American Freedoms A Documentary

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What it's about

I study and teach the history of the United States, so for decades I’ve talked with people about the tireless efforts made by self-described Americans to name, secure, and protect their freedoms. We are reminded daily—in our politics, popular culture, even advertising—that demands for freedom have helped to define the American experience. Whenever the subject comes up in conversation, most individuals have a lot to contribute. Yet there has never been consensus in the U.S. about freedom’s meaning or boundaries, about whose freedoms deserve protection, or even on fundamental shared principles. It turns out that when Americans invoke their "freedoms," they often have many different things in mind.

This shouldn't surprise us. The people who have called the U.S. home can claim widely different experiences and so their expectations, understandably, have ranged widely too. Still a belief in the nation's commitment to an abstract principle has always loomed large and remains influential, for good reason. And so this film asks: What freedoms have been unique to life in the U.S. or essential to defining it, and why don’t Americans agree upon the answer?

I am filming conversations on this subject with hundreds of people nationwide. Has living in the United States allowed them to enjoy particular political, cultural, economic, intellectual, and personal freedoms? Do they think that Americans sometimes take basic freedoms for granted or claim freedoms that are undeserved? Why is there little agreement about the word's meaning, about what it takes to secure rights and privileges that so many have come to expect, or about the reasons that Americans' freedoms have at times been lost or denied?

The interviews

The story presented in American Freedoms will be driven and literally told by the hundreds of individuals who agree to be interviewed. Their voices, alone, will narrate; no "experts" (or filmmaker) will chime in to offer commentary. And because of the numbers involved, no one will get extensive screen time. The film won't "profile" individuals or focus on any one person's views or experiences. Those who appear on screen will be identified by their first name and, if they choose, a few terms of self-description. And the film will not pass judgement. I am not taking a position on how to best understand freedom's meanings and histories.

Instead, the interviews will document why the idea of freedom in the U.S. has always been elusive and why its politics remain both contested and consequential. The film will present a collage of conversations, where people talk about their experiences, impressions, and convictions and so present stories that will be familiar to many but also stories that will surprise and even confuse. The project invites participants and viewers alike to put competing understandings of American Freedoms—freedoms imagined, aspired to, and realized—in conversation with their own.