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Mr.

Kenneth L. Burns

Florentine Films
Documentary filmmaker
Area
Humanities and Arts
Specialty
Performing Arts
Elected
2011

Ken Burns has been making documentary films for over forty years. Since the Ƶ Award-nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil WarBaseballJazzThe Statue of LibertyHuey LongLewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of DiscoveryFrank Lloyd WrightMark TwainUnforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack JohnsonThe WarThe National Parks: America’s Best Idea; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; Jackie Robinson; Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War; The Vietnam War; The Mayo Clinic; and Country Music. 

In March 2009, David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun said, “… Burns is not only the greatest documentarian of the day, but also the most influential filmmaker period. That includes feature filmmakers like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. I say that because Burns not only turned millions of persons onto history with his films, he showed us a new way of looking at our collective past and ourselves.”

The late historian Stephen Ambrose said of his films, “More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source.” And Wynton Marsalis has called Ken “a master of timing, and of knowing the sweet spot of a story, of how to ask questions to get to the basic human feeling and to draw out the true spirit of a given subject.” Ken’s films have won sixteen Emmy Awards and two Oscar nominations, and in September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Ƶ of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

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