Mark Twain

"I am not an American, I am the American," Samuel Langhorne Clemens--better known by his pen name Mark Twain--once remarked, and while the claim might seem a bit on the hubristic side, this printer's apprentice, one-time Confederate soldier, inept businessman, novelist, and "funniest person on Earth," was--in some respects--the quintessential American in his coast-to-coast travels, enthusiastic but routinely disastrous get-rich-quick schemes, pursuit of celebrity, and almost tall tale birth and death (both of which coincided with the appearance of Halley's Comet). Filmmaker Ken Burns combines interview footage with actors, authors and Twain scholars (including Hal Holbrook, Arthur Miller, and William Styron), archival stills and footage, and generous excerpts from the writings of Twain himself, to paint a moving portrait of a man whose accomplishments were legendary (he was not only the first American writer to embrace the American vernacular, Twain was also the first to depict a black man as a full human being) and whose life was marked by nigh unbearable tragedy (he would outlive not only his wife, but all--save one--of his children). Drawing on his childhood in Hannibal, Missouri, the author created some of the most memorable characters in American literature--Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, Huckleberry Finn, the runaway slave Jim, the Widow Douglas, and others--while exploring the two primary American themes, "race" and "space" (i.e., the great continental expanse). With the major works of the 1880's behind him, Twain would turn to publishing and investing (failing at both) before returning to his one bona fide moneymaker--the lecture circuit (immortalized on VHS/DVD by Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight--available from Kultur). In his later years, Twain's writing would become increasingly bitter, but in public he would more fully inhabit the fictional persona of Mark Twain he had created, entertaining countless visitors with his legendary bon mots ("I was born modest, but it didn't last."). The DVD includes extended interview footage, a "making of" featuring Burns and co-producer Dayton Duncan, and a pair of featurettes on Burns found on most of his other DVDs. Sure to spark a renaissance of interest in Twain's writing, this wonderful biographical film--equally conducive to laughter and tears--is highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)