THE COLLEGIATE PRESSWIRE INTERVIEW: KEN BURNS
(CPWIRE) November 1, 1999-- Collegiate Presswire recently had the opportunity to speak with award-winning documentary filmmaker, Ken Burns. In the interview, Burns offers insight into the filmmaking process, his creative talents and the reasons he pursued suffrage as the topic of his latest film, ''Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony.'' The film, a General Motors Mark of Excellence Presentation, airs on PBS on November 7 and 8 at 8:00 p.m. ET.
Collegiate Presswire: Was there anything in college that prepared you for a career in filmmaking? Ken Burns: Oh, absolutely. I was a film major in the Arts and Humanities Department at Hampshire College from 1971-1975 and that`s where I learned my craft.
CP: Do you have any advice for filmmaking students? Burns: Advice sounds like platitudes. Know who you are and persevere. Measure yourself to know what it is you want to do. Not everybody who is interested in film wants to be a filmmaker, and not everybody who wants to be a filmmaker can actually be a filmmaker. They`re just not temperamentally, or some other way, suited to it. It`s taking your own measure first and working very hard, because there is nothing in documentary filmmaking that is handed to you. It`s all about perseverance and struggling against impossible odds to do it. When you become a documentary filmmaker, you usually take a vow of anonymity and poverty. [Laughs]. I`ve been fortunate that both of these have not occurred. But I was prepared for that in the early years and that`s exactly what happened.
CP: Is the General Motors [support of this new film] going to help you? Burns: It`s been going on for the last 13 years and has been extremely helpful. They fund approximately 35 percent of my production budget. Most importantly, they are very committed to getting the word about a film out. That involves promotion, publicity and advertising but also -- and most important - educational outreach. Television programs are like skywriting - they disappear with the first wind -- and these films live. ''The Civil War'' is probably the most-watched history program in all of American history teaching, and that’s a terrific thing. So it has a life well beyond its broadcast and General Motors has been responsible for helping get the word out.
CP: Is GM`s contribution therefore, mostly to help you promote things? Burns: No, it`s funding. They are the principal source of funding for my films. But the extra added benefit of their concern [is] getting the word out and advertising and promoting this education outreach. For example -- ''Not For Ourselves Alone'' -- every history class in America will have the study guide, teachers’ guide, poster and lesson plan. That`s a phenomenal thing, particularly when you deal with the hidden history of America -- which is what drew me to this story. These are the women most responsible for the largest social transformation in American history, and yet they are largely unknown, and you can barely find a mention of them in a history book.
CP: It`s ironic you say that. Wouldn`t these be two of the more well-known and popular women in American history? Burns: Yeah, but nothing is taught about them. There is no substantive stuff. But these two women did what almost no one else in this country has done. And almost no one we could find, even at an academic level, knew much about the in`s and out`s of their lives. It`s a terrific story, but the in`s and out`s of it, the nuts and bolts of it -- what I consider history running on all cylinders -- is missed.
CP: Do you enjoy the art of filmmaking more so than the actual learning of history? Burns: Yes, because I am a filmmaker. I`m not a historian -- I am an amateur historian. And yet I`ve chosen to use history as one painter may choose to use oils over watercolor. The excitement is in making the film, though.
CP: Where did the title ''Not For Ourselves Alone'' come from? Burns: We really struggled with it. I like to have straight forward titles, like ''Civil War'' and ''Thomas Jefferson.'' I just felt ''Stanton and Anthony'' wasn`t going to do it because these woman aren`t as well known as, say, a Thomas Jefferson or Lewis and Clark, where you can get by with a straight generic title. I made it a point, coincidentally, to interview two women who had taken part in the suffrage movement or who had voted for the very first time when women were permitted to vote on November 2, 1920. They form the bookends - if you will - of this film. One of them, Ethel Hall, who is 100 years old, felt the suffragists were un-ladylike but then she realized how much she had gained from their activities. And then she recalled something she had been taught which had said “Not for ourselves alone, but that we must teach others.” And she said, “I felt this was something I could do for my country.” I began to realize when we came down to the end of the editing that that [thought] really summed up what these two ladies did. These were two ladies who devoted their entire lives to a cause at great personal sacrifice.
CP: What is it about [the women’s suffrage movement] that drew you to this idea for a film? Burns: I call myself a filmmaker in American history. How could I not treat the largest social movement in American history? The fact that most historians ignore it doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. And anybody who changes the lives of a majority of American citizens for the better has my attention. It’s not so much that the film is about the suffrage movement. In fact, its really about women’s rights. At the end of the day, I’m mostly a storyteller and this is a phenomenal story. And it’s also an anatomy of a political movement.
CP: Have you given any consideration to tackling today’s historical issues, such as Roe v. Wade or gay rights? Burns: I am a filmmaker who is concentrated in history and necessarily you avoid the province of journalism. Essentially, the last 30 years to me is the province of journalism. But I’m not afraid of any topic. I think they are all very interesting, but I’d like there to be a little bit more time passage that allows for more historical triangulation before I take on a subject.
CP: The music in your films always seems to be right on target. Do you consider the music to be important to the storytelling? Burns: Absolutely, and what an excellent question you have. We choose our music before we start editing. We listen to hundreds and hundreds of tunes and we pick things that are historically accurate and appeal to our hearts. As we begin the editing, we begin to work the music in very early on. We often find that we often change the cadence of our writing to fit the rhythms of the music. And what you have is a much more organic process -- which is why people often say to me about my film music: “I really love that … What was that tune?”
CP: What role do you see television playing in today’s educational process? Burns: I think we have to acknowledge a very bittersweet fact: That for more than three generations, the principal visual stimulus of most American children is this thing called television. And we’re profoundly aware of the fact that it really erodes one’s ability to have an attention. At the end of the day, that’s what we all desire most -- the things that we are most proud of -- are the things that we have applied our attention to. And yet we have this medium that encourages us to get distracted every eight minutes by six or eight new products and then move on and somehow we’re supposed to be full responsible citizens when this occurs. At the same time, I don’t think it’s right to dismiss it or yield to this negative aspect. So what I’ve tried to do, in my own small way, is to add to that. I’ve chosen to work in public television, where there’s no commercial interruption. I’ve chosen to work with sponsors who don’t wish to interrupt my content. And that allows me to develop attention and to avail myself to what is, in essence, the largest classroom in the world -- which is the American television viewing audience. There is always time for game shows, inane comedies, compelling dramas and even shoot-em-ups. But there ought to be space where, if you are hungry for something more, if you care about where you country has been, that you could have a venue where that history can be put out on TV.
CP: Would you rather see students learning from film or television, as opposed to books? Burns: I think there is much to be said for the book. It is, to me, the greatest mechanical invention of all time. It is definitely the source for most of our knowledge. However, you certainly want to have an opportunity to supplement this with compelling images, the music, the sound effects, the first-person voices and the spoken commentary that a film provides that a book doesn’t.
CP: Do you see your films, then, as a learning tool rather than an entertainment piece? Burns: I am filmmaker and I assume that I am entertaining. In essence, the best of all films educate.
CP: What are your thoughts on Steven Spielberg and his historical films? Burns: I know him, and I feel a great deal of sympathy for what he’s taken on and what he’s trying to do with my own mission - they are similar things. Obviously, we are nearly opposite because he is dealing in a commercial, dramatic medium and I am dealing in essentially a non-commercial, documentary medium. But there is a same interest in bringing the epic verses of our people back to our people. And that’s what we both do for a living.
CP: How about Oliver Stone? Burns: Stone is little more interesting. His genius is a lot rawer -- a lot more untamed. And that leads him into territories where he descends from the teacher/artist into the propagandist and the shocker -- the manipulator. I think something like “JFK” does much more damage than it helps, by misinforming people that this is history and that things like this happened. He is perfectly within his right to do that -- and remember, the greatest of all dramatists, William Shakespeare, was notorious for [adapting] history for his own purposes. So what we look for, in the end, is great art. In a paradoxical way, truth often emerges from lies. So I never want to stop Oliver Stone from trying. I just have to say that quite often the lies obscure whatever artistic truth he has been able to squeeze out of his stories.
CP: What would you like college students to take away from “Not For Ourselves Alone”? Burns: First of all, I would love for people to go “Ahhh … I didn’t know that! That this is part of our hidden history.” And second, that somewhere along the line, some woman is going to say “You know what? I can do this.” Realizing from the example of Stanton and Anthony that some barrier, some impediment -- however implied or implicit it is -- is not truly a barrier if they don’t want it to be. That would be terrific. I think for men, it’s the willingness to acknowledge that, for too long, we have held this very interesting history hostage and there is nothing to be frightened of by giving people their own history. You don’t in any way lose power in that way.
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