TV REVIEW : Falling Short of ‘Rediscovering Will Rogers’

Stephan Chodorov’s film for PBS’ “American Masters” series, “Rediscovering Will Rogers,” intends to revive the ghost of this great American Renaissance man and make him live for generations who know him--if at all--as a clownish bumpkin. But is this the film to do it?

With all due respect to Chodorov, Rogers deserves a Ken Burns, a filmmaker to match this cultural mountain. Rogers perfectly meshes with Burns’ ongoing themes--the maturation of America, the ties between heartland and city, the ways individuals from humble roots transform American life.

Chodorov, with fine assistance from narrator Edwin Newman, displays great affection for the man who said “I never met a man I didn’t like.” But what’s on display here is something short of a “rediscovery.”

The film’s strength is its emphasis on Rogers’ half-Cherokee, half-Anglo upbringing, and all of the inherent contradictions that stemmed from it. In this hour’s most penetrating section, Rogers’ Native American-ness emerges: His penchant for benefits and giving possessions away, and his movie persona as a coyotelike trickster, the clown with aces up the sleeve.

As CBS’ Andy Rooney notes here, Rogers was no bumpkin from Oklahoma but rather an exceptionally smart, gifted, civilized man who loved associating with men in power because they got things done. He was the court jester of the Washington and European political circles (as various clips amply demonstrate). He also produced more than 2 million words in books and New York Times columns. He topped the Ziegfield Follies bill in the ‘20s (the inspiration of “The Will Rogers Follies”) and went on to become a top Hollywood star in the silent and early sound era.

While Chodorov’s film shows this powerhouse at work--the embodiment, along with Babe Ruth, of 1920s energy and optimism--it frantically jumps back and forth through the chronological record, and it never gets to the heart of Rogers’ political conscience. He was the kind of Democrat that Democrats have forgotten to be: Rooted in the working class, devoted to democracy and instinctual goodness, radically Populist and spiteful of the selfish.

Today, he would be branded a flaming leftist, which only demonstrates how restricted the political landscape has become. This film sadly fails to rediscover Rogers’ philosophic core, which continues to hold deep value.

* “Rediscovering Will Rogers” airs at 9 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28 and KPBS-TV Channel 15, and at 8 p.m. on KVCR-TV Channel 24.