Audience drinks up Prohibition at world premiere
By Jackie Donohoe, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Documentarian Ken Burns presented the world premiere of the first episode of his and Lynn Novicks three-part film Prohibition last Saturday at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. Burns and Novicks Prohibition, which explores the era of speakeasies, bootleggers and constitutional chaos, will air on PBS on October 2, 3 and 4.
Prohibition follows the ascent, reign and decline of the 18th Amendment, which made the distribution of alcohol illegal in the United States. The five-and-a-half-hour long documentary features music by Wynton Marsalis and the voice talents of Tom Hanks, Jeremy Irons, Paul Giamatti, Oliver Platt and Samuel L. Jackson, among others, according to the PBS press release.
Bill Pence, director of Hopkins Center Film and co-founder of the Telluride Film Festival, introduced Burns prior to the screening as arguably the most influential film director of our times and that includes feature directors such as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
Burns turned millions of people onto history with his films and also showed us a new way of looking at our collective past and ourselves, Pence said. He has invigorated our sense of appreciation for and understanding of our countrys history, and at the same time he has revolutionized the craft of documentary filmmaking. The Hop has previewed many of Burnss films, including The Civil War, Frank Lloyd Wright, Horatios Drive and Baseball, according to Pence.
In this documentary, Burns also addresses colleges roles during Prohibition. He relies not only on historians, but also on first hand accounts from people who remember the period.
Those who were at Harvard or Wesleyan remember making gin in the bathtub, Burns said.
A humble Burns watched Saturdays screening anxiously in the back corner, testing the reaction of the audience, he later told the crowd.
After the screening, Burns answered audience members questions after crediting the absent Novick who worked as an assistant on The Civil War * as half of the power force behind Prohibition.
Everything you like about the film is hers, and everything you dont like you can blame on me, Burns said.
Prohibitions first episode covers more than 100 years, starting with the growing Victorian-era concerns about alcohol abuse that eventually led to the ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1919, according to Burns.
The episode, titled A Nation of Drunkards, shows how the saloons and taverns flourished in the United States with the growing availability of hard liquor, and how men subsequently began to neglect family and professional duties. It also chronicles how these events lead to the formation of the Womans Christian Temperance Union and Anti-Saloon League.
By focusing on women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances Willard and Carry Nation in the first episode, Burns contrasts the initial role of women pushing for temperance against the female alcoholics in speakeasies, whom Burns portrays in the next two episodes.
We then focus our attention in the subsequent episodes on the sexual revolution, Burns said. Shortening their skirts, bobbing their hair, drinking, participating in promiscuous sex all these things come along with the Roaring Twenties, and boy did it roar.
The following two episodes, which focus on the following 13 years and how Prohibition turned law-abiding citizens into criminals, encouraged the origins of local gangs and glamourized illicit drinking, according to Burns.
Although the first episode shows multiple points of view, from the German-American beer sellers to the housewives, there is clearly an agenda in how Burns and Novick chose to condense and represent the 100 years leading up to the 18th Amendment.
The film raises serious questions about the role of government and individual rights. However, Burns and Novick successfully balance historical accuracy with entertainment.
What [people] like is a good story, Burns said.
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I love MADD. Any organization that can ignore a founding member to the point that she leave in 5 years, has to get my vote. She left because, in her words "it has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I ever wanted or envisioned. I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving." Just classic.
