MovieChat Forums > Ken Burns Discussion > No other documentarian like him

No other documentarian like him

posted 7 years ago by PrimeMinisterX (8597)
15 replies | jump to latest

Burns's style is decidedly old fashioned, but strangely, despite the leisurely pace and lack of flash, his films are always interesting and engaging.

Furthermore, to my knowledge at least, he's the only documentarian who is consistently producing these epic, multipart documentaries that just go and go for hours.

So far, I've watched The War, Prohibition, Horatio's Drive, The National Parks and Lewis & Clark.

Any Ken Burns fans here? Which of his films have you seen? What is it that you like (or don't like) about his style?

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[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 7 years ago

You get the feeling that you actually know the people involved through letters and diary passages. It makes things come alive and become real when looking into the past.
I am a huge fan of his Civil War series. I also enjoyed The Roosevelts.
I recently finished watching The Vietnam War last week. Excellent!

Yes. I am a fan.

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[–] PrimeMinisterX (8597) 6 years ago

The Vietnam War just popped up on Netflix and I watched the first episode last night. It's good, just as everything he does seems to be good. 17+ hours seems a little excessive even for Ken Burns, but I guess he had a lot to say with this one.

I have a goal to eventually watch everything he's made. So far I've got:

The War
Horatio's Drive
Prohibition
The National Parks
Frank Lloyd Wright
Lewis & Clark
Empire of the Air

Next will probably be The Roosevelts.

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[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 6 years ago

❤️️
I noticed that (The Vietnam War) when I was perusing the recently added programs on Netflix the other day!
I'm definitely going to watch it again.
A few months ago during a pledge week on the PBS channel, they were discussing the up and coming Ken Burns documentary. Apparently, he is now working on one dealing with country music!
While I'm not a huge fan, I do like some of the early stuff. I have no doubt that Ken Burns will make it come alive and entertain us once again.

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[–] PrimeMinisterX (8597) 6 years ago

If you haven't seen it then I would recommend Prohibition. That may actually be the very first Ken Burns piece I ever saw and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It is also on Netflix, BTW.

If you happen to be an Amazon Prime subscriber then Prime has a lot of his stuff as well.

Regarding upcoming projects, I found this paragraph on his Wiki page:

"According to a 2017 piece in the New Yorker, Burns and his company, Florentine Films, have selected topics for documentaries slated for release by 2030. These topics include country music, the Mayo Clinic, Muhammad Ali, Ernest Hemingway, the American Revolution, Lyndon B. Johnson, Barack Obama, Winston Churchill, the American criminal justice system, and African-American history from the Civil War to the Great Migration."

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[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 6 years ago

❤️️
Yes, I enjoyed Prohibition very much. I watched it on Netflix about a month ago.
I'd be interested in The National Parks.
LOL! From that list, that boy is gonna be busy!

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[–] PrimeMinisterX (8597) 6 years ago

The National Parks is pretty good. I've never been to a national park and it made me want to go!

As for his upcoming stuff, some of those topics interest me and some do not. The Mayo Clinic seems a very strange topic to choose.

I wish that he would cover the space race. Seems like exactly the kind of thing he'd want to do.

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[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 6 years ago

❤️️
Looking over that list, I am extremely interested in how he tells us about the Revolutionary War. It's been done, but I want to her about it from Burns.

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[–] PrimeMinisterX (8597) 6 years ago

Yeah, that actually was one of the entries that popped out to me the most. Frankly, my knowledge of the Revolutionary War is a bit woeful. I know the broad strokes, but I really should be more educated on the subject than I am. Getting Burns's epic 10-part take on the subject would be pretty awesome.

Country music, Hemingway and Churchill also stand out to me.

BTW, this is quite long, but if you have the time you may find this interview interesting:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/09/ken-burns-the-vietnam-war-lynn-novick-documentary

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[–] Babyfat101 (221) 5 years ago

Re LBJ, all Burns needs to do is put a camera in front of Robert Caro...who is LBJ’s definitive biographer AND can really tell a story...and just say “Go!”. And we’d all be enthralled.

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[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

I've only seen his Vietnam documentaries and The Central Park Five, they were excellent. I'll try see his other docs sometime 👍

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[–] PrimeMinisterX (8597) 6 years ago

He has several things on both Netflix and Prime.

My recommendation would be to do Prohibition next. Compared to Vietnam's 10 parts and 17+ hours, it's a relatively breezy three parts and 5 1/2 hours. It's on Netflix.

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[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Thanks, I'll check it out 👍

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[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Werner Herzog would be comparable to him.

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[–] PrimeMinisterX (8597) 5 years ago

Comparable in what way?

I see them as very different filmmakers.

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[–] liscarkat (17662) 4 years ago

He made a documentary about jazz music, which he admitted he knew nothing about. He relied almost entirely on information from Wynton Marsalis, an egregiously biased source. In so doing, he convinced millions of clueless PBS audience members that jazz was invented entirely by black people, with little or no participation by white musicians, which any educated musicologist knows is utter rubbish.

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