Ken Burns
Directing
Born July 29, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York, USA
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 people's 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 non-fiction 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 11-hour documentary that won two Emmys and broke all previous ratings records for public TV. The series' companion coffee table book--priced at a hefty $50--sold more than 700,000 copies. The audio version, narrated by Burns, was also a major best-seller. In the final accounting, "The Civil War" became the first documentary to gross over $100 million. Not surprisingly, it has become perennial fund-raising programming for public TV stations around the country. Burns arrived upon the scene with the Oscar-nominated 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 Depression-era 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 long-form documentary with his most ambitious project to date, an 18-hour 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.
Filmography
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
The American Revolution
Leonardo da Vinci
Ken Burns: One Nation, Many Stories
In the Know
Self
Homecoming
The American Buffalo
Spirit of Golf
Self
The U.S. and the Holocaust
Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness
Benjamin Franklin
The Unmaking of a College
Self
The Problem with Jon Stewart
Self
Muhammad Ali
Back on the Record with Bob Costas
Self
De la poussière et des hommes
Hemingway
Ken Burns: Here & There
Himself
Here For A Good Time
Self
The Gene: An Intimate History
East Lake Meadows: A Public Housing Story
College Behind Bars
Very Ralph
Self
Country Music
The Mayo Clinic
Firing Line with Margaret Hoover
Walden
The Vietnam War
Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War
Jackie Robinson
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Self - Guest
Difficult People
Ken Burns
Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies
Interstellar
The Roosevelts: An Intimate History
The Address
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
Self - Guest
Yosemite — A Gathering of Spirit
Narrator (Voice)
After the Central Park Five
The Dust Bowl
Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself
Himself
The Mindy Project
Ken Burns
The Central Park Five
Finding Your Roots
Self
Prohibition
Baseball: The Tenth Inning
Baseball: The Tenth Inning
Seeing, Searching, Being: William Segal
A Hall for Heroes: The Inaugural Hall of Fame Induction of 1939
The National Parks: America's Best Idea
MLB: Baseball's Seasons
Self - Filmmaker
The War
Craft in America
Himself
Wordplay
Self
The Colbert Report
Self
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Jazz
Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens - A Life in Animation
Self
Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony
Frank Lloyd Wright
Lewis & Clark - The Journey of the Corps of Discovery
The View
Self
Thomas Jefferson
The West
The Daily Show
Self
Baseball
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Self - Guest
Late Show with David Letterman
Self - Guest
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio
Lindbergh
The Civil War
The Simpsons
Ken Burns (voice)
Thomas Hart Benton
The Congress
The Statue of Liberty
Huey Long
The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God
This Week
Brooklyn Bridge
CNN Special Report
Self
60 Minutes
Self
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
Self
Today
Self