Ken Burns' latest documentary frames stories of conservation, humanity through Wyoming's iconic creature

Sep. 30—CHEYENNE — Ken Burns was a younger man when he and his longtime writing partner, Dayton Duncan, conceived the idea for their latest documentary.

The critically acclaimed documentarian, creator of relentlessly thorough, award-winning series like "The Civil War," "Country Music," "The Vietnam War," "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" and "Baseball," returns with a new two-part production, "The American Buffalo."

In the grand scheme, however, those 30 years since he first considered the film is a blip. Yet, its release in mid-October comes at an optimal moment in the timeline.

"We first had this idea in the early '90s, but I'm glad we didn't do it," Burns told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle in early September. "This is something more intensely intimate, spiritual and personal for everyone. There are some films where you cry as you're working on it, and then you don't cry again for six months or you never cry again, because you know what's coming.

"I know what's coming, and I still weep because it's such a tragedy."

Though Burns' style and execution are pillars of modern documentary work, noted for his non-partisan research and reporting, this upcoming release is deceptively unique. Where most of his catalog deals in events contained to the past, the critical elements of "The American Buffalo" address our world as it is today.

The documentary, at its most basic, is a call to action framed by the near extinction of the Plains Bison between the years 1830-1900. During this time, the species' total population was reduced from 40 million to just 300, nearly eradicating a central aspect of American iconography and, of far greater importance, a critical natural resource and spiritual symbol for the Native peoples of the Great Plains.

"It is really the story of Native Americans interfacing with manifest destiny and the terrible cause of that for native peoples particularly, but also for all of us in terms of our conscience," he said. "The saving of the buffalo is a modest first step and the beginning of (healing). This is an intimate relationship of 12,000 years that was severed for the last 150 years while the slaughter took place."

Nothing new under the sun

Burns is a man who speaks in paragraphs, citing multiple sources, pulling direct and accurate quotes and making a few jokes for good measure. He's as good a source as any to dispel the common and inaccurate cliché — history, in fact, does not repeat itself.

Instead, the 40-year veteran of documentary reverts to the words of one of history's great satirists.

"Mark Twain is supposed to have said, 'History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme,'" Burns said.

"But here's the better authority. In the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes says, 'What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.' So that tells you that human nature doesn't change. That human nature superimposes itself on the seemingly random chaos of events. And so we see patterns, we see themes and motifs and echoes or rhymes occurring and reoccurring."

The rhyme within "The American Buffalo" is that mankind can and will destroy the natural world. It is also a call to action, a complex work of historical contextualization that traces the rehabilitation and repopulation efforts that have returned the plains bison to an estimated current population of 400,000.

Mankind can destroy, and it can also rebuild, but the latter takes a collective effort.

A parable of de-extinction

The effort to resurrect the Plains bison was one involving Native peoples and white westerners of varying influence, including tribal leaders like Quanah Parker (Comanche), public figures like William "Buffalo Bill" Cody and American politicians, like President Theodore Roosevelt, an avid conservationist who also established the U.S. Forest Service.

But Roosevelt is also documented as having said that the eradication of the bison would "solve the indian problem" — meaning that without access to bison, native peoples were likely to starve without a primary food source to sustain them. Ultimately, he played a major role in helping protect the animal, but such conflicting information is representative of the principle that Burns and his team champion in their work — there's no shying away from history.

And there's no better time to address that history than today, when climate issues, despite their validity being a scientific consensus, sit at the forefront of national political debate, and the subject of natural conservation is more prominent among the average U.S. citizen.

"It is a parable of de-extinction," he said. "It is, in the midst of climate change, an important story to tell as part of that parable of de-extinction is as well.

"If we choose to save something, we can. We're the only species that are able to do that. So we're about to see many big mammals and obviously thousands of other species go extinct because of the effects of climate change. We have the method, the pathways, the neural pathways — if you were to show us how — to save something like this. At a time of planetary and species issues like this, these stories become helpful. They become tools in the toolbox."

Native American voices

Burns also said it's a "deep dive into an important aspect of American history that privileges Native American voices as much as any other voices," resulting in a vast selection of sources that appear in the documentary. Among these influential voices are Gerard Baker (Mandan-Hidatsa), who is the highest ranking Native American in National Park Service history, as well as the man who originally introduced the film's concept in the early 1980s.

He's joined by Native-American scholars and experts like author N. Scott Momaday, historian Germaine White, historian Rosalyn LaPier and George Horse Capture Jr. Other prominent experts include "Meat Eater" author Steven Rinella; "The Revenant" author Michael Punke; and historians Dan Flores (author of "Coyote America"), Sara Dant and Elliot West.

Jason Baldes of the Wind River Reservation in Northwest Wyoming was an important advisor on the film, though he does not appear on screen.

Julianna Brannum, consulting producer for "The American Bison," played a major role in clarifying the nuanced history and of the Indigenous tribes and peoples that are discussed in the documentary. As the great, great, great granddaughter of the aforementioned Quanah Parker, Brannum lended her experience as a documentary filmmaker and Comanche ancestry to oversee the Native American representation.

Aside from the final product being a "dull story" without native perspective, Brannum said it also sheds light on aspects of Native American history that had been previously underrepresented.

"It's the most comprehensive film ever done on the subject," Brannum said. "The general public, myself included, don't know all the details of the story and how complicated it was. There was an endless amount of themes to explore, especially when it comes to colonization, manifest destiny — those are all elements of the story that we tend to know a little bit more about.

"But when you focus it on this one animal species and the devastating destruction, you kind of go down all these rabbit holes with these different characters. I think the most important thing to come out of the story is that we are truly capable of pulling back and making decisions that take us away from those catastrophes."

Brannum emphasizes the idea of "Seven Generations," a traditional reminder to consider how your current actions will affect your descendants seven generations in the future.

"One of the big cultural differences that Native people have from European-Americans is that it has been ingrained in us that all our decisions are based on future generations and how it will impact them," Brannum said.

Who are we?

History rhymes, and new stanzas are regularly added to the infinite poem.

Dayton Duncan, longtime historian and writing partner of Burns, mentioned that one cause of the Dust Bowl was the death of short-grass prairies due to the sudden disappearance of the bison, which had co-evolved with the land for centuries.

"If you don't take care of the soil, if you don't take care of the land, there could be a price to pay," Duncan said.

The documentary demands a reframing of the anglocentric timeline. It was historian Germaine White who, in the early stages of the documentary, best set the tone "The American Bison" with her analogy of the "historical clock."

"(Native Americans) have lived here for 600 generations, we have been here, conservatively, 12,000 years," White said. "If you think about that 12,000 years and imagine that on a timeline. Take that 12,000 years and wrap that timeline around a 24 hour clock.

"What that means is that Columbus arrived at about 11:28 p.m. and Lewis and Clark at about 15 minutes before midnight."

History is also all around us, with some events momentous enough that their impact on mankind and the planet may not be realized for generations to come. This film is unique not only because it is Burns' first production centered around an animal, but because it is also one of the few to conclude in the modern day, leaving viewers with an allusion to what the future may hold.

"When you go deeper, it gets more complicated and upsets people who want to have a sanitized, 'Madison Avenue' version of our past. But it actually is much more interesting and truer," Burns said. "Here's my admission — I've made the same film over and over again."

Time will only tell how the film will impact viewers after it's released in two parts on PBS on Oct. 16 and 17.

"Each film asks the same deceptively simple question: Who are we? You never answer that question, you just deepen it with each successive project. What you get is a much clearer mirror of where we've been, and then, by extension, perhaps where we are and where we're going."

Will Carpenter is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's Arts and Entertainment/Features Reporter. He can be reached by email at wcarpenter@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3135. Follow him on Twitter @will_carp_.