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The stories from 1975 on are not finished and there is no resolve. I could spend 50 hours on the last 25 years of jazz and still not do it justice.

Ken Burns

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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
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Jazz
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Justice
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Resolve

More quotes by Ken Burns

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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
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I record all of my music with authentic instruments in a studio before we start editing, doing many, many versions. The music shapes the film as we edit so it has an organic relationship to the content.
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We all think that an exception is going to be made in our case and were going to live forever. Being a human is actually arriving at the understanding that thats not going to be. Story is there to remind us that its just OK.
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It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the intelligence of the past
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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
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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
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When you are editing, the final master is Aristotle and his poetics. You might have a terrific episode, but if people are falling out because there are just too many elements in it, you have to begin to get rid of things.
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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.
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There are no ordinary lives.
Ken Burns
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I have come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events (even cogent commencement quotes) that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known, truth. It is a mysterious and malleable thing.
Ken Burns
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You don't work on something for six years and be blind to the myriad of other approaches.
Ken Burns
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In a sense I've made the same film over and over again. In all of them I've asked, 'Who are we as Americans?
Ken Burns
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I enjoy total creative control right now. Nobody tells me to make it longer, shorter, better, sexier, more violent, whatever.
Ken Burns
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I wake the dead. I bring Jackie Robinson and the Roosevelts to life. Who do you think Im trying to wake up?
Ken Burns
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History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are.
Ken Burns
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In most films music is brought in at the end, after the picture is more or less locked, to amplify the emotions the filmmaker wants you to feel.
Ken Burns
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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
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By its very nature, no one person can ever be the center of Jazz.
Ken Burns
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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
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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