Ken Burns

Kenneth Lauren Burns (29 July, 1953 –) is the acclaimed American director of many documentary series such as The Civil War, The Vietnam War, and Baseball.

Ken Burns in 2007.

Quotes

• One would think that making a film is an additive process; you're building this—it's not, it's subtractive. The best metaphor I know of is we make maple syrup in [Walpole, New Hampshire] and it takes forty gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. And that's what the process is.
  • 60 Minutes Season 53, Episode 42, "SolarWinds, Ken Burns, Best Band in the Land" (2021)

• I think this is the greatest threat to our republic ever. Not the Depression, not World War II, not the Civil War. This is it … This moment of all these intersecting viruses, of novel coronaviruses and of racial injustice — [a] 402-year-old-virus. And it’s an age-old human virus of lying and misinformation and paranoia and conspiracy. This is the pill that will kill us unless we do something.
  • As quoted in "Opinion: Ken Burns is an optimist. But he’s very worried about America." by Alyssa Rosenberg, in The Washington Post (24 June 2021)

• Being an American means reckoning with a history fraught with violence and injustice. Ignoring that reality in favor of mythology is not only wrong but also dangerous. The dark chapters of American history have just as much to teach us, if not more, than the glorious ones, and often the two are intertwined.
  • "Opinion: Ken Burns: Being American means reckoning with our violent history." by Ken Burns, in The Washington Post (22 November 2021)