Following in the tradition of The Civil War, Baseball, and Jazz, Florentine Films has embarked on another major documentary series on another quintessentially American subject: the national parks. The places themselves are unique. And they all have histories inextricably intertwined with the
nation’s. But equally important, it was in the United States that the radical notion of setting aside such special parts of the landscape for the enjoyment of all the people was first proposed and enacted.

Our series, tentatively entitled The National Parks (six episodes, twelve hours), will tell the remarkable story of these places – from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Great Smoky Mountains, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska, and scores of other parks that preserve unique landscapes and icons of our national existence. Ours will not be a travelogue or a “nature film” but a documentary history, albeit with some of Nature’s most spectacular locales as its backdrop. It is a dramatic story, full of struggle and conflict, high ideals and crass opportunism, stirring adventure and enduring inspiration. It is a human story, filled with unforgettable characters, from prospectors to presidents, outlaws to artists. Nonetheless, like the nation’s story, it is still the
story of an idea – an idea that is constantly tested, constantly evolving, and inherently full of contradictory tensions: between individual rights and the community, between preservation and exploitation, between one generation’s immediate desires and the next generation’s legacy.