PICK TO CLICK ANSEL ADAMS BIO AIMS TO MAKE PHOTOGRAPHER LARGER THAN LIFE.

Byline: DAVID KRONKE TV Critic

JUST A GUESS, but the rugged nature photographer who serves as the subject of Ric Burns' ``Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film'' would himself find it too precious by half. Burns, whose beautifully elegiac 15-hour documentary about ``New York'' occasionally betrayed a propensity for wildly romantic overstatement, fairly outdoes himself here.

Peppered with grandiose yet undemonstrable statements such as, ``I can't think of an artist who was more American than Ansel Adams'' (Why? Because he only became famous once his best work was behind him?), the film finds interviewees trying awfully hard to be poetic in their descriptions of Adams' work, transforming his scenic photography into mythical, mystical works. Instead of merely taking photos, we are told that Adams ``pour(ed) into his little box his wonder and his ecstasy''; the word ``evanescence'' is used a lot.

All this is deflated when one observer notes that Adams' work ``wasn't trying to send a message,'' and it's pointed out that Adams himself acknowledged that some of his most memorable photographs were the result of ``chance, favoring the prepared mind.''

Florid prose, delivered by narrator David Ogden Stiers, could really describe anyone: ``His whole life would be a journey and an exploration.'' As a child, we're told, he had ``boundless energy'' and ``His father just adored him'' - are there any kids about whom you wouldn't say this sort of thing? His distinctiveness is further dubiously cited by the observation that when deadlines loomed, he got a little crazed - as, um, just about anyone would.

At one point, Stiers intones, ``The next five years would prove to be the most crucial and formative of his entire career''; later, a love affair with an assistant is genteelly tiptoed around, except to note that it inspired ``some of the most inspired and luminous work of his career.'' The documentary is the equivalent of Adams using a Day-Glo purple filter to shoot his majestic subjects.

Of course, there's opportunity to admire his brilliance - cinematographers Buddy Squires, Michael Chin and Jon Else have much to compete against in replicating Adams' severe, awe-inspiring photographs, particularly his famous shots taken throughout Yosemite, so there's splendor aplenty. But the film offers just glimpses of his photos that rarely linger as long as you'd like. Fans will likely be better off paging luxuriantly through one of his books of photography.

ANSEL ADAMS: A DOCUMENTARY FILM - Two and one half stars

What: American Experience biography of the photographer from filmmaker Ric Burns.

Where: KCET.

When: 9 tonight.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Filmmaker Ric Burns' portrait of photographer Ansel Adams, seen here circa 1920, often inflates its subject to majestic importance, yet Adams' work speaks for itself.