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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.
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2mins
The most effective question he ever asked a subject from behind the camera wasn’t a question at all.
3mins
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.”
3mins
It’s a classic historian’s question, but Ken Burns rejects it, insisting that “human nature is the only given.”
4mins
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 […]
3mins
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?
6mins
Inspired by Twain’s own example, the “Mark Twain” documentarian seeks to explore quintessentially American issues of “race and space.”
5mins
Filmmaker Ken Burns describes how he hopes “The National Parks” will succeed both as a topical statement about conservation and a timeless human story.
6mins
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.”
5mins
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 […]
3mins
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 […]
