Ken Burns: On The Trail Of Lewis & Clark -- Documentary Follows In The Footsteps Of Two Men Who Made History

----------------------------------------------------------------- Television preview "Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery," 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, KCTS-TV. -----------------------------------------------------------------

"For their time, it was the equivalent of going to the moon!"

That's the way one historian describes the early 19th-century journey of exploration by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River, colorfully and thrillingly chronicled in Ken Burns' newest PBS documentary.

It was a group of 40 men who set out on May 14, 1804, at the behest of President Thomas Jefferson, to explore the newly purchased Louisiana Territory. No one knew quite what to expect. Everyone knew what they hoped to find: Follow the Missouri River to its source and, from there, a short route to the Pacific Ocean.

The Lewis & Clark Expedition, called "The Corps of Discovery," would not see St. Louis again until Sept. 23, 1806. When they did return it would be with a wealth of new maps and an amazing amount of information on the flora and fauna of the West, as well as a new respect for how truly large an area lay west of the Mississippi River.

That's all in the history books, of course, but what Burns and fellow filmmaker Dayton Duncan have tried to do is personalize and dramatize those events, taking us over the route the intrepid explorers followed, making it come to life through the use of maps, personal reminiscences from diaries and letters (read by actors), and assessments of the project by a variety of historians. These give viewers a sense of how the invaders appeared to the Native Americans they encountered, ranging from Blackfeet warriors, who caused trouble, to the Nez Perce, who vowed eternal friendship.

The filmmakers have stuck as closely as possible to the original route and, to my mind, the real heroes of this film are cinematographers Allen Moore and Buddy Squires. They, along with Burns, have somehow come up with breathtaking vistas unmarred by anything contemporary. This seemingly endless collection of stunning scenic shots strongly communicates what the West must have looked like to members of the expedition.

Dayton Duncan, author of "Out West: An American Journey Along the Lewis and Clark Trail," wrote the script for Burns' film and also appears as a narrator. But by far the most passionate narrator - a man who seems to still be living every exciting moment - is Stephen Ambrose, author of the recent bestseller, "Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West." It's impossible to watch this film and to hear Ambrose's comments without also catching some of his fervor about the journey.

The first two hours cover the trip up the Missouri River and the group's hard winter in North Dakota, and ends as they realize they face hundreds of miles through mountains more dangerous than they had ever seen before they could find rivers that would take them to the Pacific Ocean.

The second two hours cover the remainder of the journey, the winter spent on the Oregon Coast (where it rained all the time) and their eventual return to St. Louis. There's also a kind of epilogue that tells, whenever possible, what happened to the members of the corps. That part is interesting, but something of a letdown after the challenge and excitement of the trip.

Hal Holbrook serves as the film's narrator, with Adam Arkin providing the voice for Lewis, Murphy Guyer for William Clark and Sam Waterston for President Jefferson.

As with most PBS projects of this scope there's a CD (on RCA Victor) of the music - some traditional, some specially composed - for the film, and a companion book, "An Illustrated History" (Knopf - $40), rich in maps and diary excerpts.

In some ways, however, Burns has become a victim of his own success. For history buffs, "Lewis & Clark" will hold their attention throughout; for others who have seen Burns use a similar format in "The Civil War," "The West" and "Thomas Jefferson," there's a sense of deja vu about this film. It may be time for Burns to contemplate a new approach for his next project.