History Channel offers impressive look at Mayflower saga

By ROB OWEN
Sunday, November 19, 2006
PBS's "The War That Made America" wasn't the first docudrama to be made, but it was part of a growing trend to make re-creations a centerpiece of historically based documentaries. The History Channel's "Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of The Mayflower" (8 p.m. EST Sunday, check local listings) uses such dramatic scenes to even better effect than "War" did.

This pilgrim story is far more expansive than the one some adults may remember from grade school. Producer-director Lisa Q. Wolfinger's production involves "dialogue and events from the actual record with dramatized scenes." What's more, those re-creations are not cheesy and they're certainly better than watching a series of dull oil paintings.

Unlike "War," "The Mayflower" does include some talking-head historians, but they're used judiciously to provide context for the story of the Separatist congregation in Scrooby, England, that longed to escape religious persecution. These pilgrims first attempt to relocate to the Netherlands, but eventually decide to try their luck in the New World, setting sail from England for America in September 1620.

"The Mayflower" depicts more than just the dangerous Atlantic crossing. That's actually a small part of the three-hour program, which eventually does start to feel a little long. It concludes with the first Thanksgiving between the pilgrims and Indians (most likely a harvest festival) a year after their landing in New England.

Wolfinger, who grew up overseas and spent much of her young life in England, hired friends who act with the Royal Shakespeare Company for the most prominent roles in "The Mayflower," and it's hugely beneficial to the film.

"There's nothing worse than cheesy re-enactments and bad acting," Wolfinger said by phone from her Maine office earlier this month. She said the use of talking-head historians was purposefully limited.

"We only use experts to provide analysis and expertise. What I don't do, and what drives me crazy, is to play out a scene and then the narrator tells you exactly what happened in the scene," Wolfinger said. "It's as though the filmmaker doesn't trust the scene will give you the information."

Growing up abroad, Wolfinger said she was not burdened by the romanticized image of pilgrims with buckle hats, returning instead to original source material, including the writings of Mayflower passengers William Bradford and Edward Winslow.

"I realized there's great drama here, an epic drama, but there are no visuals," she said. "The images we think of as archival were made in the 1900s and they're all romanticized and inaccurate. So we decided, let's just wipe the slate clean and go back and try to imagine what the time would have been like using the original source material."

Filmed in Belgium, England, on Maryland's Eastern Shore and near Richmond, Va., "The Mayflower's" use of re-creations bucks a long-held belief that such dramatizations lessen a work.

"It is more accepted now," Wolfinger said, "but I think it's still rare to find a docudrama that works well."

She said she had some problems with PBS's "War" ("They had a lot of money to spend and could have constructed scenes that were a little more interesting"), but she's happy to see the format gain exposure.

"A lot of documentarians are still a little uncomfortable with the idea of dramatizations because it's a little foreign if they're from straight-documentary filmmaking," Wolfinger said. "It's definitely bold."

Not unlike the pilgrims whose journey "The Mayflower" chronicles.

(Contact Rob Owen at rowen(at)post-gazette.com)