DVD Review: Ben Franklin (History Channel) (2004)

Ben Franklin, History Channel documentary, 100 minutes, 2004  $24.95

A thorough documentary examination in the History Channel's fine established style on one of the United States' most revered and most accessible historical figures.

Alternating talking heads with photos, drawings, reenactments, paintings, film, and other resources, the documentary skillfully relates the story of Franklin's incredible achievements.

Franklin  has long been among my favorite all-time Americans. I'm not the only one, by any means. This History Channel DVD includes among its extras a short broadcast documentary that was used to preview the upcoming premiere of the full-length program.

The min-doc featured Nicholas Cage, star of the then-pending film, National Treasure, the plot of which linked Franklin to the treasure - did I mention History Channel's excellent skills at counter-programming? More to the point, it also featured a segment on a Philadelphia portrayer of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin has countless friends and fans.

It's hard to look back at Franklin and grasp how he was viewed for his experiments with lightning. He became world-famous as the man who "tamed the lightning."

Not only did he explain the basics of electricity, creating the jargon we use today (battery,. positive, negative, etc.) but more to the point, he established that a lightning rod would pass the lightning threatening a house harmlessly in the ground.

This was a mind-altering development.

Before this, the destructiveness of lightning was rooted in religious myth. Countless bellringers died trying to drive off the lightning by ringing church bells which, naturally, were not only metal, but perched high above most other nearby structures and perfect targets for lightining strikes.

On this great innovation, Franklin didn't bother to get a patent. He was already rich as a printer. That job today would be hyphenated as printer-publisher. In those days you not only did odd jobs for people who needed printing, but you ran down your own jobs, printing that which the public was willing to buy.  That's how Franklin would up printing his almanac, as well as newspapers, books and booklets.

Having retired at 35, Franklin launched on studies not only in lightning, of course, but into an array of other fields. It seemed there was nothing that was beyond his interest.

As a statesman, he spent an extended period in England as a representative of Philadelphia, trying to get the colony's owners, the Pitts, to allow the colony to tax their extensive land holdings.

When the Revolutionary War broke out, he was in France trying to get the monarchy to support a revolution against another monarchy...and he did it. A mind-boggling achievement when you think about it. In the process of it, France bankrupted itself, leaving itself open to the French revolution and Napoleon.

Franklin helped write the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

As the documentary shows, he was popular with women but his one failing was in his relationship with his family members. For years he was separated from his wife, he mourned for years the death of his young son, he broke with his surviving son who became a royal governor in New Jersey, and he pretty much ignored his daughter.

A fine documentary, especially if you're a fan of Ben, whether the light character of Disney's Ben and Me or the chuckling sageof 1776, or the keeper of the secret of National Treasure.

He was all these, and much, much more.