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American history X Social, political and economic upheaval in the US has prompted a wave of historical documentaries reflecting on America's past and its leaders, writes Adam Benzine.  These are extraordinary times for the United States of America. The country finds itself embroiled in two conflicts and the worst recession in recent memory, while its first African American president struggles to implement a massive overhaul of its healthcare system. Against this backdrop, it is no surprise that factual television commissioners have been greenlighting projects that analyse the challenges the country faces. However, networks are also using the opportunity to reflect on the country's history – and in particular the roles of its leaders – in a bid to explain how we got to where we are. "We're in very historic times, in a variety of areas," says David McKillop (above), senior VP of development and programming for AETN-owned US cable network History. "We're seeing a terrible recession, probably the worst since the Great Depression, but we've seen the most amazing thing that no-one would have predicted would have happened, which was the election of an African American president. "America's also at war, and this combination of big, positive social change, hard economic times and being at war has made many Americans look inside themselves. There's a real sense of introspective looking for answers inside the DNA of what built America."  In the UK, BBC2 aired a season of Obama-related programming in January, including By The People: The Election of Barack Obama, HBO's Ed Norton-produced ob-doc following the president's successful 2008 election campaign; and Obama's America, a two-part special about America's military and economic history, fronted by historian Simon Schama. In addition to a host of docs about Obama, new films are in the works examining former presidents such as Reagan, Bush Jr, Clinton, Kennedy and Lincoln. And outside of the documentary realm, the success of fact-based dramatisations such as HBO's miniseries John Adams and Oscar-nominated feature film Frost/Nixon demonstrates the ongoing fascination with political office, and how it can shape America's destiny. "There is such inherent drama in the highest office," explains filmmaker Meghan O'Hara (below), "and there's also such secrecy about the way it functions. There has to be when presidents are in it, at least to a certain extent. But after people leave office and things open up and people are willing to speak, we – the regular people – often get a little glimpse into the real drama that went on behind big decisions, and that's endlessly interesting." O'Hara is best known as a collaborator of filmmaker Michael Moore (Bowling For Columbine) and producer of Oscar-nominated doc Sicko. She is currently working with her New York-based production outfit Honest-EngineTV on a film examining George W Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard during Vietnam.  She has been working on the doc for about a year, and is in the process of shopping it to networks, including HBO. "This country – and the world, frankly – has a lot of unfinished business with the Bush presidency," she says. "If you look at where we are right now, which is two wars, Wall Street collapsing, the housing market tanking, and de-regulation that has absolutely decimated this country, I think there's a lot to be accountable for. "My film is not going to be a dissection of his last eight years, but it will definitely touch upon that. I'm looking quite specifically at a couple of things and one of them is his involvement in the National Guard during Vietnam, and specifically his control of the press in containing a story that everybody knew to be true." Elsewhere, director Eugene Jarecki – whose 2005 doc for the BBC's Storyville strand Why We Fight won the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize – is currently working on the tentatively titled American Idol, a documentary examining the presidency of Ronald Reagan, again for Storyville. "It attempts to un-peel the Reagan myth," explains the strand's editor Nick Fraser. "It's wonderful having someone like Eugene making this film. The more he gets into Reagan, the more he loves Reagan, while hating the consequences of Reagan." On the history front, America's 44 presidents provide a wealth of anniversary tie-in opportunities, marking the dates of births, deaths, inaugurations, re-elections and so on. Reagan's 100th birthday would have been in 2011, a year that also marks a decade since George W Bush's inauguration (handy for Jarecki's and O'Hara's docs). Meanwhile, 2012 marks the 20th anniversary of Bill Clinton's first election victory, and the 40th anniversary of Richard Nixon's historic trip to China – the latter a particularly topical subject for a documentary, given the ever-increasing international focus on the East. But it is not just the US's leaders that are coming under the microscope as the country shifts and shakes. The entire history of America is being scrutinised. In the US, cablenet History has ordered two major projects examining the roots of the land of the free, both of which are laden with big-name stars. The People Speak, a single doc that aired on the channel in December, charts the progress of democratic activism among well- and lesser-known Americans from the country's founding to the present, using a blend of archive footage and readings from actors such as Marisa Tomei, Matt Damon and Viggo Mortensen. The format has now been picked up by History UK, with actor Colin Firth onboard for a British adaptation. "The People Speak resonates very clearly with the American system of government," says McKillop. "Every single one of these people featured stood up and did something brave that actually changed how we live today. One of the great lines in it is that 'democracy is not a spectator sport' – you have to be involved and speak out. And our nation, our government and our laws have been formed that way." Meanwhile, Nutopia, the UK prodco set up by former BBC2 controller Jane Root, is working on a major 12-hour series called America: The Story of US, which is set to launch in April. Michael Douglas, Colin Powell, Buzz Aldrin and Donald Trump are already among "a wide variety of interesting and engaged people" to have contributed sections on the history of America. "There was really a sense that both Jane and History were thinking along the same lines about doing the first big history of America in 35 years – since Alistair Cooke's America, really – and it was a coincidence that they were both talking and thinking about the same big idea at the same time," says series showrunner Ben Goold.  "America: The Story of US (left) really tells the story of how America was created over 400 years and how it was built. Within a mere four centuries, America has grown from a few tiny settlements into the most powerful and culturally influential nation on earth. It's telling the story of how that happened and the story of the people who made it happen."Beyond these two projects, McKillop says History will be looking to mark the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the American Civil War, in April 2011, and is also lining up several specials "directly related to some of our founding fathers," as well as projects focusing on "more recent" presidents. Elsewhere, National Geographic Television (NGT), the production arm of factual giant National Geographic, has two major projects in development relating to US leaders. The first, Lincoln DNA Mystery, will see scientists testing DNA samples from America's 16th president in a bid to ascertain whether Lincoln had a rare genetic cancer syndrome at the time of his assassination. The White House: Through The Lens, meanwhile, is being made for public service network PBS and will air in November. The one-off special paints a portrait of Obama by way of the 44th president's official photographer.  "Presidents are always interesting," says Maryanne Culpepper (left), NGT's exec VP of editorial and new business development. "In America, the president is the closest thing we have to royalty. And on a purely personal level, people are fascinated by this person who is the leader, who has so much influence, who represents all of America, and who we, by voting, have imbued with all this power."It is the election of Obama, Culpepper argues, that has really kick-started the introversion and historical reflection that we are now seeing. His ascendancy has put distance between the present and recent past. "After 9/11 left a huge scar on the American psyche – which is really deep and is going to take a long time to work itself through – there was the immediate punch-back reaction," she says. "But underneath that was a deep-seated fear, and after almost 10 years of unpleasant rhetoric and all the difficult things that happened, people really wanted a change. And that made them look back and go, 'Wow, we were in a really dark place – how did we get there. What led up to that?' Economically, financially, socially, culturally, with the wars – in every way we had gone to a very dark place and we wanted to climb out of there. "We wanted to like ourselves again, and Obama gave us – in the eyes of many people – the opportunity to do that. Having achieved that bigger symbolic change, it gave us the ability to look back. You have to get to the top of the hill before you can look back down." Adam Benzine 12 Feb 2010 © C21 Media 2010 
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