Famed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns talks about his new documentary on the American Revolution, his Vietnam War series and more as the special guest on this week’s Tango Alpha Lima podcast.
Renowned documentary filmmaker Ken Burns talks about his new documentary on the American Revolution, his Vietnam War series and more as the special guest on this week’s episode of The American Legion Tango Alpha Lima podcast.
He has created a legendary catalog of documentaries including “The Vietnam War,” “The Civil War,” “Baseball,” “The War,” “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea;” and more. His films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including 17 Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations.
Up next for Burns: “The American Revolution,” a six-part, 12-hour documentary series, which will premiere Nov. 16 on PBS. Burns set his mind to doing the Revolutionary War project as soon as the Vietnam War series was completed.
“I knew how difficult it would be,” he recalls. “No photographs. No newsreels. It was proportionally as bad as our Civil War.”
The series, Burns says, introduces the viewers to dozens of characters from the Revolution. Among them is Benedict Arnold, who created a loyalist regiment. Its name? The American Legion.
Burns shares how the death of his mother when he was 11 indirectly led to his career.
“After she died, my dad had a very strict curfew,” he says. “But on school nights for me, he would let me stay up late, sometimes until 1 a.m., watching old movies. It was the first time I’d seen him cry. Not when she was sick. Not when she died. Not at the impossibly sad funeral. That’s when I decided to be a filmmaker.”
By age 22, he dedicated his focus on documentaries about history. “You’re looking at a 72-year-old who for 50 years has not deviated from that course.”
Other snippets from Burns:
• The Vietnam documentary: “It exposes the best and worst of us. It is really fundamentally a portal into human behavior, experience, and that good and bad stuff.”
• Burns’ father served in World War II, arriving in France in April 1945. “He liberated some other things,” he says, referring to finding a stash of wine. “One bottle at a time.”
• His reason for doing the Civil War series: “It was the determining factor, the most important thing in American history.”
Also in this episode, co-hosts Stacy Pearsall and Joe Worley talk about:
• The Ken Burns Effect, a pan or zoom added in postproduction across a still image.
• The impact of federal cuts to NPR, PBS and other educational media outlets.
• What Reddit is saying about watching documentaries by Burns.
You can also check out the more than 300 Tango Alpha Lima podcasts available in both audio and video formats here. You can also download episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify other major podcast-hosting sites. The video version is available at the Legion’s YouTube channel.
- Tango Alpha Lima