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Ken Burns.
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Ken Burns

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition

Ken Burns (Kenneth Lauren Burns), 1953-, American documentary filmmaker, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Hampshire College (1975). Acting as producer, director, and cinematographer, Burns typically explores themes from American history, blending period photographs, works of art, film, and music with narration, remarks by historians and other scholars, contemporaneous written materials read by noted actors, and authentic sound effects. His first full-length film, The Brooklyn Bridge (1980), was, like his subsequent works, shown on public television. Burns won particular acclaim for his nine-part Civil War (1990), a re-creation and analysis of the conflict that won an Emmy and numerous other awards and was public broadcasting's highest-rated series. His other films include The Statue of Liberty (1985), Lewis and Clark (1997), various biographies, and the multipart Baseball (1994) and Jazz (2001). In 2007 The War, a 15-hour work detailing the battlefield and hometown experiences of Americans during World War II, aired on public television.

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The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press

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Related entries from encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses

Ken Burns
Ken Burns As a prolific documentary filmmaker, Ken Burns (born 1953) explored topics large and small...Television wrote, "More than anyone before him, Ken Burns has made the historical documentary a popular... Read more
Ken(neth Lauren) Burns
...PBS, won numerous filmmaking and history awards. His later television documentaries include Baseball (1994), Lewis and Clark (1997), Frank Lloyd Wright (1998), and Jazz (2001). Ken(neth Lauren) Burns Ken(neth Lauren) Burns Ken(neth Lauren) Burns Read more
Wynton Marsalis
...ballet and concert works, and he won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for his oratorio Blood on the Fields . He also worked on Ken Burns's Jazz miniseries and was a catalyst in the revival of broad interest in jazz . Wynton Marsalis Wynton Marsalis Wynton... Read more
cinéma vérité
...Pennebaker, Albert and David Maysles, Frederick Wiseman , and Robert Drew. More recently, such documentary makers as Ken (and Ric) Burns and Barbara Kopple have made cinéma vérité techniques central to their films. Bibliography... Read more
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Online videos

The Office: A Documentary Film by Ken Burns

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