Summary on George Washington Article
In this article, Richard Brookhiser, (2002) explains about capturing the life of George Washington for the purpose of being televised. He explains that Americans bestow a lot of respect to their fore fathers despite the fact that they know very little history. He does this in collaboration with Michael Pack who he had known since early eighties. Richard claims that dealing with historical documentary was new to both of them since they had been dealing with political issues. Richard was a political journalist whose attention was on dead politicians while Michael had been dealing with political documentaries for the last fifteen years (Brookhiser, 2002).
Before starting the preparation of the documentary, they first deliberated on how to present George Washington’s achievements since there was too much to be covered. This would range from when he was appointed by continental congress to head revolutionary armies in June 1775 to December 1779 when he died. To get insight on how to tackle it they first viewed Washington’s earlier documentaries that used narrative approach. Richard puts it that it was not possible to tell Washington’s story chronologically since he was a pioneer in many things (Brookhiser, 2002). They opted to concentrate on his character without necessarily focusing on every problem he faced but on his dispositions and abilities that enabled him to face the problems effectively.
Their film preparation followed all the rules of storytelling in historical documentaries but put more emphasis on character part. The film lacked narrative framework and therefore to hook viewers’ interests they brought past into the present which is so uncommon in historical documentaries. To describe fully Washington’s character, modern applications were used together with contemporary ones taken when discussing some episodes that illuminated a particular skill about Washington. However, on slavery, which Washington was accused with, they visited one of his slave Nancy Quander’s families and asked them their thought about Washington. These families were more charitable and positive about him(Brookhiser, 2002). Richard concludes by saying that much can be leanrt from Washington and that though Americans were not highly knowledgeable on history, they had respect and positive attitudes towards their founding fathers like George Washington.
References
Brookhiser, R. (2002). Introducing Washington Byline. Periodical, 53(3), 56.
