The Statue of Liberty is a one-hour documentary by Ken Burns.
It is of course about that large green-colored lady in New York harbor. After a short prologue in which some talking heads muse about the meaning of liberty, the first part of the program tells the history of the statue. It was conceived of by Frenchmen in the immediate aftermath of The American Civil War, both as a celebration of the end of that war and the liberation of the slaves, and a commemoration of France's crucial role in winning American independence. Bartholdi comes up with a design inspired by the American symbol "Columbia" and the French symbol "Marianne", but which may have been actually inspired by his wife and his mistress.
Construction is delayed by the Franco-Prussian War, but work begins in earnest in 1875. Gustave Eiffel, who'd start working on a big tower a few years later, designs the support skeleton. Reaction in America is generally positive, although some are annoyed at the French for giving the United States a "gift" that requires Americans to pay for the statue's base. As it happens the base is delayed when the money runs out, but after Joseph Pulitzer starts a fundraising campaign the statue is completed and dedicated in 1886.
The second half of the movie then considers the cultural impact of the statue, the meaning of freedom, and the degree to which the United States has or has not lived up to the promise the statue makes.
Jeremy Irons and Derek Jacobi are among the actors used to read 19th century commentary about the statue.
Tropes:
- Book Ends: Paul Simon's "American Tune", a song about American ennui in the 1970s that namechecks the Statue of Liberty, plays at the beginning of the movie and at the end.
- Dated History: The story of Bartholdi and Laboulaye conceiving of the statue as a monument to the emancipation of America's slaves, presented in this film as fact, seems to be myth, as later research
has indicated. - Early-Installment Weirdness: Bartholdi's original design was actually intended to be a statue standing at the newly constructed Suez Canal.
- Immigrant Patriotism: A major theme. One part of the film has a selection of ordinary immigrants talk about what a great country America is.
- The Ken Burns Effect: Ken Burns has never not used this effect, and it's seen frequently here, like with a pan up a picture of the statue under construction in France.
- Narrator: David McCullough, who was Burns's go-to narrator for most of his early works.
- Shout-Out: Clips of the statue are taken from Charlie Chaplin's The Immigrant, a 1950s movie called Anything Can Happen, and of course from Planet Of The Apes. ("You maniacs!!"
- Stock Footage: Mostly of immigrants at Ellis Island.
- Talking Heads: Several in classic documentary style. Miloš Forman, an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, notes that while for most immigrants America gradually becomes less intoxicating, very few ever go back. James Baldwin offers a far more negative view, saying that for African-Americans the statue is "a bitter joke."
- Title Confusion: The actual name of the statue, or at least the original name, is "Liberty Enlightening the World".
- Undercrank: This effect is used for an entire scene in which a crowd of tourists is shown getting on the ferry to the statue, looking around, then riding the ferry back to Manhattan.
