On March 30, a highly anticipated new three-part documentary, “Henry David Thoreau” — directed by Erik and Christopher Loren Ewers and executive produced by Ken Burns and Don Henley — will premiere nationwide. On April 3, the Center for the Study of World Religions will host a special screening and discussion at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts.
But before the film reaches audiences across the country, Gosia Sklodowska, CSWR executive director, sat down with co-director Erik Ewers to discuss the making of the film for an exclusive look behind the scenes, and his reflections on the challenge of humanizing an American icon.
What convinced you that Thoreau was the right documentary, and why now?
Growing up near Walden, my brother and I were exposed to Thoreau, [but] back then, we didn’t feel the kinds of issues that young people experience today — environmental crises, political turmoil, all of that. We simply lacked the life experience that Thoreau was appealing to. Then, around 2015, Ken Burns called me and said, “Hey, pal, would you and your brother want to do a short film with Don Henley on Walden Pond?” That was my reintroduction to Thoreau. Once I started really trying to read his words, I realized he had this almost prophetic sense — a man centuries ago writing about the way we live now. When he talks about people living “lives of quiet desperation,” swept up in work, in status, in what he called “surplus,” I found that incredibly profound. We realized his story was much deeper than Walden Pond itself, and we knew this had to become a much bigger project.
The film’s pacing seems deliberate. How did you design the viewer’s experience?
We show modern society in high-speed motion. At the same time, Thoreau is talking about how man moves faster and freer than ever before. We made a choice to have it explode into silence. You’re in nature, you hear the silence, and we hold that moment. We wanted to offer contrasts right out of the gate, planting a seed that we hope will grow in the viewer as they watch the rest of the film.
The film brings together archival materials, landscapes, and scholars’ voices. How did you balance those elements?
It comes down to something Ken calls “the process.” If you follow the process, the film eventually reveals itself: I don’t tell the film what to do. The film tells me what to do. Every film has multiple threads — different stories, different themes. A single thread isn’t very strong, but if you weave those threads together, they form a rope. The rope is the film.
Did working on the film change how you thought about Thoreau as a historical figure?
One of the most important things our scholars told us was that Thoreau is too often placed on a pedestal. He becomes a legend, and his writing gets reduced to a few quotes on refrigerator magnets. But no human being is perfect. In Ken’s filmmaking world, we talk about the “undertow”: the tension beneath the surface of a person’s life story — their contradictions, their flaws, the parts that make them human. We wanted to show the whole person.
One of the most powerful moments in the film is Thoreau’s journey up Mount Katahdin. Why?
He was obsessed with reaching the summit and having a spiritual revelation there. He climbed ahead of his companions and pushed himself into terrible weather. Eventually, he had to turn back. He never made it to the top, and he was deeply disappointed. But when he came down, he found his companions sitting in a meadow eating blueberries. Something struck him. He understood a spiritual awakening doesn’t necessarily happen on the summit of a mountain. It can happen in your backyard. That’s one of Thoreau’s biggest messages — you can find your spiritual awakening anywhere if you have the eyes to look for it.
Many first encounter Thoreau and feel distant from him. What do you hope audiences rediscover?
What struck me most is that almost everything Thoreau did was driven by a search for truth. When he arrived at a philosophical conclusion, he didn’t just stop there; he kept testing it. That lesson is incredibly important today. Thoreau says it’s on you to pursue the truth. Don’t just sit and wait for it.
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