Ken Burns: American Icon with Surprising Passions

As we glow in the lights and joy of another Holiday season my final 39Lunch at Michael39s39 column of 2003 with filmmaker Ken Burns reflects on how as Ken says quotwe cohere as a peoplequot For all our differences we are one and no one has found as compelling a way to communicate our present and our future through the past as Ken Burns I39m pleased and honored to share my lunch at Michael39s with American icon Ken Burns as my way of celebrating the true spirit of the holidays with youIn August of 2002 documentary filmmaker Ken Burns agreed to the first blind date of his life After dinner at Gramercy Tavern he walked his date home stopping first at the office of the charity she founded Room to Grow There he saw baby clothes books and layettes quotall new or nearly new and stacked floor to ceilingquot Ken was moved by the work being done by the woman he affectionately refers to as quotMidtown Julie Brownquot now Mrs Julie Burns quotShe was doing God39s workquot Ken says From the last trimester of pregnancy until children are eligible for Head Start preschool and other institutional programs at age three Room to Grow provides extensive support for mothers who live in poverty transforming the lives of their children quotThe first three years are the most formative ones and they are the years when mothers and children have the least supportquot Ken commented at our lunch at Michael39s last weekJulie39s work hit a responsive chord with Ken whose mother died after a long battle with cancer when he was only eleven quotShe was sick every moment I remember It gives you vigilance but it was hellquot Her sickness and the toll it took on Ken his brother Ric also a documentary filmmaker and his father were the most formative influences on Ken39s life Years later a psychologist pointed out to Ken that his passion for historical documentaries in some ways reflected the emotions of quota little boy trying to keep his mother alive You wake the dead for a livingquot she pointed out to Ken Although Ken refers to his films as quotemotional archeology straining to hear the ghosts and echoes of the pastquot he perceives them as aspirational quotHistoryquot he says quotis more than sentimentality and nostalgia History is about what and who we are now and the higher emotional intelligence we wish for ourselvesquotKen now 50 and acknowledged as America39s greatest historical documentary filmmaker lives very much in the present and remains surprisingly unspoiled by his success For the past twenty years Ken has kept a New Yorker cartoon taped to his refrigerator Two men he related to me are standing in the flames of Hell and one says to the other quotApparently my over two hundred screen credits didn39t mean a damn thingquot He spends most of his time in Walpole New Hampshire a quotCurrier ampamp Ives town where all my notoriety and fifty cents get me a cup of coffeequot and not even a reserved table at the restaurant he opened there in 2001 with his friend Larry Burdick To taste one of the world39s great chocolates visit wwwburdickchocolatecom In Walpole he muses quotmaybe my great great grandchildren can serve on the volunteer Fire DepartmentquotAlthough Ken is a Brooklynite by birth he lived in Delaware until he was nine and then moved to Ann Arbor Michigan where his father taught anthropology He was expected to attend the University of Michigan where his tuition would have been fully paid but instead he set out to the twoyear old Hampshire College which he had read about in Newsweek It was at the time the most expensive college in the United States with tuition of 4730 which Ken recalls because quotit was 30 more than HarvardquotHe was attracted by the promise of a freeform independent selfadministered study program where students could design their own curriculum quotI took to it like a fish in waterquot he recalls quotbut I also needed to work and scramble to pay for itquot He was forced to take his second year off in order to work fulltime staying in New Hampshire and returning in the third year with enough money to complete the program quotI knew what I wanted to do when I graduated and had the naive and arrogant desire to start my own company I had wanted to be John Ford or Hitchcock but I was animated by the past and I met a group of friends who wanted to make documentaries I believed it meant taking a vow of poverty and anonymityquot In 1975 Ken and his friends Roger Sherman and Buddy Squires were surviving on day jobs from BBC and others by promising to film anywhere in New England at minimal costs quotWe would wake up at 4 AM drive to Boston and shoot for a day earning enough money to pay rent Ken had a tape recorder and Buddy had a camera I had ambitionquotBut in 1977 Ken had pneumonia preventing him from working for awhile A friend gave him David McCullough39s book quotThe Great Bridgequot about the Brooklyn Bridge and the historical response to it as an icon He decided to make a documentary about the Bridge and although his friends thought he was hallucinating from high fever Ken became single minded about the project He raised 2500 from Brooklyn39s AampampS Department Store to move to New York and start the project When he completed taping in 1979 completely out of money his choices were finding a job in New York or quotgoing to the mattressesquot he said with a laughing reference to Godfather movies quotIf I stayed in New York I knew I would put the tapes on top of the refrigerator and leave them there My friends were in Western Massachusetts so I moved to Walpole into the same house I live in today where I could afford to live and edit the filmquotIt was three years later when Ken had a quotstunning February experience in Walpolequot that he related to me as we enjoyed our salads at Michael39s while acknowledging friends and Ken39s admirers It was a busy day at Michael39s with tables occupied by Newsweek39s Dorothy Kalins wife of Ken39s early and still partner Roger Sherman Esquire39s Kevin O39Malley David Patrick Columbia Cahner39s Tad Smith Marvel39s Bob Friedman and Michael Parker New York Magazine39s Michael Wolff Candy Pratts Price Michael Korda with James Atlas Ed Rollins Disney39s Tom Schumacher Hearst39s Michael Clinton Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton and Broadway producer Margot Harley Publishing veteran Joe Armstrong stopped by and reminded Ken of their dinner years ago with Jackie Onassis a dinner that proved to be her last dinner with friends before her death Ken fondly recalls the former first lady asking him detailed questions about his passion for baseball When he asked how she knew so much about the sport she replied quotOh I know nothing about it Jack enjoyed football more but he did like baseballquot Ken and I spoke about Mrs Kennedy reverently mentioning the lasting heritage she gave New Yorkers by saving Grand Central Terminal from certain destruction in the 1960s and 1970s Ken remembered how impressed he was coming to New York for the first time as a fourth grader from Delaware getting off the train at Grand Central quotWithout this remarkable woman Grand Central would have gone the way of the original Penn Station one of the most extraordinary and spectacularly beautiful civic buildings we have ever seen in our lives with arching steel beams and open latticeworkquot His conversation and memories constantly connect with historical relevanceAs impressive as dinner with Jackie Kennedy Onassis and lunch at Michael39s may be for Ken he constantly uses that stunning day in 1982 to maintain perspective At his home in Walpole in 1982 Ken typically received one to two calls a day but on this cold February day there were 18 calls on his answering machine The first two were hang ups but the third message congratulated Ken for his Academy Award nomination for his first film quotBrooklyn Bridgequot Since he still could not afford to entirely heat his house with oil after returning calls Ken collected wood for his fireplace and was heading back to the house with wood stacked in his arms when he slipped on a patch of ice and fell hard to the ground He was lying there with quotwood scattered around him drenched in icy wet snow and realizing no one else nominated that day had been brought up so short and with such indignity It was a gift from God that I always rememberquot Ken went to Los Angeles for the award ceremony but was defeated by quotGenocidequot a Holocaust documentary narrated by Orson Welles and Elizabeth Taylor Ken was again nominated in 1985 for quotThe Statue of Libertyquot but the award went to quotBroken RainbowquotGreek tragedy and hubris are a constant theme in documentaries Ken points out quotIn the past fifty years tragic events have united us arrested our narrow parochial interests and helped us realize we39re not alone in this world I try to remind people what we share in commonquot Ken39s PBS trilogy of quotCivil Warquot quotBaseballquot and quotJazzquot reflect Ken observes quoton why we agree to cohere as a people In the media culture today we are dialectically preoccupied with good and bad in or out black or white My job is to show what we have in common not what drives us apartquotIn 1987 Ken brought this philosophy to General Motors seeking underwriting for his quotCivil Warquot documentary miniseries He met with GM ad executives Jack McNulty and George Pruitt who asked Ken to condense his quotdoorstopperquot proposal into a brief description of the project Ken proudly pulled out the shortversion a 25page proposal that had gained him the support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Again McNulty and Pruitt asked quotwhat is this aboutquot Ken39s answer generated not only the funding but a 17 year relationship with GM as the exclusive corporate underwriter of Ken39s many PBS films and miniseries quotBefore the Civil Warquot the young looking Burns told the grizzled GM veterans quoteveryone referred to the United States as plural 39the United States are39 After the Civil War it became 39the United States is39 My film is about how 39are39 became 39is39quot Pruitt and McNulty agreed to fund the project on the spotquotBaseballquot was the only film project that Ken started believing he knew a great deal about the subject matter quickly realizing he quotknew nothingquot As a young child Ken was a catcher and second baseman on neighborhood teams It was an escape for him his only time to take his mind completely off his sick mother and difficulties at home Baseball provided his quotfirst experience being out in the world alone which gave me great satisfaction I still remember being catcher and racing down the line to back up the throw to first base because the first baseman usually missed it I remember a Derek Jeterlike play I made at second base and the time I was a relief pitcher The unifying themes of baseball and the country are time memory family and home Baseball is the intersection of fact and metaphor It is about excellence and individual heroism about situational response and ties to a community39s identityquot Ken says his quotBaseballquot documentary focuses on the Boston Red Sox and the Dodgers because of how they personify the passions the sport fosters quotBaseball is about rooting for the home team I39ve been a Red Sox fan since I moved to New England in 1971 I was born in Brooklyn so I grew up liking the Dodgers but without the hatred when they movedquotKen not only defined America39s passion for baseball in his PBS series but connected with his two daughters through his love and memories of the sport A few years ago he took Sarah and Lilly now 21 and 17 back to the ball fields where he played as a child quotAsk them a time they remember having great fun with their Dadquot Ken says quotand they will undoubtedly mention the day I played shadow ball and relived the memories of my greatest baseball momentsquot Sharing experiences with Sarah and Lilly has been a priority for Ken who as a single parent made quotbeing Mr Mom and spending time with them a priority I feel so blessed that I didn39t miss many of the important times Being a father is my most important occupationquot Sarah will graduate this year from Yale and Lilly is in school in ConnecticutFor Ken the Christmas holidays include going with his family to the Unitarian Church to sing Christmas carols picking out and decorating a tree together and quietly celebrating the holiday in Walpole His new wife Julie and exwife are Jewish but the holidays Ken believes are about family togetherness and building memories He especially adores that both girls quotlike the same music and movies I like Their music has an identifiable halflife and ours is still going strong They steal my James Taylor and Beatles albums and Sarah39s boyfriend took her to see Simon ampamp Garfunkel for her birthdayquotSarah may be on a path to follow in Ken39s deep footsteps as a documentary filmmaker She is interested in American history with an emphasis on race relations Ken39s greatest ambition is to produce a film about Martin Luther King quotI39ve wanted to do it all my life I39m now hard wired to do itquot The King family Ken says contacted him two years ago quotbut they were not ready to let go enough to give me the freedom I need and I respectfully declined Race is the critical fault line of American history Because of my work with the Civil War jazz baseball and other documentaries the AfricanAmerican community does not feel I39m heading where I don39t belong Someday I will do the film and I hope Sarah will join mequotKen39s next film set for release on PBS is the history of boxing champion Jack Johnson quotIt39s as good a film as I have ever madequot he claims Johnson was scorned because he took a public stand on race issues quotI showed it in rough cut to audiences and their jaws dropped They had no ideaquot Called quotUnforgivable Blacknessquot the fourhour film includes extensive footage of all Johnson39s fights and features music by Wynton Marsalis and voiceover by Samuel L Jackson Ed Harris Billy Bob Thornton and Eli Wallach James Earl Jones George Plimpton and several others offer oncamera commentsAfter locking quotJack Johnsonquot in the next few weeks Ken will move onto full time work on his extensive World War II PBS documentary Waiting in the wings is a historical film perspective on America39s greatest treasure the National Parks which he is producing with Dayton Duncan who also coproduced Ken39s most recent PBS film quotHoratio39s Drivequot He39s hoping to do a film on his favorite composer Duke Ellington in the futureWith all these projects and passions waiting in a long queue to be memorialized as quotA Film by Ken Burnsquot there are four surprising passions he speaks of even more enthusiastically The first is his favorite holiday July 4th which he spends driving to Saxton39s River VT for the town parade followed by a BBQ chicken picnic and family softball game in Walpole Second is The New York Times crossword puzzle which he does in pen daily completing the Saturday puzzle quotin about 30minutesquot Third is quotGod39s workquot being done by his wife Julie and Room to Grow On January 26 the charity will host a fundraising event at Christies where Ken Carly Simon Bob Costas Wynton Marsalis and others will auction off opportunities to share history with them For more information Room to Grow can be reached at 212 6207800 Finally quotJulie obviously loves children and God willing I would like to have more children Between jazz and baseball there are lots of choices for names Henry Aaron Burns is a good namequot In the spirit of the holidays and giving Ken agreed that perhaps it would be best if Julie selected the namesTo contact Ken Burns fax him at 6037564389 or email me at jackjackmyerscom and I will forward all emails to him

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Ken Burns: American Icon with Surprising Passions

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