Ken Burns Lives the American Dream |
“I’m a storyteller. I’m a filmmaker. I’m not a historian,” Ken Burns says shortly before the release of his 10-years-in-the-making behemoth, The American Revolution. Few would argue against the first two points, but writer Jordan Hoffman isn’t so sure about the third. During an hour-long chat with Hoffman, Burns spits out names, dates, and data points with remarkable recall—at one moment revealing the 18th-century origins of the Lower Manhattan streets just a few blocks away, listing them in an orderly east-to-west fashion, as if reading from a map. And few people have spent this much time—his first film, Brooklyn Bridge, came out 44 years ago—educating the masses about American history with Burns’s level of clarity, humanity, and depth. As Hoffman puts it, “He may not have a degree in history. But if this isn’t a historian, who is?”
Elsewhere in HWD, Fred Sahai tries to get to the bottom of why each successive generation eventually gets obsessed with Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours; Kia D. Goosby catches up with Michelle Obama’s stylist; Rebecca Ford interviews conflict photographer Lynsey Addario, the subject of a gripping new documentary; and Kristen Stewart lets loose in a fiery keynote speech. |
Subscribe to our Royal Watch newsletter and get an overview of the chatter from Kensington Palace and beyond.
|
This e-mail was sent to you by HWD DAILY. To ensure delivery to your inbox
|
