Line #27 Creator/KenBurns


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sed4nqr9.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:A portrait of the man just after having his head shaved.[[note]]Not counting the time it took for him to watch one of his own films.[[/note]]]]
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4	->''"History isn't really about the past – settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are."''
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6	Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York) is a popular and influential American {{documentary}} filmmaker known for his explorations of US history. Since the 1980s, he and his production company, Florentine Films, have created more than a dozen documentary miniseries for Creator/{{PBS}}, including ''The Civil War'' (1990), ''Baseball'' (1994), ''Frank Lloyd Wright'' (1998), ''Jazz'' (2001), ''The War'' (2007), ''The National Parks'' (2009), ''Prohibition'' (2011), ''The Dust Bowl'' (2012), ''The Roosevelts'' (2014), and ''The Vietnam War'' (2017).
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8	His documentaries are known for their unique style, including a visual technique first made famous with ''The Civil War'' and now known as TheKenBurnsEffect (though Burns himself has gone on record stating that he didn't actually ''invent'' the eponymous effect, crediting the Creator/NationalFilmBoardOfCanada documentary ''Film/{{City of Gold\|1957}}'' as his inspiration). He also employs distinctive musical scores, such as the upbeat string arrangements of ''The War'' or the folk waltz "Ashokan Farewell", which was played over twenty times during ''The Civil War'' (though it was first used in 1985's ''Huey Long''). Among the well-known musicians who have contributed music to Burns' films are the likes of jazzman Wynton Marsalis, singer-songwriter Norah Jones, and Trent Reznor of Music/NineInchNails. His projects have also been able to attract some ''very'' esteemed actors to do voice over work, usually reading contemporary diaries and letters (''The Civil War'', for instance, featured Creator/LaurenceFishburne, Creator/MorganFreeman, Creator/JulieHarris, Creator/JeremyIrons, Creator/JasonRobards, and Creator/SamWaterston among others, while other films have used heavyweights such as Creator/TomHanks and Creator/MerylStreep). His go-to narrators have included notables such as David [=McCullough=] (''The Civil War''), Creator/KeithDavid (''The War'' and ''Muhammad Ali''), and Creator/PeterCoyote (most of Burns' films from the past decade or so). Another trademark is that a character will usually state their name and sometimes the year they wrote their thoughts. Burns has become well-known in the documentary world as a result, and many other filmmakers have emulated his style.
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10	In later years Burns has collaborated with documentarian Creator/LynnNovick, who has been producing his documentaries since ''Frank Lloyd Wright'' and was co-director with Burns of ''The War'', ''The Vietnam War'', and three episodes of ''Prohibition''. Other frequent collaborators are historian and writer Geoffrey W. Ward (who has scripted many of Burns' documentaries as well as written their companion books) and Burns' own brother Ric, who has also made documentaries of his own in a style similar to his brother's, including "The Donner Party" episode of ''Series/TheAmericanExperience''.
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12	Ken Burns also had a cameo in ''Film/{{Gettysburg}}'', as a Union officer who asks General Hancock to get off his horse as Hancock rides along the line to inspire his terrified men.
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15	[[AC: Directed:]]
16	* ''Film/BrooklynBridge'' (1981): His first documentary, about the conception and construction of the Bridge and the people involved.
17	* ''The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God'' (1984)
18	* ''Film/TheStatueOfLiberty'' (1985)
19	* ''Huey Long'' (1985)
20	* ''Thomas Hart Benton'' (1988)
21	* ''Series/TheCivilWar'' (1990): Burns' first miniseries-style doc, covering the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar in exhausting, often gruesome detail. A huge success that earned what was then the highest Nielsen ratings in PBS history.
22	* ''Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio'' (1991): The story of the development of American radio broadcasting, and the contentious relationship between the people who created it.
23	* ''Baseball'' (1994): His second miniseries-doc, exploring the history of Baseball from its origins to the early 1990s.
24	* ''The West'' (1996)
25	* ''Thomas Jefferson'' (1997)
26	* ''Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery'' (1997): The story of the first journey by Americans across the North American continent.
27	* ''Frank Lloyd Wright'' (1998)
28	* ''Not for Ourselves Alone: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony'' (1999)
29	* ''Jazz'' (2001): A (limited) history of Jazz music.
30	* ''Mark Twain'' (2001)
31	* ''Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip'' (2003): The story of the first journey across the United States by automobile.
32	* ''Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson'' (2005)
33	* ''The War'' (2007): A history of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, which was criticized for its intentionally limited scope (focusing on the American role in the war, and more specifically on four small-to-midsize American towns/cities).
34	* ''The National Parks: America's Best Idea'' (2009)
35	* ''The Tenth Inning'' (2010): A follow-up to ''Baseball'' covering the years since that documentary's release.
36	* ''Prohibition'' (2011): A history of the Prohibition of alcohol in the United States, including the origins of the movement and its lingering effects. Based heavily on ''Last Call'' by Daniel Okrent.
37	* ''The Dust Bowl'' (2012): A tragic remembrance of America's greatest environmental disaster.
38	* ''The Central Park Five'' (2012)
39	* ''Yosemite'' (2013)
40	* ''The Address'' (2013): Schoolchildren memorize UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln's Gettysburg Address, 150 years after it was originally recited.
41	* ''The Roosevelts: An Intimate History'' (2014): Chronicling the history of UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt, UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt, and UsefulNotes/EleanorRoosevelt from Theodore's birth to Eleanor's death, including their personal and political lives and the influence they had on America and the world.
42	* ''Jackie Robinson'' (2015): A two-part spinoff of ''Baseball'', focusing on the life and career of UsefulNotes/JackieRobinson, who broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947.
43	* ''Series/TheVietnamWar'' (2017): DarkerAndEdgier, not to mention BloodierAndGorier, than his other wartime documentaries, this miniseries chronicles UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar in detail even more excruciating than that shown in ''The Civil War'' and ''The War''.
44	* ''The Mayo Clinic: Faith, Hope, Science'' (2018)
45	* ''Country Music'' (2019)
46	* ''Ernest Hemingway'' (2020)
47	* ''Muhammad Ali'' (2021)
48	* ''Benjamin Franklin'' (2022)
49	* ''The U.S. and the Holocaust'' (2022)
50	* ''The American Buffalo'' (2023)

Context Creator / KenBurns