Quote

I began to feel that the drama of the truth that is in the moment and in the past is richer and more interesting than the drama of Hollywood movies. So I began looking at documentary films.

Ken Burns

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ken Burns
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: July 29
Actor
Cinematographer
Film Director
Film Producer
Manufacturer
Producer
Screenwriter
Brooklyn
New York
Kenneth Lauren Burns
Kenneth L. Burns
Kenneth Burns
Truth
Hollywood
Feel
Movies
Feels
Looking
Documentary
Interesting
Richer
Moment
Documentaries
Moments
Began
Film
Drama
Past
Films

More quotes by Ken Burns

Image
History's just been made for sale to an inside deal.
Ken Burns
Image
I'm a filmmaker. I'm an artist. I've chosen to work in history the way someone might choose to work in still lifes or landscapes.
Ken Burns
Image
Civics is in fact politics, and politics is how things work not only in the political realm but in every other realm. It may be this simple mechanical glitch that unites everything. This is my philosophy.
Ken Burns
Image
I can understand why some of these drummers and bass players become cult figures with all of their equipment and the incredible amount of technique they have. But there's very little that I think satisfies you intellectually or emotionally.
Ken Burns
Image
I wake the dead. I bring Jackie Robinson and the Roosevelts to life. Who do you think Im trying to wake up?
Ken Burns
Image
It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the intelligence of the past
Ken Burns
Image
Nothing in our daily life offers more of the comfort of continuity, the generational connection of belonging to a vast and complicated American family, the powerful sense of home, the freedom from time's constraints, and the great gift of accumulated memory than does our National Pastime.
Ken Burns
Image
Wynton told us that Miles sold out, just wanted to make more money, just wanted to sell more records. I don't believe that Miles sold out but I'm not in a position to say.
Ken Burns
Image
You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living.
Ken Burns
Image
I grew up certain for a while that I was going to be an anthropologist, until film turned my head.
Ken Burns
Image
I don't think that there has been a film that I've done that hasn't been influenced by libraries and archives.
Ken Burns
Image
I never, ever want to apologize for a film. If it's bad I'll say it's my fault. And that's what I can say so far in all the films that I've done, that if you don't like it, it's entirely my fault.
Ken Burns
Image
I enjoy total creative control right now. Nobody tells me to make it longer, shorter, better, sexier, more violent, whatever.
Ken Burns
Image
I think the problem with a lot of the fusion music is that its extremely predictable, its a rock rhythm and the solos all play the same stuff and they play it over and over again and theres a certain musical virtuosity involved in it.
Ken Burns
Image
Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being.
Ken Burns
Image
A jazz beat is a dynamic changing rhythm.
Ken Burns
Image
Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.
Ken Burns
Image
Do something that will last and be beautiful. It doesn't have to be a bridge-or a symphony or book or a business. It could be the look in the eye of a child you raise or a simple garden you tend. Do something that will last and be beautiful.
Ken Burns
Image
The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts.
Ken Burns
Image
We strain to listen to the ghosts and echoes of our inexpressibly wise past, and we have an obligation to maintain these places, to provide these sanctuaries, so that people may be in the presence of forces larger than those of the moment.
Ken Burns