Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 20, 1995 TAG: 9504210079
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: HAL BOEDEKER ORLANDO SENTINEL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Before ``Waterworld,'' the $150-million-plus adventure starring Costner, reaches movie theaters this summer, the high-minded movie star delivers ``500 Nations'' to TV tonight.
You have to applaud Costner's chutzpah. He produced and hosts this sprawling documentary honoring Native American cultures in North America.
Typical PBS fare, you say?
Not this time. CBS has committed eight hours to ``500 Nations,'' a startling change of pace for a commercial broadcaster. The documentary airs from 8 to 10 tonight and Friday on WDBJ, Channel 7. CBS has not announced the dates for the latter four hours.
A break from talk, tabloid and O.J. in favor of the long view sounds refreshing. But Costner's ``Dances With History'' is clearly no audience-grabber like ``Dances With Wolves.''
The plodding ``500 Nations'' probably will be stampeded by NBC's powerful Thursday lineup and a timely - and superior - Peter Jennings special on ABC, ``Children First: Real Kids, Real Solutions''.
The title ``500 Nations'' reflects the main problem with the ambitious program: It covers too much ground, looks at too many tribes, tells too many stories. In Professor Costner's class, you do need to take notes.
I watched only the first two hours, which jump through the centuries and skip around geographically, and found myself nodding off.
Tonight, we move from Wounded Knee in 1890 back to creation stories. Then ``500 Nations'' turns to the Anasazi of the American Southwest (A.D. 900 to 1150); the mound-building culture represented by Cahokia (``City of the Sun,'' from A.D. 750 to 1300); the Mayas (A.D. 603 to 800); and finally the Aztecs, doomed by Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes' arrival in 1519. Though picturesque and well-meaning, the program grows increasingly ponderous. As on-screen host, the stolid Costner introduces segments, and the unseen Gregory Harrison reads the monotonous narration.
Creator/senior producer/director Jack Leustig uses techniques mastered by Ken Burns in ``The Civil War,'' mixing portraits, drawings, maps, landscape photography, experts' ruminations and historical figures' own words, spoken by actors. The actors include Patrick Stewart, Edward James Olmos, Wes Studi and Graham Greene.
You'll hear the lovely fable of an eagle flying to the sun, feel Montezuma's dread about his Aztec empire's future, live through the horror at Wounded Knee. The nature photography is stunning, but the most spectacular elements are computer-generated images depicting tribe architecture as it looked when the civilizations flourished. These awesome effects make it feel as if you've been transported by time-traveling machine.
But with no story to hold the many disparate elements together, ``500 Nations'' ultimately becomes an inventory, linked only by Costner's appearances and an overwhelming melancholy.
Far more successful is tonight's ABC News special, ``Children First: Real Kids, Real Solutions,'' which does present the ``real solutions'' its title promises (8 p.m. on WSET, Channel 13).
Like ``500 Nations,'' ``Children First'' is wide-ranging, but it is consistently compelling. The one-hour special looks at a Missouri program that grooms parents to be better teachers to their young children, and a Hawaii program that helps prevent child abuse. The ABC show moves on to Roswell, N.M., where the community is emphasizing a character-building campaign. The special concludes by looking at programs in Atlanta and Indianapolis that teach abstinence and pregnancy prevention.
Along the way, the program supplies shocking figures that lodge in the memory: About a million children are abused or neglected each year. Seven in 10 children are in poor-quality day care that stunts their development. One million girls become pregnant every year, and half of them become mothers.
A Roswell youth counselor explains what children are missing: ``Love. Not enough love. A feeling of `nobody cares. I'm here all on my own.' Dad's at work. Mom's at work. The television's on.''
``Children First'' acknowledges TV's sweeping impact on child-rearing in the '50s and '60s. ``It was the first time in the history of the world that information went directly to young people without going through the important adult authority figures,'' Yale Professor James Comer says. He adds that the whole nation needs a Roswell-style campaign to address character.
Yet, the ABC special, by its very existence, pays tribute to thoughtful TV: It grows out of excellent ``American Agenda'' reports on ``World News Tonight.'' Peter Jennings, who has two teen-agers of his own, is the empathetic host, and the fine correspondents are Rebecca Chase, Bill Blakemore and Carole Simpson.
``Children First'' might be saying things that are obvious to many parents, but the program says them well. And they need to be said more often, especially on television, which can be enemy territory for parents.
by CNB