It’s Official, Ken Burns Loves Sacramento

On this morning’s edition of “Fresh Air,” the NPR arts and entertainment interview show, Ken Burns, well-known documentary filmmaker, was interviewed about his upcoming project “The War.” It’s a 15 hour look at WWII done as only Ken Burns can, with serious but enchanting narration, closeups and pans of old photos and interviews with crusty old guys with insanely large eyebrows.  Well, in this morning’s interview, Ken was talking about how this documentary focused specifically on four towns in America and how the war affected the people of those towns.  The four towns he chose were Waterbury, MA, Mobile, AL, Laverne, MN and yes, our fair city of Sacramento.  When asked why he picked Sacramento, he said that it was a true crossroads of the West, combining Asian and especially Japanese communities, political machinations, industry and average Americans.  I love that fact that Ken Burns loves us because, really, I love Ken Burns.

I know some folks don’t like Ken Burns, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why.  I think these are the same people that refuse to like anything “mainstream”.  The kind of people that try to shock you by claiming that Mallrats was the only “perfect film” even made in the United States.  The kind of folks that purposely wear their t-shirts inside out just to start some type of philosophical fight with unsuspecting citizens on the breaking of social mores through revolutionary wardrobe choices. 

Everytime I’ve seen or heard Ken Burns in an interview, he has come off as genuine, intelligent, slightly gay and totally dedicated to making films that interest him.  When asked why he focused on Jack Johnson, the black heavyweight boxing champion of the early 20th century, for his film “Unforgivable Blackness,” Burns said that Johnson just seemed like a really interesting guy and he wanted to learn more about him.  That’s it.  No high falutin’ social commentary, no multicultural grandstanding, just curiosity and the talent to pursue it.  That is one of the many reasons I like Ken Burns, his pure intellectual curiosity.  He may have totally cock’ed up the history of jazz by not focusing several hours on the contribution of the banjo in modern music or the omnipresent influence of trombone master J.J. Johnson, but I still admire Burns for his abililty, his genuineness and his love of Sacramento, which I wholeheartedly share.

5 thoughts on “It’s Official, Ken Burns Loves Sacramento”

  1. We love Ken Burns too. The baseball documentary was so great..well, everything he does is so great! The American Indian tribute was so well done.

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  2. See, I like that approach to documentaries. I figured if I ever won the lottery and had way too much time and money on my hands, I get into making documentaries. (I do actually have a modicum of training, so this isn’t just out of the blue.)

    I’d start with Oregon Trail stuff— exactly what, I don’t know, but there would definitely be location shots at the proper times, so you could find out the weather. The End of the Oregon Trail Center in Oregon City has the right idea, but they’re focused on the *end* of the trail, so now I want to find out about all the rest of it.

    And yes, the California Trail would be a subset of that project. Or a spinoff.

    Then once I’d gotten some practice I’d go to Europe… (goes off into documentary-making excuses for travel…)

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  3. The only problem with your Oregon Trail documentary would be that the whole thing would have to be in green on a black background. But as long as you kept showing people hunting and dying of diptheria, it would still be an entertaining film to watch.

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  4. I think I envision (or whatever the audio paralell of a vision is) a perfect soundtrack for this documentary; the unaccompanied melody of “Red River Valley” played on an Apple IIe.

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