A person could be forgiven for thinking that documentary filmmaker Ken Burns - the man behind such acclaimed projects as "The Civil War," "Jazz" and "Baseball" - is a top-notch historian.
Historian and author Stephen Ambrose once said, "More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source."
But although many might disagree with his dismissal of his expertise, Burns has no formal training in the subject that he's spent his career exploring.
"The last time I took a class in American history was 11th grade, where they hold a gun to your head and make you take it," said Burns, who'll speak Friday in Seattle about his art and his life.
He says he is not an expert on any of the subjects of his films.
"I've never made a film about a subject that I've known about," he said. "I've always made a film about a subject I was curious about.
"Rather than telling you what I know - which is, I think, boring - I'd rather share with you what I've just discovered. There's a lot more energy in the latter."
The next discovery he'll share, in the PBS project "The War," is the personal stories of everyday Americans during World War II. Set to air in the fall of 2007, the documentary follows Jewish, Eastern and Southern European immigrants in Waterbury, Conn.; those of the Old South, poor South and black South in Mobile, Ala.; Northern European and "regular American stock" in Luverne, Minn.; and Japanese-Americans, black Americans and others in Sacramento, Calif.
"I always think that bottom-up history is the best way to go," he said. "In 'The Civil War,' we combined top-down with bottom-up. You got to know Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, but you got to know ordinary soldiers as well.
"The second World War has been essentially done to death in the top-down version. What we've needed to do is have the whole vision of the war through the American experience, through the eyes of ordinary people.
"The geography of hope and loss and despair and love is the undertow of all war," he said.
Burns has projects in development on several more topics: the national parks, Prohibition, Reconstruction and a "10th inning" of "Baseball."
"It may be an infectious disease of mine, but I'm excited about dozens of things," he said. "The topics pick me. I have exposed myself to all these different ideas, stories in American history, and one of them - or several of them at a time - so insinuates itself into my heart that I literally have to do it."
When a film is complete, though, Burns' passion for the topic goes on.
"These projects are very similar to my three daughters," he said. "They are born and they have a permanent place in my heart. Even though they might be done, 'grown up,' they still have enormous importance.
"Once it's out in the world, it takes on a life of its own, which is to me equally interesting."
Burns recently wrote about the events of Sept. 11, 2001, for USA Weekend magazine, but he said it's too soon to make a historical documentary about that day.
"I want to treat 9/11, but I want to wait 15, 20 years," he said. "That's basically our benchmark. We've had two or three projects that have come to the present - 'Jazz,' 'Baseball' - but the last episodes or the last half of the last episodes are more impressionistic. We are loathe to make final judgments without that perspective.
"Sept. 11 is still the province of you - of journalism."
Source:
The Olympian