PBS Civil War television documentary, which first aired four years later in September 1990. Combining historical photographs, period music, celebrity narration of primary source documents, and historians’ analyses, Burns presented his interpretation of the Civil War to a massive audience of thirty-nine million viewers. Thanks to Robert Penn Warren’s recommendation, Foote served as a consultant and talking head for Burns’s project, along with such prominent historians as Barbara Fields, Ed Bearss, and Stephen B. Oates. Nevertheless, Foote’s interpretation of the war came to dominate the documentary. After all, Foote made a total of eighty-nine appearances in the nine-episode documentary – far more than any other expert – and offered nearly one hour of anecdotal history in his Mississippi drawl. Just as he wrote in his Narrative, Foote on screen spoke of the Civil War as a sentimental military struggle between ideologically aligned white brothers, emphasizing the battle prowess and valor of certain generals, including his controversial hero, Nathan Bedford Forrest. Burns largely followed Foote’s interpretation.
Like Foote’s Narrative, Burns’s documentary attracted a flood of criticism from the historical academy. According to Eric Foner, for instance, Burns offered “a vision of the Civil War as a family quarrel among whites, whose fundamental accomplishment was the preservation of the Union and in which the destruction of slavery was a side issue and African Americans little more than a problem confronting white society.”[7] Catherine Clinton, historian of American women, agreed, arguing that the final “images of a re-enactment of Pickett’s Charge in 1913 sentimentalized the theme of reconciliation, providing a folksy and comfortable closure for white Americans – and a racialized distortion of the war’s meaning.”[8] In short, historians recognized and resented Burns’s – and thus Foote’s – fratricidal thesis as a means to avoid the issue of slavery and its connection to the Civil War.
Like Foote’s Narrative, Burns’s documentary attracted a flood of criticism from the historical academy. According to Eric Foner, for instance, Burns offered “a vision of the Civil War as a family quarrel among whites, whose fundamental accomplishment was the preservation of the Union and in which the destruction of slavery was a side issue and African Americans little more than a problem confronting white society.”[7] Catherine Clinton, historian of American women, agreed, arguing that the final “images of a re-enactment of Pickett’s Charge in 1913 sentimentalized the theme of reconciliation, providing a folksy and comfortable closure for white Americans – and a racialized distortion of the war’s meaning.”[8] In short, historians recognized and resented Burns’s – and thus Foote’s – fratricidal thesis as a means to avoid the issue of slavery and its connection to the Civil War.
The mainstream viewing public, on the other hand, embraced the Foote-Burns interpretation of the war as they embraced Foote himself. The bearded, charming, and knowledgeable Foote, as People magazine put it, represented “a kind of video folk hero” to Burns’s audience.[9] Moreover, Americans of all regions agreed with southern novelist Reynolds Price, who claimed that Foote was “the last of the Southern gentlemen. In the best sense of the word, he’s a man of grace and courtesy.”[10] Foote’s appeal was so strong that, in fact, for a period after the documentary’s PBS debut, he received about twenty phone calls a day from adoring fans seeking answers to their historical questions. In addition to People, USA Today and Newsweek also profiled Foote, and he even appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in November 1990. In effect, the Burns series turned Foote into a Civil War celebrity.
After decades of scribbling in the shadows of popular acclaim, Foote finally received widespread recognition for his written works. In the 1990s, his book sales skyrocketed, he accepted twenty honorary degrees from colleges and universities across the nation, and he was asked to write introductions for several important works. Foote also became a public defender of Civil War history, protesting the development of a Disney theme park on the battlefield of Manassas and defending the statue of his hero, Nathan Bedford Forrest, in a public Memphis park. Inundated with phone calls from fans and readers and now saddled with public obligations, Foote’s own writing career effectively ended after the Burns series. At the time of his 2005 death in Memphis, Foote was one of the most well-known and celebrated Civil War writers.
After decades of scribbling in the shadows of popular acclaim, Foote finally received widespread recognition for his written works. In the 1990s, his book sales skyrocketed, he accepted twenty honorary degrees from colleges and universities across the nation, and he was asked to write introductions for several important works. Foote also became a public defender of Civil War history, protesting the development of a Disney theme park on the battlefield of Manassas and defending the statue of his hero, Nathan Bedford Forrest, in a public Memphis park. Inundated with phone calls from fans and readers and now saddled with public obligations, Foote’s own writing career effectively ended after the Burns series. At the time of his 2005 death in Memphis, Foote was one of the most well-known and celebrated Civil War writers.
[7] Eric Foner, “Ken Burns and the Romance of Reunion,” in Ken Burns’s The Civil War: Historians Respond, ed. Robert B. Toplin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 101-118.
[8] Catherine Clinton, “Noble Women As Well,” Ken Burns’s The Civil War: Historians Respond, d. Robert B. Toplin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 63-80.
[9] Michelle Green and David Hutchings, “The Civil War Finds a Homer in Writer Shelby Foote,” People, October 15, 1990, accessed December 3, 2015, http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20113329,00.html.
[10] Reynolds Price qtd. in Stuart Chapman, Shelby Foote: A Writer’s Life (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003), 257.
[8] Catherine Clinton, “Noble Women As Well,” Ken Burns’s The Civil War: Historians Respond, d. Robert B. Toplin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 63-80.
[9] Michelle Green and David Hutchings, “The Civil War Finds a Homer in Writer Shelby Foote,” People, October 15, 1990, accessed December 3, 2015, http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20113329,00.html.
[10] Reynolds Price qtd. in Stuart Chapman, Shelby Foote: A Writer’s Life (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003), 257.