American Experience (TV Series) Into the Amazon (2018) User Reviews

About a hellish part of history few know about today....

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 20 January 2018]

This episode is about Teddy Roosevelt and his incredibly ill-fated trip he took with his son, Kermit, in the Amazon region. While Teddy was quite the world traveler and adventurer, he greatly underestimated the challenges he and his party would have when they went along with the famed explorer, Cândido Rondon, as he mapped the so-called 'River of Doubt'. The show, in particular, focuses on the privations they met and shows how our ex-President almost became an ex-human being!

Overall, this episode was exceptionally well made and interesting...which is pretty much how you can sum up almost every episode of "The American Experience"! Well worth seeing and never dull!

Great storytelling, disappointing visuals

[trey-yancy-572-763547 · 8/10 · 26 July 2023]

While many are aware of TR's African adventure, his trip through the Amazon has received little attention. The story is well told, the writing is great, the editing is also excellent, and there is none of the constant recycling of images as is seen in the majority of documentaries out there. A major failing is the decision to process all the jungle scenes and recreations in black and white. Obviously the intention was to match the still images but was an idiotic decision - over an hour of jungle footage with zero color. Although unintended, the hunger to see potentially beautiful images rendered in variants of tar underlined the participants' desperate need to get out of that jungle. Frankly, it came to almost ruining the project. It certainly reduced the enjoyment by half.

Teddy Roosevelt barely survives the Amazon.

[TxMike · 1 June 2018]

This is a PBS presentation but I found the DVD at my public library. It is long at almost 2 hours but put together in a very interesting manner. It uses current actors, unseen, as voices of some of the key players, plus still photos and motion picture clips from the actual expedition.

Teddy Roosevelt was an explorer at heart, he was the youngest ever elected President at 42. He served as US President from 1901 to 1909, then attempted to get elected again in 1912. Failing to do so he took an interest in exploring part of Brazil, called the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition. They entering the so-called River of Doubt, thought to be a tributary of the Amazon River, and with a team following it to its mouth. Roosevelt figured it would be a virtual "walk in the park" but was rudely surprised at the difficulty. At one point he injured a leg and developed an infection serious enough he was prepared to die in the Amazon.

This film is about that expedition that lasted almost 4 months. Roosevelt and his son Kermit did survive but Teddy lost 50 pounds during the ordeal and came away from it very weak. He lived less than 5 more years and died at age 60, very young for a man who had been so physically energetic over the years.

Overall a very worthwhile viewing for anyone who finds old world exploration interesting.