Ken Burns

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  4/20/2022
  

  The Unbearable Whiteness of Ken Burns

  by Timothy Messer-Kruse

  In the context of today's battles over teaching the history of racism in America, the new Franklin documentary unfortunately uses its subject to spin a narrative of national self-correction that ignores historians' attention to conflict and struggle. 

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• SOURCE: Jacobin
  4/4/2022
  

  Ken Burns on the Revolutionary Ben Franklin

  "If you find out that, very early on, there’s somebody advocating emancipation, it just makes the narrative a little bit messier."

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• SOURCE: Hollywood Reporter
  12/5/2021
  

  Ken Burns "In Tears" at Posthumous Hall of Fame Induction of Negro League Star Buck O'Neil

  Buck O'Neil's recollections of the Negro Leagues were a key part of Burns's 1994 documentary series "Baseball." O'Neil was a tireless champion of the history of Black baseball who pushed the sport's establishment to recognize that part of its history. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/27/2021
  

  Ken Burns's Documentary Shows We Can't Quit Ali

  by Jay Caspian Kang

  "The odd thing about American sainthood is that we seem to prefer those who, like Ali and Jackie Robinson, did not engage directly in the dirty world of politics, but rather stood as trailblazers or icons in sports or Hollywood."

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• SOURCE: AV Club
  9/13/2021
  

  Ken Burns's "Muhammad Ali" Well-Crafted, But Not Groundbreaking

  Ken Burns has an irresistable subject for his latest project. The problem isn't the quality of his film, but that so many others have gotten there first. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/2/2021
  

  Ken Burns Argues He's not "Taking Up Too Much Space"

  The documentarian joins Kara Swisher's "Sway" podcast, focusing on how digital technology is changing the practice of reconstructing the past and whether Burns's films are taking too much airtime as PBS seeks to diversify its stable of producers. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/2/2021
  

  Review: ‘Hemingway’ Is a Big Two-Hearted Reconsideration

  “Can you separate the art from the artist?” is a heated and dogmatic argument these days. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick force the viewer to consider if that separation is possible or desirable. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/12/2021
  

  Ken Burns Still Has Faith in a Shared American Story

  "The most important thing about me talking about race now is to say that I am in a position where I have to be quiet. You have to be quiet. There are other voices that need to speak. The dismantling of white supremacy is not just white people continually talking about the dismantling of white supremacy. You have to shut up and listen."

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• SOURCE: CBS News
  11/8/2020
  

  Ken Burns on America, Selling His First Film, PBS's Long Deadlines and More

  "I have had the privilege of spending my entire life making films about the U.S., capital U, capital S. But I've also had the privilege of making films about 'us,' the two-letter, lowercase, plural pronoun, that has a kind of intimacy and warmth to it."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/26/2020
  

  Re-Watching ‘The Civil War’ During the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd Protests

  by Gillian Brockell

  Ken Burns's Civil War documentary series sparked tremendous interest in history, but the series has a big Shelby Foote problem. 

• 
• 12/8/19
  

  The Problem with Ken Burns' Country Music

  by Peter LaChapelle

  What would a Country Music that deals with country music’s complicated and often problematic political history look like?

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• SOURCE: The Boston Globe
  6/6/2019
  

  Boston couple donates $15 million to ‘help create the next Ken Burns’

  “I’d like to see there be not another Ken Burns but maybe 10 other Ken Burnses."

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• SOURCE: Smithsonian Magazine
  

  Why We Need a New Civil War Documentary

  by Keri Leigh Merritt

  The success and brilliance of the new PBS series on Reconstruction is a reminder of the missed opportunity facing the nation.

• 
• SOURCE: Huffington Post
  9-25-18
  

  Ken Burns Isn’t Mad

  The “far, far left,” “far, far right” and “third- and fourth-rate academics” are all wrong about America’s most famous documentary filmmaker. Just ask him.

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• SOURCE: The Denver Post
  9-14-18
  

  Patty Limerick says Ken Burns has done more than anybody else to teach Americans about their history

  by Patty Limerick

  “There is a great deal for all citizens to learn from Burns: how to speak as a whole-hearted patriot while offering a forthright critique of the nation’s failures."

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• 8/19/18
  

  Emmy Voters: It’s Time to Brush Up on Your History

  by Michael Stewart Foley

  The PBS series on Vietnam may have made a big splash. But that doesn’t mean it’s the last word on the subject.

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• 8/10/18
  

  The Ken Burns/Lynn Novick Vietnam Documentary Has Been Nominated for an Emmy in Several Categories

  by Barbara Myers

  It doesn’t deserve an award for its content.

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• 8/12/18
  

  This Social Scientist’s Verdict on the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick Vietnam War Documentary

  by James W. Russell

  The film is well made, engrossing, and fundamentally wrong in key respects.

• 
• SOURCE: USA Today
  7-3-18
  

  Ken Burns's has a new website: Unum

  It uses history to explain today's divides.

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• SOURCE: Inside Higher ED
  1-9-18
  

  Historians were MIA from the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick documentary

  And they’re upset about that.