I'm Nick Gillespie. This is The Reason Interview, and today I'm sitting down with Ken Burns, the

gigantic documentarian who made us think about the Civil War, baseball, jazz, national parks,

the Vietnam War, American Immigration Policy, and now, as we are about to celebrate the 250 anniversary of the United States,

the American Revolution, we're going to talk about that and we're going to talk about PBS funding too

because he's a big advocate and that obviously rubs up against us libertarians. So Ken, thanks for talking to reason.

Thank you very much for having me, Nick. Great to be back. So let's start with the American Revolution.

You have said this is the story that we as a nation

keep returning to.

What did you feel that Americans were either

getting wrong or that needed to be refreshed

in this series?

Nothing that we're getting wrong or refresh.

We don't start out with the idea that somehow you have to make a film to be a corrective.

We want to make a film because I wanted to understand more about the revolution.

But it is true.

Our revolution is a kind of Madison Avenue-produced version.

It's bloodless, it's gallant.

It's encrusted with the barnacles of sentimentality.

It's about guys in Philadelphia thinking great thoughts.

And those great thoughts are super important in 76 and 1787.

But it's a bloody, bloody revolution.

It's a bloody civil war.

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