Eight years ago, John Boyer attended a lecture by the historical filmmaker Ken Burns. Boyer, the Mark Twain House’s chief promoter as its executive director, wasn’t going to let Burns leave without offering a suggestion for his next subject: Mark Twain.
The ever-prolific Burns politely expressed interest but said he was busy for the next few years. Boyer figured that was the end of it.
Thursday evening, he was happily proved wrong, as Burns and his team from Florentine Films showed segments from “Mark Twain” to the house’s board of trustees, supporters, politicians and members of the media. The biographical documentary will be shown nationwide on PBS Jan. 14 and 15, two hours each night.
“Mark Twain” opens with Kevin Conway quoting Twain as archival photos show the writer in various stages of his life. Listening to Conway’s grainy voice, one has to keep in mind that Twain is indeed gone. The film takes viewers back to Twain’s birthplace in Florida, Mo.; Quarry Farm, his summer home in Elmira, N.Y.; and his travels along the Mississippi River, into the American West and on various lecture tours throughout Europe and the Middle East.
One of the film’s most poignant moments comes with the reading of a letter that Twain wrote to his wife Olivia, telling her of their daughter Susy’s death.
Playwright Arthur Miller and actor Hal Holbrook offer commentary in the film, as do political activist/comedian Dick Gregory and writer William Styron, who both attended the screening at The Hartford’s Wallace Stevens Theatre.
The bulk of the documentary centers on the relationship Twain and his family had with their house at 351 Farmington Ave. in Hartford. It’s where he wrote some of his most important works, including his attack on slavery and racism, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” It was also the site of his beloved daughter Susy’s death.
The house exemplifies Twain’s paradoxical values — some of his most biting social commentary is about the opulent lifestyle so many Americans sought to acquire. Yet Twain himself had an insatiable desire for wealth. Indeed the Tiffany-designed Victorian mansion is an enduring testament to his conflicting beliefs.
Burns likened the Hartford house to what Alfred Hitchcock calls the Macguffin of a movie, or its driving force.
“I have been making films for over 20 years, and I have never had a house resonate as much as this one; his ghost is here. From the present we strain and try to listen to it,” Burns said Thursday in Twain’s Carriage House. He was there signing the companion book to “Mark Twain” with the film’s co-producer and writer, Dayton Duncan.
Starting three years ago, Boyer opened Twain’s house to the production team that came from Walpole, N.H., to dig through Twain’s letters, memoirs and photos. They filmed during every season and in each part of the day, making three preliminary visits, five to film and one to examine the photos. “We came to see it as a sentient being; something that lives and breathes,” Duncan said of the house.
Twain, a humorist, author, commentator and amateur inventor, was selected because of his unmistakable mark on so many aspects of American life.
“I’m not sure that we ever answer the question [of] who are we as Americans as much as we deepen it,” Burns said of his films. “We are looking for subjects that hold up a mirror to who we are.”
Added Duncan, “We’ve done films about superlative Americans like Lewis and Clark, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, but Twain embodies what we think is Americanism. … his irreverence, deflating bombast, attacking things with a sense of humor….”
The Mark Twain House played host Thursday afternoon to the film’s editors and production assistants, as 11 members of the film staff toured it for the first time. From the tour group came “Oh’s” and “That looks different than I thought,” as they explored Twain’s domain.
“I didn’t get a sense of how large it is,” says Christine Powers, an assistant on the film. “And we couldn’t look out and see the trees.”
The benefits of a Burns documentary are innumerable. In Virginia, after Burns’ series “The Civil War” was broadcast, tourism increased so much that he was asked to come back to produce another documentary. The state helped finance his film “Thomas Jefferson.”
Connecticut officials are hoping “Mark Twain” will have a similar effect here. The Connecticut Tourism Council contributed $530,000 to its financing.
Despite the completion of “Mark Twain,” it may be some time before Burns and Duncan stop their habit of invoking a Twain quote for almost every situation.
