Wow check out the reviews of this documentary on IMDB. There are only 5 reviews but they all say the same thing as me. If you like history, you will be in awe of this masterpiece. It will move you in deep ways.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0306355/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
He was a great and inspiring man.
9/10
Author: Tom Murray (
tamurray@acn.net) from Belleville, Ontario, Canada
31 October 2002
The life of Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, is a totally fascinating and moving story. He hated and spoke out against slavery and was a supporter of full adult suffrage. He was the first American to write in the vernacular and to write a sympathetic and well-developed portrait of a black person: Jim in Huckleberry Finn. He sponsored a struggling black man through law school, who later became the mentor of Thurgood Marshall, who was the first black American Supreme Court justice. Clemens struggled with depression; he was a man of constant sorrow; humour was what kept him from killing himself. He was born into modest circumstances, became wealthy and even became obsessive about it, to the point that it interfered with his writing. His dabbling in investments was a complete disaster; it ruined him financially. He moved in the circle of the elite but was a powerful and outspoken opponent of all that was wrong with society. Since he included himself in that group of wrongdoers, he was accepted by them as a sort of group conscience.
As usual, Ken Burns has made another great documentary. The pace is moderate, the narration is excellent and often very moving, the talking heads are brief and concise and the mood is sincere. After two viewings, it is still on my list of films to see.
The story is amazing! Samuel Clemens was the epitome of "The American Dream": rising from poverty and a wild lifestyle to great wealth and respect; forging a marriage, based on strong and abiding love; loving his family above all else; gambling on investments and the subsequent financial ruin; recovering by hard work (although legally bankrupt, he still paid off all of his debts); bouncing back after each one of more tragedies than any man could expect and, most of all, honesty, integrity, charity and the deepest understanding of what is means to be human. In all this, he was unique in the world. He was a great and inspiring man.
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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
A Masterpiece
10/10
Author: annmason1 from Bellingham, WA
7 November 2005
This is one of the finest films I have ever seen. And I have watched it over and over. One comes away awed that one man could have endured so much sorrow and been able to translate it in a way other people could learn from, sometimes through laughter.
Ken Burns is a treasure. He has given us a well rounded picture of a gifted man who was all too human. Could one person have lived his life more fully than Samuel Clemens? This is a fascinating study of a writer I knew little about and now will honor whenever I hear his name.
Mark Twain was not afraid to write about ugly things, evil things, but wise enough to do so in a manner that lead the reader deep into the subject before realizing the truths he met along the way, and by then it was too late. The reader learned something about slavery or how one group of people treats another or about human nature that he had not intended to learn.
This film is a masterpiece and worth viewing often.
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1 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
212 minutes....wow! Yet, I wouldn't cut out a single part of it.
10/10
Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida
19 October 2011
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
At 212 minutes, you really can't complain that this biography was too brief! There are just so many layers to Mark that you never think you know him completely. But, if seeing something this long seems daunting, just remember that it's a film by Ken Burns and he has the knack of being able to make anything exciting and keep your attention--even at over 3 1/2 hours in length. The film is, for want of a better word...perfect. Using Burns' familiar style, the film manages to give a full account of Twain's life and fill the viewer with great admiration. As, although he was a flawed man (his financial woes were all his own doing), he was a brilliant humorist and critic of modern life--with a surprisingly harsh and insightful view of civil liberties that were FAR ahead of his time. He was an anti-colonialist, supporter of women's suffrage and defender of the rights and nobility of all races--things most folks today probably don't even realize, as they think of him just as an author. Yet, throughout all this, he seemed racked with a sense of melancholy--and it's amazing that he was able to sum up the energy to deal with life, as it was THAT debilitating. And, in his later years, he seemed to completely give way to depression--yet kept writing and was very productive.
See this film---you won't regret it. It really does a great job of summing up the man and is among the very best things ever created by Ken Burns. SEE THIS FILM!
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2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Treacherous "Safe Water"
7/10
Author: Rindiana from Germany
5 July 2009
Typically emotional and reverential Ken Burns biography, featuring the usual display of wonderful vintage pictures and discreet music and sound accompaniment, as well as professional line-readings and commentaries.
Twain's interesting life alone and all the anecdotal plentifulness of Burns's script guarantee three-and-a-half entertaining hours, but as a documentary about such a witty and sagacious writer, this feels too conventional and tame in style and presentation, hammering home some of its notions about Twain's inner conflicts too repetitively.
It's still quality work, though.
7 out of 10 failed business schemes
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4 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
A man you can like
Author: ivan-22 from Los Angeles
13 November 2002
To call him a great American is to limit him. He is a citizen of the world, read in every country, more American than anyone else, yet more critical of his country than most. I will never forget how mother read Tom Sawyer to me in German, in a park in Montevideo, Uruguay, when I was only nine, and how I couldn't stop laughing at the funny way the characters talked. I was convulsed with laughter, one of the first big laughing fits of my life. Alas, as I grew up, I lost interest in fiction. But Twain is more than a writer. He is a character with flaws and all. His taste for luxury is disappointing. To coin an aphorism: How sad that people born in log cabins, don't want to live in them! It is heartbreaking to see Twain sink into debt and his family separated by penury. And one also wonders how much Huckleberry Finn owes to Uncle Tom's Cabin. Why not a big documentary about Harriet Beecher Stowe? Was she less of a writer?
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