Kit CarsonTo some, Christopher “Kit” Carson was one of America's greatest heroes: a brave and loyal guide who laid out a path for the westward-moving nation,
Watch clip from Kit Carson (3:45 mins) Large (70MB) - Broadband Please enable popups to view media Kit Carson, Insignia Films’ ninety-minute documentary for the PBS series American Experience draws upon rich archival materials, original recreations, and interviews with authors Hampton Sides and Sally Denton, Western historian Paul Hutton, Navajo historian Harry Walters, and more, to reveal the many facets of a complex and controversial figure who became a legend in his own lifetime.  From his boyhood in frontier Missouri in 1826 to the years he spent as a trapper living among the native peoples of the mountain West, from his expeditions with the famed surveyor John C. Fremont to his critical role in Indian removals meant to “civilize” newly-American territory, Carson was ever on the cutting edge of the nation’s westward expansion. His exploits made him famous, and eventually inspired the creation of a popular literary hero – a fierce Indian fighter who bore little or no resemblance to the man himself. "Kit Carson was the greatest living symbol of the desire Americans had to mythologize the West and take real things and turn them into something else," notes author and historian Dayton Duncan. "He just was who he was and other people projected onto him their own beliefs, their own myths. In that respect, I think he is like the West itself: it's a real place, there were real things that happened and they were fascinating, dramatic, and tragic. But that wasn't quite enough for us as a society." At once the story of the most epic migration in American history and a moving portrait of a man caught up in the forces of his time, Kit Carson offers a revealing glimpse of the complexities and contradictions that characterized the nation’s expansion westward. "More than any other westerner," says director Stephen Ives, "Kit Carson straddled two worlds, as the West he'd encountered as a young man increasingly gave way to what we eventually would think of as the American West. He is the ultimate symbol of that transition, the embodiment of both the heroism and tragedy of America's drive to become a continental nation."  Broadcast in early 2008, Kit Carson was the recipient of a presitigious Writers Guild of America nomination and the Western Writers Association’s Golden Spur Award. The film was produced by Amanda Pollak, edited by George O'Donnell, written by Michelle Ferrari and directed by Stephen Ives. Michael Murphy narrates.
|
"Kit Carson was the stuff of legend."
Dallas Morning News "It is fascinating to see [Kit Carson] placed in the broad flow of American history, where he looms large." The Boston Globe "A fascinating story." Detroit Free Press "absorbing" and "watch it...and understand our past" St. Louis Post-Dispatch "detailed biography of the boy who ran away from his Missouri home at 16 and became one of the great scouts and Indian fighters of 19th century America." Rocky Mountain News "his frontier exploits inspired dozens of dime novels, but the stories belie the complexities of the real man..." San Jose Mercury News "Portrait of the scout and soldier who led the way to the American West." Daily News Los Angeles "illuminates a pivotal time in our history and a legendary hero whose life remains a paradox...an absorbing story and well told." Catholic Online |
