Ken Burns and the American trilogy

Ken Burns is an excitable person. Get him started on any number of topics, be it Cézanne's landscapes, the intricacies of Civil War military strategy, or the notion of community in jazz music, and he's off and running, his eagerness obvious in every word. When I met him in the Pierson library, he had just discovered the presence of a Frank Stella painting of the Brooklyn Bridge—the subject of his first film—at the Yale University Art Gallery, and wanted to hurry over to see the painting before his next engagement. Unfortunately, the Stella was not on display, but Burns still found much to be pique his enthusiam, from Vincent van Gogh's The Night Café to Mark Rothko's color fields. In a conversation following this adventure, Burns discussed filmmaking, jazz, American history and the ever-nagging topic of his critics.

ERIN I. LEWIS/YH Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns received a standing ovation for his talk on his work at a Pierson Master's Tea on Wed., Feb. 7..

As a documentary filmmaker, Burns has achieved great success, becoming the closest thing to a household name in the documentary world with his widely viewed and discussed American trilogy, The Civil War, Baseball, and Jazz. Burns views Jazz as the trilogy's culmination. The series had its genesis in a comment by Gerald Early in Burns' previous installation, Baseball, that "the three landmarks of American history are the Constitution, baseball, and jazz music."

Burns approached the topic of jazz as he had approached the subjects of his previous films—as a novice. Knowing little about jazz, he learned of its culture and history as he was making the film. In both his Master's Tea and in our conversation, he stressed this aspect of his filmmaking as crucial to his technique. He cited it as what allows him to communicate the complexities of intricate topics and make them accessible to an audience that may not know Babe Ruth from a Baby Ruth bar.

COURTESY WILLIAM GOTTLIEB Legend Charlie Parker and Miles Davis are just two of the icons featured in Burns' 'Jazz.'

As much as Burns attempted to deny it, the outlook on jazz history expressed in Jazz, deeply conservative at heart, is likely the outgrowth of his usage of Wynton Marsalis, Stanley Crouch, and Albert Murray as his primary critics. These three, with Marsalis as ringleader, are the primary champions of a certain brand of jazz history which believes strongly in a jazz canon, composed primarily of the officially sanctioned greats like Louis Armstrong and early Miles Davis. This canon, based on a principle of exclusion, is made possible by keeping certain musical genres and artists out. Marsalis has drawn the ire of some jazz fans during his tenure as head of the Lincoln Center jazz program by choosing not to include certain offshoots of traditional jazz like free jazz and fusion, claiming they fall outside his definition of the genre.

COURTESY SPORTSPUBLISHINGINC.COM Burns will teach even the most sports-ignorant to tell them the difference between this Babe and the pink pig.

Burns defended his work ardent-ly, saying in response to his detractors, "History is about stories that are over. Critics write about the present or near future, and they find fault with my not encroaching on their territory." He also stated that no critic would be unable to produce a cogent analysis of the last three decades of jazz, an era that the film skims over. Burns stood by this decision, arguing, "Critics can't name figures to match Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and John Coltrane from the last 25 years. It's like critics of The Civil War who asked me how come The Civil War wasn't about Reconstruction." Burns also claimed that many of the writers who had criticized Jazz in print were critics who were not chosen to appear in Jazz, and were striking back out of professional jealousy.

When asked about the possibility of his work becoming the definitive history of a subject, and whether that placed any additional pressure on him, he responded, "No, I don't take that very seriously. My work has prompted lots of other films and responses as well."

Burns also speculated on the origins of his recurring decision to draw upon American history for subject matter, saying, "I choose to work in American history the way someone who's a painter might choose still life over landscape. I see American history as a place to practice what I do, which is telling a story." He also compared those individuals with qualms about the nuances of Jazz to the "buckle collectors" among Civil War enthusiasts, who become so obsessed with the tiny details that "they forget the battle had meaning as a historical event. It's the same with these jazzerati. They forget to say: this is shit, this is really good."

Burns stressed the ideals of American life that he attempted to communicate in his films. "Babe Ruth only comes up once in nine at-bats, so sometimes you've got to rely on the weak-hitting shortstop. Also, in jazz, there's a tension between the individual solo and the communication of the overall piece." Burns remains most intrigued by the racial contradictions that lie at the very heart of American life. "We're founded on a contradiction. Our creed, our founding document is written by a man who owned 200 human beings," he said.

Burns explained his interest as a filmmaker as constant, having "merely changed the subject, but not the inquiry—who are we?" This is complicated by the inherent contradiction of American life, being "torn between the possibility of the individual versus the necessity of the community." Burns has dedicated his career to grappling with these questions, and it becomes clear through talking to him that he has struck a nerve by analyzing America through this prism, particularly in terms of its checkered racial history.

The notion of America being an ideal of individual performance and satisfaction, contained within a larger communal framework, is at the heart of American mythology. It is this mythology that Burns puts on display in his cinematic investigations of various themes and events in American history.

Next, Burns will turn his attention to American legend Mark Twain. As a continuation of Burns' explorations of America, the four-hour biography looks to be as soulful a commentary on our national culture as the works of Twain himself.

Back to A&E...