A new three-part documentary pulls back the curtain on Henry David Thoreau, a leader of the American Transcendentalist movement and the author of the classic texts “Civil Disobedience” and Walden; or, Life in the Woods, the latter documenting his two years of isolation at Ralph Waldo Emerson’s pond in Massachusetts. The documentary is produced by Ken Burns and the Eagles musician Don Henley, a lifelong Thoreau admirer and the founder of the Walden Woods Project. Directed by brothers Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers, the series is narrated by George Clooney; Jeff Goldblum is the voice of Thoreau and Meryl Streep speaks for the various women in his life. —Paulina Prosnitz