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Engagement Party

Ken Burns on History, Truth, and Storytelling

Engagement Party

CNN

News, Society & Culture, Entertainment News, Arts

4.6986 Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2023

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ken Burns has been called “America’s Storyteller.” Audie spoke with him live on stage about his process, and about trying to get to the truth of a subject, especially in a political and cultural climate that actively challenges the very idea of truth. Their conversation was part of The Connecticut Forum's season of live, unscripted conversations among renowned experts and celebrities.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Adobe Express is the quick and easy create anything out.

0:04.1

It's my go-to for making my business stand out, from videos and social posts to flyers and logos.

0:10.8

Search for Adobe Express to find out more and use it for free.

0:15.2

I envy people who make documentaries.

0:18.2

Journalism, as it said, is the first rough draft of history. Errors are highlighted

0:23.8

and corrected. New information changes the story you thought you knew. And even when you get it right,

0:29.9

it's never in a sense complete. Documentary filmmakers have the luxury of time and perspective.

0:37.0

Thank you for joining us.

0:38.3

The Connecticut Forum, an evening with Ken Burns, will begin in a few months.

0:42.1

So I want to share with you a conversation I had with Ken Burns, the premier documentarian

0:47.1

for PBS.

0:48.1

We're going to swap notes, as I was saying backstage that I don't have the patience

0:53.3

for documentaries that I don't have the patience for documentaries,

0:54.7

that I grew up, wait, to make documentaries.

1:03.3

Burns films come together over years,

1:06.2

and there is a gutsy grandness in their scope,

1:09.8

the Civil War, Jazz, the Dust Bowl, even as he describes his approach as being pretty simple.

1:16.2

Storytelling is the editing of human experience.

1:18.6

Honey, how was your day?

1:20.6

I back slowly down the driveway, avoiding the garbage can at the curb is how no one ever said it, unless you got,

1:29.7

unless you got T-boned.

1:31.2

Yeah.

...

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