I do believe that we humans define
ourselves by the stories we tell and
especially the stories we tell about
ourselves but what is true of humans is
also true of Nations and I think we
define ourselves as a nation by the
stories we tell about ourselves and what
we remember about ourselves our memories
really define our values and they define
the way we create a new nation as we go
forward Faulkner once said the past is
never dead in fact it's not even past
and that reminds me so much of what Ken
Burns does
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even though I'm not American I have
always admired the work of Ken Burns and
the way he captures American history I
believe his unique approach to still
photography and the inclusion of
individual stories bring history to life
in a way that few others have matched
there are some who have criticized him
for being sentimental and nostalgic but
I highly disagree with that in fact
today I want to argue that Ken Burns's
approach despite his lack of formal
education in history actually has
considerable academic validity and a
tremendous public value for the present
and the future
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history tends to be something we take
for granted something we assume is just
there for us to be accessed but in
academic circles there is much debate on
the meaning of history and he extend to
which we can attain it this debate
basically comes down to two competing
research philosophies which can be
referred to as naturalism and
constructivism in their book ways of
knowing Scandinavian professors Moses
and Knutson explore both of these and
their implications for among other
things historical research naturalism
has its roots in the Natural Sciences
which assumes there is a world
independent of the observer about which
we can make objective factual statements
when it comes to history this approach
seems straight as an arrow historians
write stories backed by evidence with
evidence being preferably primary
sources the direct outcomes from
historical events or experiences such as
eyewitness accounts and original
documents it can also include secondary
sources accounts based on primary
sources such as newspaper stories and
historical reports although these tend
to become less trustworthy the further
they are removed from the original
offense the main issue with this
approach is that the reliance on primary
sources produces a very slanted view of
history as it favors those who leave
primary sources behind while
marginalizing those who do not because
of this history as we know it is mostly
a political history after all the
accounts of kings generals and political
leaders were often much better preserved
than those of the ordinary citizens we
can visualize this issue in a diagram
representing the past consisting of all
events all actions and all thoughts by
all individuals to begin a historical
account this past has to be observed by
someone the observed has to be
remembered their remembered has to be
recorded these records then have to
stand the test of time and those that
survived have to be deemed believable
and usable it is out of this small
circle of available data and that the
historian creates an account it is
because of these difficulties that
constructivists are critical of the
three basic assumptions of naturalistic
torian's which are there is a past that
can be captured there is available data
that is objective and representative of
that past and this data is simply there
for the taking
constructivism draws more attention to
the important role of the observer the
historian because as Edwards car puts it
in his book what is history the belief
in a hard core of historical facts
existing objectively and independently
of the interpretation of the historian
is a preposterous fallacy but one which
is very hard to eradicate
constructivists recognized historical
accounts as being inherently biased and
are therefore not committed to finding
one single truth one definitive
historical account instead they immerse
themselves in a multitude of unique and
individual histories and look for
patterns that hold meaning for us in the
present their search is therefore not so
much about who we were but more so about
who we are or rather who we've always
been to answer it they like to gather
tons of information and create thick
descriptions of the past to which they
apply a narrative in essence this is
where the historian becomes a
storyteller which is why we enter the
domain of Ken Burns I'm curious with how
my country takes how it works I feel
like a mechanic that lifts up the hood
and looks in at the engine and I'm
interested in a true honest complicated
past that is unafraid of controversy and
tragedy but equally drawn to those
stories and moments that suggest an
abiding faith in the human spirit I
believe that the work of Ken Burns falls
in this constructivist philosophy of
historical research we can see this
immediately when we look at the
astounding length of his films often
running multiple hours long
even his first film about the Brooklyn
Bridge which was envisioned as a short
piece of maybe 10 minutes by everyone
else ended up being a feature-length
film in the hands of Ken Burns this
however doesn't mean that his films lack
focus when we take a look at his 14 hour
long film the war for example there's an
opening statement that recognizes the
enormous scope of the second
and makes clear to the audience that the
film is limited to the stories of four
American towns very much in line with
the constructivist philosophy Ken Burns
clearly doesn't aim for one definitive
historical account and instead looks to
find meaning in a variety of historical
stories and individuals
I made the decision early on that I did
not want to be a telephone book and
encyclopedia a dictionary I wanted to be
a story a narrative so I knew that I
would have to pick and choose several
symbolic and emblematic stories and
individuals and tell them well rather
than try to tell every story and end up
telling none well what probably stands
out the most for me is his choice of
what and whose stories to tell the major
upside of his focus on American history
is that it is relatively new and the
available primary sources are still
abundant Ken Burns seems to take
advantage of this by using a bottom-up
approach as opposed to a top-down one
this is not just a top-down history I
mean most people think American history
is just a series of presidential
administrations punctured by Wars and
and that gives you a fairly you know I
suppose superficial handle on things but
it's much more complicated than that and
the bottom-up view that we've always
tried to adopt delivers you much more
complexity and undertow one major
benefit of his bottom-up approach is
that it is inclusive of otherwise
marginalized voices Ken Burns's films
often include stories that tend to go
and told and are therefore vulnerable to
get lost in time as a consequence we see
a much more complicated vision of
America one that doesn't just celebrate
its triumphs but also reveals its
mistakes and tragedies this is clearly
reflected by the issue of race one of
the major themes in a lot of his films
which according to Ken Burns is not
necessarily something he looks for but
rather something he inevitably stumbles
upon with this approach what happens is
is we tend to say oh you're right this
is an important subject and then
accidentally resegregate the subject by
treating it separately oh let's just do
black soldiers in America or in the
second world
or but you want to take african-american
history which is relegated to February
our shoulder shortest and coldest month
and see it not as a politically correct
addendum to our national narrative but
at the burning heart of it another
benefit is that it creates what Ken
Burns calls emotional archaeology an
exploration of the emotional driving
forces that cement all the dry dates
facts and events together into something
higher than the sum of its parts
in doing so he doesn't only recount
history but also connects it to the
present the emotions that drove people
in the past are after all the same
emotions that drive us today it is for
this reason some critics mistake his
approach for sentimentality and
nostalgia which he firmly believes it is
not sometimes people find the principal
emotion of those higher emotions is love
and love is a very embarrassing and
complicated word for a lot of people but
love is actually the ingredient of the
universe it's the it's the the quantity
that makes things work so if you deal
with love as I do as the ultimate theme
underlying all stories it's a form of
communication but also of love that can
make some people pretty nervous
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so how does Ken Burns present his
stories as a filmmaker Ken Burns has the
advantage of being able to employ a
multitude of ways to articulate his
historical accounts the one thing he is
probably most well-known for which is
now referred to as the Ken Burns effect
is this innovative use of still
photography instead of simply showing
historical pictures he approaches them
as if they were any other scenes and
uses them in such a way that he can
deliberately direct the focus and
information of the audience and bring
the images to life so I treat an old
photograph the way a Hollywood a feature
filmmaker would a wide shot with medium
shot close-up insert pan tilt cutaway
all the possibilities of a dramatic film
and shoot each image with that in mind
and not only do I see it through the
viewfinder I listen to it are those
soldiers feet trumping are those cannon
firing are the birds fluttering away as
the battle begins is the back on the
baseball cracking is the crowd yelling
can you hear the two of the trombone
player tuning up what are the sounds of
that old photograph and so we have a
complex dense sound effects track
original music the first-person
commentary of people of the times in
Diaries journals newspaper accounts
criticisms love letters
all to make it come alive and we hope a
poetically written third-person
narration and I think all of these
things come together and create a moment
where as William Faulkner said history
is not was but is let's look at a
concrete example of how Ken Burns
effectively combines multiple techniques
for his emotional archaeology in his
film on the national parks Ken Burns
refers to the ancient monuments in
Europe and points out how America being
a younger country doesn't have such
man-made landmarks but it does have
natural ones and they are one of
America's strongest connections to the
past their preservation allowed
Americans of today to go into these
places and behold the same fuse that
once captivated Thomas Jefferson and
countless other historical figures to
invoke this feeling of historic
Koral events ken burns melts historical
photographs and narration with an
incredible amount of fly photography to
blur the lines between past and present
the tendency nowadays to wander in
wilderness is delightful to see
thousands of tired nerves shaken over
civilized people are beginning to find
out that going to the mountains is going
home
that wildness is a necessity and that
mountain parks and reservations are
useful not only as fountains of timber
and irrigating critters but as fountains
of life John Muir
in another example a woman reads a
letter she sent to her brother during
the Second World War while Ken Burns
only shows us her face and his childhood
footage you say you sent home $30 we
didn't receive it yet but it will get
here soon mom is going to put it in the
bank for you babe so that when you come
home you can have everything you want
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you can buy your cars and all your new
clothes oh babe I guess I've said enough
for now
love football take good care of yourself
as often may God bless you and keep you
safe
our thoughts are always with you your
loving sister
he had a tone of voice and visual
contrast between past and present
instinctively tells us her brother never
made it home Ken Burns's films are
filled with stories like these that
connect us to history in an emotional
way and give us a deeper insight into
the historical patterns that brought us
to where we are now in a sense he is
making the same film over and over again
each story a different expression of our
unchanged being our tendency for war and
violence our capacity for love and
compassion it's always been the same and
it always will be
Ecclesiastes says what has been will be
again what has been done will be done
again there's nothing new Under the Sun
and what that says is that human nature
never changes it super encloses itself
on the random chaos of events which
means you can apprehend perceive
patterns in history and that makes it
resonate with the past the present
resume with the past it is this
acknowledgment of the unchanging human
condition which in accordance with a
constructivist approach towards history
leads us back to the artist or historian
in the present looking back not only to
discover why we've been
so where we are and where we're going
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