Ken Burns

Ken Burns born 1953 is a highly celebrated American documentarian who gradually amassed a considerable reputation and a devoted audience with a series of reassuringly traditional meditations on Americana Burns works are treasure troves of archival materials he skillfully utilizes period music and footage photographs periodicals and ordinary peoples correspondence the latter often movingly read by seasoned professional actors in a deliberate attempt to get away from a Great Man approach to history Like most nonfiction filmmakers Burns wears many hats on his projects often serving as writer cinematographer editor and music director in addition to producing and directing He achieved his apotheosis with The Civil War 1990 a phenomenally popular 11hour documentary that won two Emmys and broke all previous ratings records for public TV The series companion coffee table bookpriced at a hefty 50sold more than 700000 copies The audio version narrated by Burns was also a major bestseller In the final accounting The Civil War became the first documentary to gross over 100 million Not surprisingly it has become perennial fundraising programming for public TV stations around the country Burns arrived upon the scene with the Oscarnominated Brooklyn Bridge 1981 a nostalgic chronicle of the construction of the fabled edifice The film was more widely seen when rebroadcast on PBS the following year Though Burns has made other nonfiction films for theatrical release notably an acclaimed and ambiguous portrait of Depressionera Louisiana governor Huey Long 1985 PBS would prove to be his true home He cast a probing eye on such American subjects as The Statue of Liberty 1985 The Congress 1988 PBS painter Thomas Hart Benton 1988 PBS and early radio with Empire of the Air The Men Who Made Radio 1991 PBS Burns returned to longform documentary with his most ambitious project to date an 18hour history of Baseball 1994 which aired on PBS in the fall of 1994 He approached the national pastime as a template for understanding changes in modern American society Ironically this was the only baseball on the air at the time as the players and owners were embroiled in a bitter strike