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Henry David Thoreau is an uncomfortable cultural icon in America. He asks too much of us—to curb our consumerism, face our alienation from nature, explore our inner depths, and confront racial, social, and economic injustice. Which is why we prefer him as a plaster saint.
Ken Burns’s new three-part biopic, Henry David Thoreau, which begins airing on March 30 on PBS, knocks that saint off his pedestal—not to belittle him, but to complicate, enrich, and humanize our picture of Thoreau. It explores Thoreau’s multifaceted life as a writer, naturalist, social critic, surveyor, scientist, explorer, and abolitionist who fought to redeem America’s democratic ideals. Throughout, it emphasizes not Thoreau’s escape from society but his engagement with it.
Thoreau emerges as a full and flawed human being with contradictions and limitations—such as his failure to advocate politically for the Native Americans whose culture fascinated him, or his supporting himself by surveying while railing against private property. The film also presents Thoreau as one of Concord’s most sociable neighbors. We learn about his popular melon parties, the large anti-slavery gathering he hosted at his house at Walden in 1846, and the elaborate dollhouse he built for Ralph Waldo Emerson’s two daughters.
What comes across is Thoreau’s deep intellectual curiosity, his devotion to his calling as a writer, the firmness of his moral convictions, and the improvisational nature of his life as he pursued new interests and experiments or modified his views on issues, such as indigenous culture and non-violent protest.
Directed by Erik and Christopher Ewers and nearly ten years in the making, the film offers critical perspectives from Native peoples, African Americans, and women. Their voices show the ways in which white privilege permitted—and constrained—Thoreau’s social and environmental activism.
The film also shows how salient Thoreau’s ideas are for our turbulent times. Ideas such as the link he saw between wildness and freedom, his grasping the consequences of our ravaging of nature, and his emphasis on advocating for what you believe. One scholar is quoted as saying that Thoreau can help us wrestle with the question of “how to talk about problems of conscience when you are in the minority and you feel your country is moving in the wrong direction.”
While the political, social, and environmental Thoreau gets a detailed airing, the spiritual Thoreau is barely acknowledged. There are vague nods to his religious thought, such as his deep interest as a young man in Hindu and other world scriptures, or his calling his morning swim at Walden a “religious exercise,” but the Unitarian roots of Transcendentalism, Thoreau’s own Unitarian upbringing, his seeing the world as sacred or profane, and his transcendent vision of nature in Walden are all omitted.
There is an implicit link to Unitarian Universalism today because Thoreau advocated for its core principles—reverence for nature, respect for the interdependent web of being, the individual pursuit of truth, the pursuit of justice, and an inclusive stance toward other faith traditions. But the connection is never drawn. Unitarian Universalists will have to recognize it themselves.
How to Watch ‘Henry David Thoreau’
Henry David Thoreau, a three-part, three-hour film directed by Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers, executive produced by Ken Burns and Don Henley, and featuring the voices of Jeff Goldblum, George Clooney, and Meryl Streep will air on PBS at 9 p.m. ET on Monday, March 30, (episodes 1 and 2) and Tuesday, March 31.