Ken Burns’s The National Parks on PBS
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009I’ve been watching The National Parks, America’s Best Idea for a few days. At first it seemed a bit boring, but maybe that’s because most of the outdoors videos I watch are Radical Reels or any ski movie made since 1992. Watching “America’s Best Idea” is a bit like going from a Lange poster to an Ansel Adams print; it takes a bit of time to see the beauty.
The old photos and the talking heads in the documentary are fantastic. If I could offer one small criticism (besides the name), it would be the music. This is nothing new for a Burns doc; the songs in his baseball documentary were all just different version of “Take Me Out to The Ballpark.” Also, what was with the Muir historian who had a beard exactly like Muir?
The story of the National Parks mirrors the story of every VH1 musician documentary. Someone finds the park/musician, tries to exploit it for financial gain, and then an advocate steps in and saves it. Regardless, I’m enjoying the program very much.


