Last night Earl and I saw documentary filmmaker Ken Burns give a presentation to the local Economic Club, of which we are ardent members. He was the fifth of six speakers in this year’s program; and, in my opinion, he was not only the best we’ve heard this season but also the best speaker I’ve heard in my several years of attendance.
I realize many people won’t agree. They will prefer more political types like George Tenet or more conservative types such as Cal Thomas, both earlier speakers this year. They will pick contemporary faces over history’s lessons.
Ken Burns spoke on behalf of history, on why it is so important to study it, and how the “bottom up” approach is what makes it real, alive. The “top down” approach is about dates and names and battles; the “bottom up” is about the common people who populated our country and made it great.
Burns should know, as he has made his reputation as a filmmaker whose lens focuses on history in the guise of such subjects as the Civil War, baseball, and jazz. He has made films about all three subjects, but truthfully each is really about capturing what was going on in our country within the framework of each topic. To hear Burns tell it, they all have to do with politics and race and money and cultural identity.
Burn’s primary message is this: Pick any broad topic you want – the presidency of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln’s way with words, the journeys of Lewis and Clark – and study it carefully. If you do, you can learn a great deal about who we, Americans, are as a people while you learn who the people we think we’re studying are.
Burns has a facility with words that one expects comes from his creation of films. He spoke dramatically, using various literary devices, quoting other authors and historians. Perhaps this is why I enjoyed him above all others. He said, more than once, that history comes down to words. Being a writer myself, I believe everything ultimately comes down to words.
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