Ken Burns (b.1953,) fully Kenneth Lauren Burns, is a prolific American documentary filmmaker, known for exploring a wide range of topics large and small in American history. He is credited with originating a stylistic approach that is well suited to his subjects and his ideological outlook.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Burns shared his father’s love of photography. He graduated from Hampshire College with a B.A. in film studies and design in 1975. His first significant project, Brooklyn Bridge (1981,) garnered an Academy Award nomination in the documentary category and set the tone for an acclaimed career as a filmmaker of American history and culture. His early films include The Shakers (1984,) The Statue of Liberty (1985,) and Huey Long (1985.)
Burns’s 11-hour television series The Civil War (1990) secured his standing as a master filmmaker. In this series, he did not seek to resolve a specific historical question but instead explored the times through personal stories. The series won two Emmy Awards and earned record profits.
Burns then made a sequence of single films, miniseries, and extended series, notably Baseball (1994,) Lewis & Clark (1997,) Jazz (2001,) Mark Twain (2001,) The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (2009,) Prohibition (2011,) The Dust Bowl (2012,) The Roosevelts: An Intimate History (2014,) and The Vietnam War (2017.) Other works covered Thomas Jefferson, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, boxer Jack Johnson, and feminists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Ken Burns
Everybody screws up, including me…It’s a question of process. We’re all going to try something. We can have disagreements that can be passionate, but they’re not loud and vociferous; they’re not personal and angry. There’s a generous spirit of collaboration.
—Ken Burns
It’s often said that the digital revolution that puts a TV camera in everyone’s hands makes everyone a filmmaker. It’s [nonsense]. What makes someone a filmmaker is somebody who knows how to tell a story and telling a story.
—Ken Burns
Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being.
—Ken Burns
Topics: Survival
I don’t pick subjects because I know about them. I pick subjects because I want to know about them…Everything comes with a blizzard of new things you learn.
—Ken Burns
A lot of people are drawn to film for its apparent glamour and don’t realize it’s really hard work.
—Ken Burns
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