Part of Dialogues & Film Retrospectives

Thomas Hart Benton, 1988. Documentary Directed by Ken Burns. Shown: artist Thomas Hart Benton. Photo courtesy of PBS International/Photofest.

Ken Burns is one of the most widely recognized names in American documentary filmmaking. His Emmy Award–winning series The Civil War (1990) on PBS captured the attention of audiences and critics alike. Burns’s brand of visually and intellectually compelling storytelling sets him at the top with films such as Brooklyn Bridge (1981) and Huey Long (1985). His contemporary release, Empire of Air: The Men Who Made Radio (1991) is no exception. Burns and New Yorker magazine film critic Terrence Rafferty gather for a conversation about Burns’s influences and his artistic process. Recorded in 1991.

• Brooklyn Bridge
• Huey Long
• Thomas Hart Benton
• Empire of the Air

Ken Burns is a celebrated documentary filmmaker. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Burns received an 8mm film camera for his 17th birthday, and since then, he has established himself as an authority in the field of historical documentary filmmaking. He studied film and design at Hampshire College. Over his decades-long career, Burns’ films have won a long list of awards and two of his films have received nominations for Academy Awards (1981's Brooklyn Bridge and 1985's The Statue of Liberty). Burns’s documentaries have frequently premiered on public television. He directed, produced, co-wrote the monumental television series The Civil War (1990), the first documentary to make over $100 million. Burns is also known for his documentaries Baseball (1994), The National Parks (2009), The Roosevelts (2014) and The Vietnam War (2017). A slow zoom in or out or pan has been christened “The Ken Burns Effect” in popular culture.