BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns never thought he would be associated with history. The Academy Award-winning producer and director, known for his beloved series on baseball, the Civil War and jazz, simply wanted to create films.
“If you would have asked me in high school if people would think of me as preserving history, I never would have believed them,” Burns said to a packed audience at the Hansen Student Center at Illinois Wesleyan University Thursday afternoon. Listen to his talk (mp3 file)
It is the people that interest Burns, and discovering their place in history. “You have to remember that at the base of the word history is the word story,” said Burns, whose appearance, on the heels of his latest series on World War II titled The War, came as part of the Adlai E. Stevenson Lecture Series, a joint effort by IWU and Illinois State University.
Making films since 1974, Burns rose to national attention with his multiple-part documentary The Civil War in 1990, watched by 40 million people on PBS, which introduced many to his famed panning of still photographs that has become known as “Burns effect.” “It’s always fun to have an effect named after you,” Burns said with a light laugh. Burns’ true calling card, however, is his combination of extensive research and emphasis on telling the story of people from all levels of society.
“We try to understand events from the bottom up. Instead of looking at just the generals, we look at everyone. You go on the belief that there are no ordinary people, and you will find you are right,” said Burns.