Ken Burns
Documentary Filmmaker
Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1953, Ken Burns is a Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker whose career spans over 30 years. His first film, "Brooklyn Bridge," was nominated for an Academy Award in 1981. He was the director, producer, co-writer, chief cinematographer, music director, and executive producer of the groundbreaking documentary "The Civil War," the highest-rated series in the history of American public television. His other major films include "Baseball," "The West," "Jazz," and "The War." His most recent film, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," premiered on PBS in 2009.
The most effective question he ever asked a subject from behind the camera wasn’t a question at all.
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The digital revolution has made filmmaking technologies available to the masses. But the idea that it makes us all artists, says Ken Burns, is “bullshit.”
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It’s a classic historian’s question, but Ken Burns rejects it, insisting that “human nature is the only given.”
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According to Ken Burns, imposing a narrative on the past keeps humans from going crazy—and is an act of love. Critics who find that view tidy and sentimental are revealing […]
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Does making a documentary deepen or exhaust Ken Burns’s appreciation of its subject? And does he ever start imagining his life as one of his own films?
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Inspired by Twain’s own example, the “Mark Twain” documentarian seeks to explore quintessentially American issues of “race and space.”
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7 min
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Filmmaker Ken Burns describes how he hopes “The National Parks” will succeed both as a topical statement about conservation and a timeless human story.
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6 min
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From cutting huge amounts of footage to zooming and panning on still photos, the documentarian explains the techniques that distinguish his films—and why changing them now would be “ridiculous.”
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6 min
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As a young director with a risky film, Ken Burns had countless doors slammed in his face. How did he push past them, and how would he advise today’s young […]
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The documentarian last took a formal history class in 11th grade, “when they hold a gun to your head.” But as a passionate student of film, he soon became drawn […]
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