This is one of the best, if not the best, of Ken Burns' biographical documentaries. This is also, production-wise, the most modern of Ken Burns' documentaries even compared to his Vietnam War documentary. It is an excellent introduction to the 21st century of the figure of Muhammad Ali. Ali was considered by many as one of the greatest athletes of the 20th Century. There have been infinite documentaries surrounding the life of Muhammad Ali examining every factor and detail imaginable. Including this doc, we've had three alone in the last 12 months (Sep 2021) so any new documentary had to be either be a very well intro or a doc that had some sort-of new info on Ali that no one has heard about in the last 44 years. This doc smartly went the route of the former and it has paid-off well.
This documentary uses the "Ken Burns style" with Ali masterfully. This doc in a way benefits from Ali's own decades of myth-making by now having a template. The challenge for Burns & co. was sorting through the myth and showing the actual histories. Luckily we have quite a few people very close to Ali including his brother, 2nd & 3rd wives, and 2 of his daughters as well as a host of friends and associates and archival photos and films that help aid in this. If you are someone who is familiar with Ali's story than you will not learn anything new here, but if you are new to him or not very familiar to him than this is a perfect place to start. There will be hundreds of other documentaries to watch afterwards concerning him, but this may be the perfect starting place.
Shifting to the documentary itself, I have to say I was impressed at the new modern feel that it gave off. I had just watched Burns' previous documentary on Ernest Hemingway and it feels like the production went ten-fold into the future. This is the second documentary Ken Burns has done on a famous boxer after his excellent documentary on Jack Johnson the first black heavyweight boxing champion (who's legacy figures throughout this documentary). I'm not sure if it was the addition of his daughter and son-in-law as co-directors with Ken Burns (Burns was the primary producer and his son-in-law David McMahon was the head writer). For me, it was mainly the use of music that lifts this documentary. The incidental/filler music was made specifically for this documentary by Jahlil Beats, while the musical selection consulted/curated by Peter Miller (the producer for Burns' Jazz doc) is possibly one of his best musical soundtracks ever for one of his documentaries. It elevated this documentary for me in a way that none of his docs have done since Jazz (the first Ken burns doc I ever watched). I also enjoyed hearing Keith David back as the narrator—a very appropriate choice here.
It is interesting seeing the evolution of Ken Burns' career from 1981 to now. When he first started, his documentaries were wedded to the romantic notions of America: the myths, the Dream. As he kept going and kept learning—and kept being held accountable when he dropped the ball, his willingness to look American history straight in the face and look at the ugly parts with as much passion as the pretty parts has made him a better film-maker and dare I say a better person. It is interesting to see how the same man who made The Civil War, made The Vietnam War. The guy who made the romanticized-documentary on Huey Long in 1985 made a 1000-times better one on Muhammad Ali. True evolution, true growth, true awakening of an artist. Just like Muhammad Ali.
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