The six-part PBS documentary “The American Revolution,” which airs Sunday, Nov. 16, opens not with cannon fire but with Thomas Paine’s declaration that “from a small spark, kindled in America, a flame has arisen not to be extinguished.” The line signals the filmmakers’ intent to treat the Revolution not as distant mythology but as a living force shaping the nation’s conscience.
Filmed over six years at nearly a hundred locations, the series ranges from New England battlefields to the Carolinas. Yet for viewers in the Hudson Valley, its landscapes feel especially familiar: many of the documentary’s most striking scenes were shot in Dutchess and Columbia counties.
Students at Stissing Mountain High School may spot something else — their teacher.
Neil Murray, a longtime social studies instructor who appears briefly after participating in a reenactment at Fort Ticonderoga, plans to show the film in class. “I have used and continue to use Ken Burns documentaries in my U.S. History and Military History courses,” Murray said. “Through his films he is able to explain the complexity of American history through a visual lens that brings the past to life.” Burns, he added, “does not focus on the mythology of American History. With attention to the details of material culture he crafts our American story with the reality of its course.”
From the banks below Bard College to the fields of Clermont and the wooded trails of Millbrook, the region’s topography is woven throughout “The American Revolution” — a 12-hour project directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt and written by Geoffrey C. Ward.
For Botstein, the valley is more than a backdrop. It is home. “I grew up on the Bard college campus,” she said. “I went to Red Hook public schools and lived half my life in Tivoli.” That familiarity shaped the production. When the team was scouting, she said, “it was really fortunate that I lived part of my life in that area and know it very well.”
The Hudson Valley’s geography, she noted, is inseparable from the history itself. “All the way up through Fort Ticonderoga and all the way down to the Battle of Long Island… this is really important American Revolutionary War territory,” she said. Crossing the Kingston-Rhinecliff or Rip Van Winkle bridges means driving over what had been “one of the main waterways of the 18th century that was extremely important to us winning independence from Britain.”
The production’s sweep reflects a long and deliberate effort. “The film took nearly 10 years to complete, and we were actively shooting for about six of those years,” Botstein said. Thanks to historic sites from Saratoga to Crown Point, she added, the team was able to film across multiple seasons and years.
The process reshaped her understanding of the war. “One takeaway is how long the American Revolution took to fight and win,” she said. “How much it was a terribly brutal civil war, not just amongst communities but families — brother against brother, son against father.”
That evolving understanding is also why she sees broad public access as essential to the project’s mission. “I have spent my entire professional life making films for public television because I truly believe in public television,” she said. “It’s free and accessible to everybody.”
For Murray, that public mission matters. “I’m very excited to see his new work on the American Revolution,” he said. “I’m sure he will explain the complexity of the American Revolution far beyond just a bunch of Patriots upset about taxes.” Of appearing in the documentary, he added, “I’m honored to be a part of this great undertaking to bring our 250th anniversary to life.”
“The American Revolution” premieres at 8 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 16, on PBS and will stream at PBS.org and on the PBS app.