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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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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
Think
Thinking
Life
Robinson
Jackie
Wake
Dead
Bring
Trying

More quotes by Ken Burns

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Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being.
Ken Burns
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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
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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.
Ken Burns
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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
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By its very nature, no one person can ever be the center of Jazz.
Ken Burns
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It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the intelligence of the past
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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The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts.
Ken Burns
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People tend to forget that the word history contains the word story.
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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I grew up certain for a while that I was going to be an anthropologist, until film turned my head.
Ken Burns
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History's just been made for sale to an inside deal.
Ken Burns
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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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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.
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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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.
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 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
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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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You don't work on something for six years and be blind to the myriad of other approaches.
Ken Burns