Ken Burns: Epic Documentarian, Filmmaker and Historian
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Kenneth Lauren Bruns was born In Brookyln, New York in 1953. Even as a child, he was a voracious reader, preferring history to fiction. For his 17th birthday, he recieved an 8mm movie camera and promptly filmed an expose of an ugly Ann Arbor factory. He worked in a record store to pay his way through the then brand new Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachussetts, where he graduated in 1975. He went on to co-found Florentine Films and now lives in Wapole, new Hampshire.
Burns has been making documentary films for more than twenty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooblyn Bridge in 1981, he has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War in 1990 and Baseball in 1994. Stephen Ambrose, the historian, has said of Burns' films, "More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source."
Burns' epics have recieved numerous accolades and attracted viewing audiences in the millions.
The Civil War was the highest rated series in the history of public television, attracting 40 million viewers during its premier in 1990 and garnering more than 40 major film and televison awards.
More than 45 million viewers watched Baseball, the 18-hour epic, for which Burns was director, producer, co-writer, chief cinematographer, music director, and executive producer. The film won many awards, including an Emmy, the CINE Golden Eagle, the Clarion, and the Television Critics Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Sports and Special Programming.
Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, a four-hour long documentary, aired on public television in November 1997. The program recieved critical acclaim for chronicling the corps' journey westward on the first official expedition into unchartered spaces in U.S. History. It garnered the second highest ratings in public television history.
Burns' latest epic documentary, Jazz, was a GM Mark of Excellence Presentation on public television in January. The ten-part nineteen-hour film follows jazz, the most American of art forms, from its origins in blues and ragtime through swing, bebop, and fusion.
In addition to these multi-episodic films, Burns has prduced and directed the highly recognized American Biography series, two-part films on some of the most important men and women in American History. His work in this arena includes Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, which won a Peabody Award in 2000.
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