‘Greatest Wildlife Killing’ Is Also a Story of Hope (Exclusive Video Interview) – GoldDerby

PBS

The story told in the PBS documentary series “The American Buffalo” is one of total destruction according to the series’ director. Ken Burns and producer and writer Dayton Duncan. However, for Burns and Duncan, this two-part series about America’s national animal and its relationship to our national identity is about more than driving the species to the brink of extinction. As Burns explains in an exclusive conversation with Gold Derby: “If you go a little further down that track, it gives you hope. » Watch more of our video interview with Burns and Duncan above.

The series examines the buffalo in parallel with American expansion and our country’s actions regarding indigenous populations. We see how buffalo, once numbering in the tens of millions, have been reduced to just a few hundred wild specimens in what Burns calls “the greatest massacre of wild animals” in world history. The series also examines the dichotomy between how indigenous peoples and Americans viewed their relationship with nature. “They’re two competing visions of how you own land,” Burns says. “(The Americans) say they own land. Indigenous peoples are in stewardship. However, Burns says reconciling these divergent views leads to something unexpected. “One way or another, out of this horrible extermination, something is born,” he said. “A conservation movement was born in part out of the need to preserve not only animals, but also the places where they are found.

For Duncan, who has collaborated with Burns for more than three decades, it was important that the story could unfold on its own terms rather than imposing a narrative on the viewer. “You want to get rid of any preconceived notion that you already know the story,” he says. “I think what I learned from Ken is to hold back the rush of trying to get (the story) out and let you tell yourself what the touch points are, the most important moments and the themes that are always present when you’re struggling just to tell a good story.

Another important theme of the series is the juxtaposition of conflicting events and ideas. For example, many leaders of the movement to save the bison were also strong supporters of eugenics. The buffalo were collected for private collections and were one day returned to their land. For Burns, this juxtaposition is emblematic of the nation’s identity. “This is who we are as a nation,” he said. “Whatever the subject, it is always true that there is complexity. There is nothing simple or binary.

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