List of Ken Burns Quotes

When You Are Editing, The Final Master Is Aristotle And His Poetics. You Might Have A Terrific Episode, But If People Are Falling Out Because There Are Just Too Many Elements In It, You Have To Begin To Get Rid Of Things.

I Can Understand Why Some Of These Drummers And Bass Players Become Cult Figures With All Of Their Equipment And The Incredible Amount Of Technique They Have. But There's Very Little That I Think Satisfies You Intellectually Or Emotionally.

One Of The Things I Really Like About Ford's Films Is How There Is Always A Focus On The Way Characters Live, And Not Just The Male Heroes.

Jazz Is A Very Accurate, Curiously Accurate Accompaniment To 20th Century America.

When A Documentary Filmmaker, Working In The Style That I Do, Suggests That There Has Been A Shooting Ratio Of 40 Hours To Every One Hour Of Finished Film, That Doesn't Mean That The Other 39 Are Bad.

You Need, As A Historian, Essential Triangulation From Your Subject And The Only Way You Get That Triangulation Is Through Time.

You Don't Work On Something For Six Years And Be Blind To The Myriad Of Other Approaches.

We're Having A Hard Time Understanding Where Jazz Is Going. What Happened To Jazz?

In Most Films Music Is Brought In At The End, After The Picture Is More Or Less Locked, To Amplify The Emotions The Filmmaker Wants You To Feel.

Wynton Told Us That Miles Sold Out, Just Wanted To Make More Money, Just Wanted To Sell More Records. I Don't Believe That Miles Sold Out But I'm Not In A Position To Say.

You Know, You Meet Some People, And Do A Lot Of Interviews, And You Come Across A Buck O'neill And You Know You Are Going To Know Him For The Rest Of Your Life. The Same Thing Happened With.

I Think We Continually Need To Understand How Important An Event The War Was - How Defining, How Central To Who We Are. Everything That Came Before It Led Up To It, And Everything Of Importance To This Country - At Least Up To 1940 - Was A Consequence Of It. Even Now There's An Echo Of The War, However Faint, In Almost Everyone's Life.