- 44 minutes ago
Ken Burns joins GQ as he revisits some of the most iconic films from his career so far: from Brooklyn Bridge to Jazz.Credits:Director: Kristen DeVoreDirector of Photography: Jack BelisleEditor: Louville MooreTalent: Ken BurnsProducer: Camille RamosLine Producer: Jen SantosProduction Manager: James Pipitone; Elizabeth HymesCamera Operator: David DjacoGaffer: Niklas MollerSound Mixer: Sean PaulsenProduction Assistant: Karla TorresPost Production Supervisor: Jess DunnPost Production Coordinator: Stella ShortinoSupervising Editor: Rob LombardiAssistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00All meaning, for everybody, accrues in duration.
00:04The work that you're proudest of, the relationships you care most about,
00:07have benefited from your sustained attention.
00:09And that's really one of the big things that we have.
00:17Brooklyn Bridge.
00:20I feel that the bridge makes one feel better about being alive.
00:28I think it makes you glad that you're part of the human community,
00:33that you're part of a species that could create such a structure.
00:37I had to, in the late teens and early 20s, spend more time in New York than I had planned.
00:43But it forced me to go to Brooklyn every morning,
00:45and then I would every morning walk back over the Brooklyn Bridge.
00:49And then in the afternoon, go back to Brooklyn, and I walk over the Brooklyn Bridge.
00:53So I walked over it hundreds and hundreds of times.
00:56My best friend was a bookseller and a book distributor.
01:00And he threw on my bed one day in January of 1977, when I was sick with pneumonia,
01:06a paperback copy of David McCullough's The Great Bridge,
01:09the epic story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.
01:11I think I read it in one, you know, 24-hour period in bed and got up.
01:16And I turned to my comrades.
01:17I said, this is our next film.
01:19And we hadn't even had a first film.
01:20We were just working as day laborers for the BBC or the Italian television.
01:26And they looked at me like I was crazy.
01:27And, you know, five and a half years later, we did it.
01:30It's just the most stunning work of art.
01:33And it's a practical, you know, piece of civic engineering.
01:38It was built in an age when one out of every four bridges was collapsing,
01:44that it gave this durability and strength,
01:45and why he was offered the Roebling, John Roebling,
01:48and he was killed in the first few months of the 14-year construction,
01:52and his young son took over.
01:54And so it's one of these great American stories.
01:56And he himself is paralyzed by the bends,
01:58which is called caisson's disease,
02:00after the boxes that are the foundations of the bridge.
02:03And his heretofore Victorian wife takes over
02:06and becomes the chief engineer, Emily Roebling,
02:08which we still use as a symbol of, you know,
02:11a kind of feminist moment in American history
02:15and a great, great, great figure.
02:17So the story has everything.
02:19And so I spent a lot of time doing it,
02:21and part of it was there's ample archives of it,
02:24still photographs, of course.
02:25I still felt that we had to,
02:27we were obligated to cover it in every season
02:29from every time of day and day, from every angle.
02:31We rented an apartment near it that overlooked
02:33so we could do time-lapse photography.
02:35We'd get up early.
02:36To this date, the most spectacular light
02:38I've ever seen in my life.
02:40We call it Roe 53 light because that's what it was.
02:43It was just kind of a day, kind of drizzly,
02:47and then everything cleared up.
02:48And in the West, in New Jersey, the sun came through,
02:51and there were still dark gray, silver clouds in Manhattan,
02:54and it just lit everything up.
02:56And everybody stopped, people on bicycles, you know.
02:58People just looked out as if God had just,
03:00Emily Dickinson called sunsets the far theatricals of day.
03:04So I think I must have taken 20 shots,
03:06and 15 of them are in the final film of that particular light.
03:09Tugboats, light on the bridge,
03:11a tilt down the World Trade Center,
03:13which is breathtaking in one of the first shots of the film.
03:16And when the film was finished in 82,
03:18no one knew that, you know,
03:20for most of the life of this film,
03:22it's had a tragic dimension,
03:24the number of times you see the World Trade Center
03:26in the shots.
03:27There's a moment when someone is reading a poem by Bret Hart
03:31called The Bridge,
03:32and we're panning through the cables,
03:34but it's an endless pan,
03:35and following a seagull through it,
03:37and it's almost like the seagull is landing
03:39as musical notes across the thing.
03:42It's my first baby in a way,
03:44and the year later, my first daughter was born,
03:46so I always sort of think that's really the beginning
03:49of my real life.
03:50The Roebling family, that's who built the bridge,
03:52and its many descendants took over the River Cafe
03:55for the 100th birthday of the Brooklyn Bridge,
03:58which was in May 24, 1983.
04:02Our film had been out for a while.
04:03They invited my wife and I
04:06and our young six-, seven-month-old daughter, Sarah.
04:12And we had this 15-course meal,
04:14similar to the kinds of outrageous things
04:17they'd serve among rich people, celebrating stuff.
04:20They replicated, I think,
04:21the original sort of celebratory dinner.
04:24I remember picking up, scooping up my gal,
04:27my little gal, and walking out in the River Cafe
04:30on this little portion.
04:32We're looking up, and I just said,
04:35please be here for the bicentennial.
04:37And she was the only person in the room
04:39that had even a remote chance,
04:41because everybody else was an adult.
04:43But she could be there at 100 and a half,
04:45and so that was my wish that I whispered in her ear.
04:50The Ken Burns Effect.
04:53How and where John Roebling found time to do all he did,
04:57to attend conventions and write voluminously
05:00for scientific journals,
05:02practice the flute and the piano,
05:05study metaphysics,
05:06pour forth these lucubrations
05:08on thousands of pages of manuscript,
05:11invent tools and machinery,
05:14design canals and bridges
05:15and himself superintend their construction.
05:18How he achieved all this,
05:20I say, bewilders imagination.
05:23You know, in the old days,
05:24we had these animation studios
05:26in which if you wanted to take a zoom in,
05:28and you can't do it by hand with a zoom lens,
05:30you have to have it in an animation stand.
05:33They were pre-computers.
05:35You would take a frame,
05:36click, move everything,
05:38click, move everything.
05:4024 of those is one second.
05:42So you have to figure that if you want a 10-second zoom,
05:44that's 240 frames,
05:46but you also want to start,
05:47you know,
05:47and you can click, click, click, click, click at the head
05:49and click, click, click, click, click at the tail,
05:51but you have to move.
05:53And we were doing that,
05:54and I wanted a 33-second zoom in
05:57on the only portrait that exists
05:59of John Roebling,
06:00the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge,
06:01and the guy at the animation studio said,
06:04are you kidding?
06:04Nobody's going to look at a 30-second zoom in on somebody?
06:07Are you out of your mind?
06:08And it works.
06:09You can see there's a great quote
06:11read by Kurt Vonnegut, the writer,
06:14about how unbelievably genius John Roebling was,
06:19and you're just looking at him
06:21and getting at his eyes,
06:22and it does work.
06:24And I was trying to also
06:25not consciously make a point,
06:27but I think one of the side benefits
06:30is to remind people
06:31that meaning accrues in duration.
06:33And yes, your eye can visually pick up something
06:35at a 48th of a second.
06:37If I did one frame out of 24 of a tree
06:40and showed you just one 48th of a second
06:44because that 24th has to come to black
06:47and then you pull down the next frame
06:48and then it has to come up,
06:49so it's only a 48th of a second,
06:51you'd say tree, and you'd know it.
06:53Meaning requires something else.
06:55And just because you can physiologically read that tree
06:58doesn't mean it has any meaning.
07:00So sometimes looking at a tree for five seconds
07:03and then 10 and then something happens,
07:06you force it.
07:08And I would suggest for everybody
07:09that all meaning,
07:11despite the fact that we love to watch
07:12kittens and balls of yarn on YouTube
07:15or MTV videos,
07:16which I've been told all my professional life
07:18have eroded our attention,
07:20all meaning for everybody,
07:23accrues in duration.
07:24The work that you're proudest of,
07:26the relationships you care most about
07:28have benefited from your sustained attention.
07:30And that's really one of the big things that we have.
07:34We have our word,
07:35we have whatever virtues we may or may not possess,
07:39and we have our attention,
07:40our ability to concentrate.
07:41And they say,
07:42well, nobody's got attention now,
07:43there's millions of different sites,
07:45but what do people do now?
07:46They binge.
07:47They curate the thousands of choices
07:50that would drive you mad.
07:51You know, it's funny,
07:52it's kind of almost gone full circle,
07:54because now there are programs
07:56within various editing applications
07:59that permit you to do that,
08:01but you're now missing that human eye
08:03that set the original frame
08:05and resets it.
08:07There's some generational thing,
08:09so I'm always yelling it,
08:11not yelling,
08:11but I'm saying,
08:12that's a zoom to nowhere.
08:13Where are you going?
08:14What are you looking at?
08:15Because there's a drift in,
08:17but it seems to be heading towards your elbow,
08:19not your face,
08:20or, you know,
08:21to that object.
08:23And so I'm always trying to redirect
08:26and try to insist on a human intelligence
08:30behind the choice of the starting frame
08:33and the ending frame on these zooms.
08:35So, yeah,
08:36it goes a lot faster now,
08:37and we can do it.
08:38And all of the analog days,
08:40I mean,
08:40I have all sorts of pioneer stories
08:42of grease pencils
08:43where you would draw
08:44and approximate a fade
08:45which you would never see
08:47or a dissolve
08:48or a title on somebody
08:50until the film was done, done.
08:52And now you can do all sorts of effects
08:55and see all sorts of titles
08:56and do, you know,
08:58have things, you know,
08:59go off,
08:59lots of bells and whistles
09:00that are themselves distracting,
09:02the technological tail wagging the dog
09:05and not the dog wagging that.
09:06But it's all an interesting process,
09:08you know,
09:08to try to stay true to that meaning
09:11if that's the ultimate thing.
09:13The only law of filmmaking
09:14I've ever heard that was true
09:16came from an old editor in New York,
09:19long gone,
09:19named Jerry Michaels.
09:21And he said,
09:22there's only one law in filmmaking,
09:24and that's a shot lasts as long as it lasts.
09:26And that's just telling you
09:27that there is some time,
09:29and that's what filmmaking's all about.
09:31It's, you know,
09:32one thing and two things coming together,
09:35and they've lasted a certain amount of time,
09:37will last a certain amount of time.
09:38And then by the fact of cutting,
09:40you've created a third thing.
09:41In November of 2002,
09:45I got a call from Steve Jobs,
09:46and I went,
09:47oh, yeah, right.
09:47But it was.
09:48And he said,
09:49look, I really want to meet with you.
09:50And I said, fine.
09:51So I kind of said,
09:52that's me knocking at the door.
09:53So I flew out to Silicon Valley,
09:56and I was ushered into this room.
09:58This is now December of 2002.
10:00We meet,
10:01and we talk,
10:01and then we go,
10:03and he introduces me to a couple of engineers who,
10:05and I'm a Luddite,
10:06and they've been working on this thing.
10:08And it shows that you can take the photographs
10:10that you upload or download,
10:12whatever it is,
10:13into your computer,
10:15and you can pan and zoom on them.
10:17And they even add music to it.
10:19And he said,
10:19so next January,
10:21next month,
10:22January 2003,
10:23every Mac computer going forward,
10:25we didn't have any computers.
10:27He said,
10:27every Mac computer going forward will have this,
10:30and we want to keep the working title.
10:32And I said,
10:32what's that?
10:33And he said,
10:34the Ken Burns effect.
10:35I said,
10:35I don't do commercial endorsements.
10:37And he said,
10:38what?
10:39So he took me back to the office,
10:40and an hour later,
10:41we got out,
10:41and we worked out this deal
10:42where ultimately,
10:44Apple gave us probably more than a million dollars
10:46in hardware and software,
10:48which I gave away.
10:49I do admit that one or two computers stayed,
10:51because everybody was saying,
10:53Ken,
10:54we do need a computer.
10:55Let's be not like Stone Age.
10:57So I felt good about it.
10:59And then,
11:00you know,
11:01it's a pale version of what we've tried to do,
11:04which is to wake up a still photograph,
11:05to treat a still photograph
11:07as if it's a master shot
11:09that has a long shot,
11:10a medium shot,
11:11close shot,
11:12a tilt,
11:12a pan,
11:13a reveal,
11:14an insert of details.
11:15And we try to energetically do that,
11:18adding complex sound effects,
11:20you know,
11:20first person voices
11:21in addition to third person narration,
11:23period music,
11:24and that movement
11:25all in an attempt
11:26to sort of wake up the photograph.
11:28So you're looking at it
11:29and believing it's real,
11:31but also listening to it.
11:32Are the troops tramping?
11:33Are the cannon firing?
11:34Are the bat cracking?
11:35Is the crowd cheering?
11:36All of those questions you're asking,
11:38and that,
11:39in a very intimate way.
11:41It's not a battle.
11:43It's not a skirmish.
11:44It's a massacre.
11:44And by the time we get to the revolution,
11:47there are battles with paintings
11:49in which we might have 150 tracks going
11:52just to wake you up
11:53and stuff traveling across your ear
11:57in the stereo fix of a shell going by
12:01or something whizzing by your head.
12:03We have that ability
12:04to do that kind of things
12:06depending on where this is ultimately seen.
12:09And so the Ken Burns effect for Apple is one thing,
12:13and it saved, I have to tell you,
12:16millions of vacations
12:18and memorial services
12:20and weddings
12:21and bar mitzvahs
12:22and stuff like that
12:23as a way to organize
12:24and tell a little story.
12:25And if you get,
12:27still to this day,
12:27on your iPhone,
12:28they will offer you,
12:30like, a memory,
12:30and it'll be essentially dissolving
12:32and panning between these things.
12:34It's a kind of wonderful
12:36but still superficial version
12:37of a very elaborate attempt
12:39on our part
12:40to try to wake up the past
12:42and make an image
12:43that is not alive come alive.
12:48Jazz.
12:51Armstrong invented
12:53what, for lack of a more specific phrase,
12:57we call swing.
12:58He created modern time.
12:59We don't have to pick
13:00Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington
13:02as the kind of center of the story.
13:03They pick themselves
13:04by their virtuosity,
13:05by their earth-changing music.
13:08You know,
13:09I think Louis Armstrong
13:10is the most important person in music.
13:12I didn't say jazz
13:13in the 20th century.
13:15He is to music.
13:16I didn't say jazz.
13:18What Freud is to medicine,
13:20what the Wright brothers are to travel,
13:23what Einstein is to physics.
13:25I mean,
13:26he took this ensemble music,
13:28this brand new
13:28on utterly American ensemble music
13:31and made it a soloist's art
13:33and invented modern time,
13:35what we call swing,
13:36playing before and after a note.
13:38Somebody in the depression
13:40in the middle of the early swing days
13:42where you're on the road
13:43for 300 days
13:44just trying to make enough money
13:45to survive,
13:46said,
13:46what do you need on the road?
13:47And they said,
13:48just a toothbrush
13:49and a picture of Louis Armstrong.
13:50He then took it
13:51and changed singing.
13:53And if we had Frank Sinatra here
13:55or Billie Holiday
13:56or Ella Fitzgerald,
13:57they would say,
13:58all of the singing
13:59for this raspy voice
14:00that comes from Louis Armstrong.
14:02And I did ask Tony Bennett,
14:04who was of that era,
14:05and he said,
14:05yes,
14:06Louis Armstrong,
14:06that's it.
14:07And Duke Ellington saw him
14:08in Times Square
14:09and said,
14:10I want him on every single instrument,
14:13meaning I want not only virtuosity,
14:15but I want personality
14:17and power
14:17and spirit and heart.
14:19He never found anybody
14:20as good as Louis Armstrong
14:21on any instrument,
14:22but he got nearly there.
14:23Armstrong's not a composer.
14:25He's a player,
14:26and he's in the moment.
14:28His stuff,
14:28if you listen to his hot fives
14:30and hot sevens
14:30from the 1920s
14:31and early 30s,
14:32it's just,
14:33there's no greater music ever.
14:36And Ellington's
14:37our greatest composer.
14:37He's got more
14:38compositions,
14:39most prolific,
14:40and he's just great.
14:42He captured the American experience.
14:44There's nothing like it.
14:45From his earliest pieces,
14:46like Black and Tan Fantasy,
14:49he was already expressing
14:50a mood of a people.
14:53And it's not to say
14:54there aren't other jazz,
14:55there are Charlie Parker
14:57and Dizzy Gillespie
14:57who invent a whole other form
14:59of art form called bebop
15:02or bop.
15:02Miles Davis,
15:03who can't play
15:04those fancy notes
15:04that Parker and Gillespie
15:08can do with the speed
15:09that they do it with,
15:10but he can play just
15:10the right ones.
15:11And John Coltrane,
15:12who's taking it
15:13in another direction,
15:14and lots of people
15:15who are contemporaries
15:16of Ellington and Armstrong.
15:19It's all the important story
15:20to say.
15:20But this is, you know,
15:21a great story,
15:22and I saw it
15:23as the completion
15:24of a trilogy.
15:25I thought the Civil War
15:26was part one.
15:26I thought baseball
15:27was part two
15:28because the first real progress
15:29and civil rights
15:30after the Civil War
15:32was Jackie Robinson
15:33when Jack Roosevelt Robinson,
15:35the grandson of a slave,
15:36made his way
15:37to first base
15:38at Abbotsfield
15:38on April 15, 1947.
15:40That's a big fucking deal,
15:42right?
15:43And that jazz seemed
15:45to be the soundtrack
15:46of everything we did
15:47in the teens and 20s,
15:49the 20s for sure,
15:5030s and 40s,
15:51of films that we had made.
15:52And so it seemed
15:53that this was like
15:54the Father, the Son,
15:55and the Holy Ghost.
15:56You know, you just had
15:57to do that.
15:58And it was joyous
16:00as was our series
16:01on country music.
16:03The two most joyous
16:04productions we've ever done
16:06was, like for us,
16:07when we're in the recording
16:08studio with our musicians
16:10making our music,
16:11there are no days
16:11that are better than that.
16:13Like you just sit there
16:13and it's,
16:15Wynton Marsalis said this,
16:16it's the art
16:16of the invisible.
16:17It's the only art form
16:18that you don't have to see.
16:21You can't see.
16:21You can see somebody playing,
16:23but most of the music
16:24we hear, you don't see it.
16:25You see a play.
16:26You see a sculpture.
16:27You see a painting.
16:29You see, you know,
16:30a movie.
16:31You see whatever
16:32the thing is, theater.
16:34You read literature,
16:35but music you hear
16:36and it works faster
16:37than anything.
16:38Two notes
16:38and it's got you.
16:39It's grabbed you
16:40by the heart.
16:41And that's why soundtracks
16:42are so important
16:43and why we think
16:43doing it where the music leads
16:45and has supremacy
16:46is important.
16:47But just being able
16:49to take something
16:50that is normally
16:51background music
16:53and have it be foreground
16:55and middle ground
16:55and kind of hyper ground
16:56when in some moments
16:58people sort of dissect
16:59and take apart
16:59a piece of music,
17:01whether it's in country
17:02or jazz,
17:02these elemental American
17:04contributions.
17:05It was just exhilarating.
17:06And to then meet somebody
17:08like Louis Armstrong
17:09who everybody thinks
17:10they know,
17:10but when you understand
17:12that he is the end-all
17:14and be-all of music,
17:17not just jazz,
17:18but music in the 20th century.
17:20And we can prove it
17:21and do in the film
17:22and people go,
17:22ah, come on,
17:23you know, whatever.
17:24And I'm a huge Beatles fan.
17:25I'm a child of rock and roll
17:26and R&B.
17:27And, you know,
17:28but I'll tell you,
17:29as people call him
17:32Satchmo or Louis,
17:33we out of respect
17:34call him Louis Armstrong.
17:36And I finally met
17:37this woman along my path
17:38that's,
17:39who was,
17:39lack of a better word,
17:40an aura read,
17:41a, you know,
17:42a psychic of some kind.
17:44And I just said this.
17:46And I said,
17:46everybody says,
17:47he's a gift from God
17:48or an angel.
17:48And she closed her eyes
17:49and said,
17:50biggest wings I've ever seen.
17:52I just thought,
17:53you know,
17:53if you live your life right,
17:55you might have a chance
17:56to see Gabriel
17:57being blown out of the clouds
18:00by Louis Armstrong.
18:02The Civil War.
18:05The Civil War was fought
18:07in 10,000 places
18:08from Valverde, New Mexico,
18:10and Tullahoma, Tennessee
18:12to St. Albans, Vermont
18:14and Fernandina
18:15on the Florida coast.
18:19More than 3 million Americans
18:21fought in it
18:22and over 600,000 men,
18:252% of the population,
18:27died in it.
18:28You know,
18:28we do our music
18:29ass-backwards
18:31from everybody else.
18:32We record it
18:33before we start editing
18:34most of it
18:35and we use it
18:37from the very beginning
18:38to determine.
18:38Traditionally,
18:39a film has a score
18:40which is a mathematical term,
18:42meaning it's added,
18:43but we let the music
18:44be an organic figure
18:47in our story
18:49from the beginning,
18:50determining we'll cut
18:51a narration down
18:53or lengthen it
18:54to fit a phrase of music.
18:57And so I've used
18:57session musicians
18:58who collect
18:59all the different stuff
19:00and they had loosely formed
19:02many of the session musicians,
19:03a band called
19:04Fiddle Fever
19:04and in the early 80s,
19:06one of the members
19:08that was heading off
19:09to Nashville
19:09to make his fortune there,
19:12a guitarist,
19:13sent me this stuff
19:14and it was an old vinyl record
19:15and I listened
19:16to the first song
19:16as I did
19:17and I listened
19:17to the second,
19:18the third,
19:19and on the fourth song
19:20was this piece
19:20called
19:20A Shoken Farewell
19:22written by their fiddle player
19:23named Jay Unger.
19:24And I just said,
19:25oh my God,
19:25this is going to be
19:26the theme
19:26for the Civil War series.
19:27I went to Jay
19:28and he's a Jewish kid
19:30from the Bronx
19:31who runs a music school,
19:33still does,
19:34called it
19:34the Ashoken Music Festival
19:36and it broke up
19:37at the end of the summer
19:38and everybody went back
19:39to the new school year
19:40and he sat down
19:41and wrote
19:42the most beautiful
19:43Scotch-Irish lament
19:44I have ever heard
19:45called A Shoken Farewell.
19:46And he goes, fine.
19:47I said, how much do you want?
19:48And he goes, 500.
19:48I said, it's not enough.
19:50And I kept adding money
19:51and by the time
19:53the film was finished
19:54and out,
19:55I had given him
19:55$5,000
19:56which was,
19:57I still felt not enough.
19:59And the only consolation
20:00I have is
20:01that he's probably made
20:02more than a million dollars
20:04in ASCAP royalties
20:06for reuses
20:07wherever it's done.
20:07I hope way more than that.
20:09And I can tell you today,
20:11today,
20:12that this is being played
20:13at a hundred memorial services,
20:15a hundred weddings,
20:17a hundred renewal of vows,
20:19sometimes with the letter
20:21of a soldier writing back
20:23to his wife
20:24before he was killed
20:24in battle
20:25about his love for her
20:26that ends our first episode.
20:28But A Shoken Farewell
20:30still has a set of notes
20:32and chords
20:32that are as perfect
20:34as I've ever come across.
20:36Sarah,
20:37my love for you
20:39is deathless.
20:40It seems to bind me
20:41with mighty cables
20:42that nothing but omnipotence
20:44can break.
20:46And yet my love of country
20:47comes over me
20:48like a strong wind
20:49and bears me irresistibly
20:51with all those chains
20:52to the battlefield.
20:53So this is an amazing story,
20:55which is we had assembled
20:57a body of maybe two dozen scholars,
21:01Pulitzer Prize winning,
21:02I mean, amazing scholars
21:03of the Civil War.
21:06And we kept asking them
21:08for first-person voices.
21:10And they hadn't really done that.
21:13And I had a second
21:14and then a third meeting
21:15assembling all of these folks
21:17in Washington.
21:17And I said,
21:18you know,
21:18we really need you.
21:19There had been one historian,
21:20Barbara Fields,
21:21who's in the film,
21:22who'd sent us a lot
21:23of first-person voices
21:25of very rare
21:27or newly uncovered
21:28freed enslaved people.
21:30And really helpful stuff.
21:32But nobody else had.
21:33And then one of the historians
21:34that we'd used
21:35from Illinois
21:37had sent this letter.
21:40And my brother picked it up
21:41and started reading it out loud
21:42and couldn't finish it
21:43and handed it.
21:44And I read it
21:44and couldn't finish it.
21:46And I handed it to him.
21:48And it was about
21:48the Battle of Manassas,
21:49which was about
21:50two-thirds of the way,
21:51three-quarters of the way
21:51through the first episode.
21:53And he said,
21:54in the Battle of Manassas?
21:55And I said,
21:55no, at the very end.
21:57We'll look back at it.
21:59We'll use this
22:00as the end
22:00of the first episode.
22:02I made a copy.
22:02I scotch-taped one copy
22:04and put it,
22:05which still to this day
22:07remains in my office,
22:09yellowed,
22:10completely yellowed.
22:11And another one
22:12I folded up
22:13and put in my wallet,
22:14which for many years
22:14I'd bring out
22:15and read to audiences,
22:17you know,
22:18whenever they would ask.
22:19Until it fell apart.
22:21It's one of the most
22:22beautiful letters.
22:23And it went with
22:23The Ashokan Farewell.
22:25And it's the story
22:26of a guy named Sullivan Ballou
22:27who's writing back home
22:29to his wife
22:29in Smithfield, Rhode Island.
22:31And it's about love.
22:32It's about love of country.
22:34It's about love of government.
22:36It's about love of cause.
22:37It's about love of family.
22:39It's about love of children.
22:41It's about love of love
22:42and between two people
22:44that transcends.
22:46I mean, you know,
22:47there's every man wishes
22:49he could say this
22:49to the woman he loves
22:50and every woman,
22:51of course,
22:51says,
22:52I wish my man knew
22:53how to say that to me.
22:54So it's the epitome
22:55of how you express love.
22:57And then he is,
22:58as he is thinking,
23:00is killed a week later
23:01at the Battle of Bull Run.
23:03But he's telling her
23:04that no matter what happens,
23:06he'll always be there.
23:07When the soft breeze fans your cheek,
23:10it will be my spirit passing by.
23:11Do not mourn me dead.
23:13You know,
23:14we'll meet again.
23:15And it's, you know,
23:16nobody's ever found
23:17the original letter.
23:18So there's, you know,
23:20snarky folks who say
23:21it doesn't really exist.
23:22Somebody wrote it
23:22and made it up.
23:23You know where the letter is.
23:24It's buried with Sarah.
23:25She's not going to go
23:27to the grave
23:28without carrying that letter.
23:30The War.
23:33The Second World War
23:35brought out the best
23:37and the worst
23:38in a generation
23:39and blurred the two
23:41so that they became,
23:43at times,
23:44almost indistinguishable.
23:46Our film on the World War II,
23:48which we call The War,
23:49had, unlike any other subject
23:51I've tackled,
23:52literally hundreds of brethren.
23:55Other films about that subject.
23:56It's the greatest cataclysm
23:58in human history,
23:59as we say in the opening sentences
24:00of the film.
24:01And for us,
24:02it was then,
24:02how do you see it
24:04in a new light?
24:05It had to be done.
24:06I'd vowed after the Civil War
24:07not to do any more wars.
24:08It was really tough.
24:09But then I'd heard
24:10that a thousand U.S. veterans
24:12of the war
24:12were dying each day in America.
24:15That number is really tiny today.
24:17And that we were losing
24:18the memory of the war.
24:19And that, like,
24:20lots of graduating high school seniors
24:22thought we fought
24:23with the Germans
24:23against the Russians
24:24in the Second World War.
24:25And I kind of went,
24:27I got to do something.
24:29So we worked on it
24:30for a long time.
24:31And one of the things is,
24:32what if we could see it?
24:34The romantic poet William Blake
24:35said you could see
24:36the world in a grain of sand.
24:38What if we took one town
24:39and we investigated
24:40Waterbury, Connecticut?
24:42And there weren't enough
24:43surviving veterans
24:44that you could have given you
24:45the range of experiences,
24:47European and Pacific theater,
24:49in an airplane,
24:50in a ship,
24:51landing at D-Day,
24:52all of the different things.
24:54And so we just sort of
24:55expanded it
24:55and collected three other towns
24:57of about that size,
24:58Mobile, Alabama,
24:59and Sacramento, California,
25:00and then found
25:01a tiny, tiny town
25:03by accident
25:04called La Verne, Minnesota.
25:05And basically said,
25:06okay, we'll do it with that.
25:07And told it from that.
25:09And so what happens is,
25:10is you have both
25:11the aerial big maps
25:12with arrows and Nazis
25:14taking over territories
25:16and us reclaiming it.
25:17But you also have
25:18the intimacy of a town
25:20experiencing people going off,
25:23doing manufacturing jobs
25:24while they're away,
25:25a variety of kinds of Americans,
25:27and then their experiences
25:29across all of the battlefields
25:31of the Second World War.
25:32You know, I think that
25:33there's a presumption
25:35that you make a film
25:36that it's additive,
25:37it's like sort of
25:37building a house.
25:38And it is like that.
25:40But it's mostly subtractive.
25:42You collect a lot of stuff.
25:43Every time you see
25:44a talking head
25:45in any of our films,
25:47it's a happy accident.
25:48We don't say,
25:50hey, can you get us
25:51from paragraph two
25:52to paragraph three
25:53on page four of episode six?
25:54Never once.
25:56We ask questions
25:57and we collect
25:58lots of testimony.
25:59And so I live in New Hampshire
26:01and we make maple syrup.
26:02It takes 40 gallons of sap
26:04to make one gallon
26:05of maple syrup.
26:05And that is a pretty apt analogy.
26:07So we're collecting
26:08hundreds and hundreds
26:10of hours of still photographs
26:12and newsreels
26:13and interview stuff
26:15and music
26:16and all sorts of things
26:18and writing a lot more
26:19than we can possibly use.
26:21And so we're doing
26:21a job of subtracting,
26:23of understanding
26:24that sometimes less is more.
26:26It's an amazing process.
26:28And so what happens is
26:29if you listen to somebody,
26:30you're not just going down
26:32what they're saying
26:34and your list of stuff,
26:35that that question seven
26:36might have seven A, B, C, D, E.
26:39And if you're talking
26:39about people
26:40who are in their 80s
26:41who are basically turning back
26:44into 18 or 19 years old,
26:46there's something powerful
26:48that does happen.
26:50That's why these 18-year-olds
26:51could pursue war at all.
26:54They were kids.
26:55They were optimistic.
26:56And they really thought
26:57that if you did well,
26:58you'd be rewarded.
26:59I mean, they're that innocent.
27:02They had no idea
27:03about life's accidents.
27:04Paul Fussell,
27:09who was an eminent scholar
27:10of the war,
27:11but had been in it.
27:13And he was, I think,
27:14nervous for the first couple
27:16of reels
27:16and wanted to probably
27:18be a Shelby Foote,
27:20and that screws you up
27:21if you're not trying
27:21to be yourself.
27:22And finally,
27:23at the end of the third reel,
27:24I was about to pull the plug.
27:25And I just turned to him
27:26and I said,
27:27you keep saying these kids.
27:28How old were they?
27:29And he goes,
27:30they're 18.
27:31And I said,
27:31how old were you?
27:32And he goes, 19.
27:33He was an old man.
27:34The average lifetime
27:37on the line in combat
27:38of a lieutenant in France
27:42in 1944, 1945
27:43was like 17 days.
27:45You were either killed,
27:46you were severely wounded,
27:47or you went insane.
27:48And he had not,
27:49he'd been on the front line
27:50for six months
27:52and never brushed his teeth,
27:54never changed his clothes,
27:55never taken a shower,
27:56was brought food.
27:57There were people
27:58200 yards behind him
27:59that were having
28:00all those things.
28:00He was good at what he did,
28:03which is killing other people
28:05and avoiding being killed.
28:06And he was finally severely wounded
28:08and taken off the line.
28:09But I finally looked at him
28:11and said,
28:11you saw bad stuff
28:13when we turned back on.
28:14And his lip starts to quiver
28:16and his cheek.
28:18And suddenly,
28:18he's back there at 18 years old
28:20and he is there.
28:24And he puts us there.
28:25And we could only use
28:26a fraction of the stuff
28:28he told us.
28:28It was so bad.
28:29It was so gruesome.
28:30It was so horrible.
28:32Once he comes across these kids,
28:33the Germans at the end
28:34are throwing in little babies,
28:36you know,
28:3612 and 13-year-olds.
28:37They don't even have time
28:38to get a helmet.
28:39They don't have any helmets left.
28:40And they're wearing
28:41these little felt hats.
28:43And, you know,
28:44they'd been killed.
28:45And each had been shot
28:47through the head.
28:47And the blue,
28:51bluish-red brains
28:53of one
28:54were coming out
28:55his nostrils.
28:57They had their eyes open, too.
28:59And the other one,
29:00his bluish-red brain
29:02was coming out
29:03just from under his cap
29:04and sort of displacing
29:06his cap
29:06as he wore it.
29:09And that really gave me
29:11a jolt.
29:12We're drawn to war
29:13because, unfortunately,
29:16this is the worst thing
29:17that human beings do,
29:18but it's something
29:18we always do.
29:20It's not our last resort.
29:21It's usually our first resort.
29:23And it's really important
29:25to understand
29:25the sort of shared humanity
29:27of the victims
29:28and all of the people,
29:30all of the participants in it.
29:33The Vietnam War.
29:34America's involvement
29:38in Vietnam
29:38began in secrecy.
29:41It ended
29:4330 years later
29:44in failure,
29:46witnessed
29:46by the entire world.
29:49And what did you see,
29:51my darling?
29:52It was begun
29:53in good faith
29:54by decent people
29:55out of fateful
29:56misunderstandings,
29:58American overconfidence,
30:00and Cold War
30:01miscalculation.
30:02I remember,
30:03as we were finishing
30:05our series
30:05on the World War II
30:08called The War
30:09in December of 2006,
30:12I looked up
30:13at Lynn Novick,
30:13who was my co-director
30:14on The War,
30:16and said,
30:16we're doing Vietnam next.
30:18And we all just had
30:19that white face, okay.
30:20But yeah,
30:21it was an attempt
30:21to try to come to terms
30:22with it.
30:23We don't make films
30:23about stuff we know about.
30:25It's stuff we want
30:26to know about.
30:26And even on the subjects
30:28that I've gone into,
30:29like baseball,
30:29where I thought
30:30I knew something,
30:31every day of the production
30:32was humiliation
30:33of what I didn't know.
30:34And that's good,
30:35because you don't want
30:35me to tell you,
30:37you know,
30:37here's what I know,
30:38this is what you should know,
30:39because that's the last time
30:41I checked homework.
30:42We hope it's a gift
30:43in a way.
30:44And so Vietnam
30:45was totally about
30:46untangling that.
30:47And to Lynn's credit,
30:49she was really insistent
30:51on us having
30:52Vietnamese voices.
30:53And I was like,
30:54yeah,
30:55but I wanted
30:57to do it modestly,
30:58because I thought,
30:59we've got this hugely
31:00controversial war.
31:00There are people still
31:01to this day
31:02like really opposed.
31:04You could argue
31:05that the divisions
31:06we experience today
31:07began in Vietnam
31:09and the way,
31:09the hardening of positions
31:11that have taken place
31:12and that have so beset us
31:14in this current moment.
31:15And so I wanted
31:16to be gingerly,
31:17but she was absolutely right
31:18by talking
31:19to South Vietnamese civilians
31:20and South Vietnamese military,
31:22our allies,
31:23by talking to North Vietnamese civilians
31:25and North Vietnamese soldiers,
31:28our enemies,
31:30and talking to the Viet Cong,
31:31the guerrilla movement
31:32in the South.
31:33And we would add
31:35a dimension to this
31:36to the variety of Americans
31:37that range from men
31:39who were this close
31:40to getting a Medal of Honor
31:41and were highly decorated
31:43to gold star mothers
31:45and deserters
31:46and draft dodgers
31:47and protesters.
31:48So all the varieties
31:49of Americans involved in that.
31:52But suffice to say,
31:54for decade after decade,
31:55presidential administration
31:57after presidential administration,
31:58the American people
31:59were lied to.
32:00Whatever is the right course,
32:02we didn't need to do that.
32:03We're umpires calling balls
32:04and strikes
32:05in all of our films,
32:06particularly those about war.
32:08But we're telling you
32:09that we just didn't have
32:12the information
32:13in which an informed citizenry
32:14could have
32:16if the government,
32:18whatever it is,
32:18the Truman administration,
32:19the Eisenhower administration,
32:21the Kennedy administration,
32:22the Johnson administration,
32:23the Nixon administration,
32:24and the Ford administration
32:25that would allow us
32:26to perhaps make
32:27different decisions
32:28than we did,
32:29not just at the ballot box,
32:30but in our public opinion.
32:32And in a way,
32:34it was American public opinion
32:35changing against the war
32:36and more about why
32:39the fact that we were lied to
32:40than it was what the issues were
32:42that really changed the war
32:44and forced us out.
32:52When did Trent and Atticus come
33:00into the picture for you
33:01with all the score done
33:02and you said beforehand?
33:04This is Lynn again.
33:05She had watched
33:06The Social Network
33:07and had come away.
33:09That's a David Fincher film
33:10about Mark Zuckerberg
33:11and the creation of Facebook.
33:14And she'd come away,
33:15not with whether it was a good film
33:17or a bad film,
33:17but how great the music was.
33:19And it was Trent Reznor
33:20and Atticus Ross.
33:22And so I remember
33:23she and I went out to,
33:24with Sarah Botstein,
33:25went out to Hollywood
33:27and met with them
33:28at a cabana
33:28at the Beverly Hills Hotel,
33:30showed them like raw footage
33:32out of the film
33:32and then raw interview stuff
33:33and just said,
33:34would you do this?
33:36And they fortunately
33:36had known my stuff
33:38and they said,
33:39yeah, I think so.
33:40And then they'd work
33:41by themselves
33:41to create these musical beds
33:44that were so chilling
33:45and so amazing.
33:48We've worked with them
33:49a number of other times,
33:50adore them.
33:50They're amazing,
33:51amazing artists.
33:52They have just
33:53some of the most principled
33:54set of kind of values
33:57about how you proceed
33:58and how you,
33:59in this world of distractions,
34:01how you maintain
34:02this artistic integrity.
34:04They do it
34:05with an incredible modesty,
34:07modesty,
34:07but also a ferocity
34:08about protecting their art
34:10and their process,
34:11which kind of,
34:12you know,
34:13if we could sort of,
34:14we felt like we were like that
34:16in a little bit,
34:17a tiny, tiny degree of that,
34:18the way we lived remotely
34:20and tried to stay
34:22all in public television
34:23with one foot tentatively
34:24in the marketplace
34:25and the other out
34:26that we had a kind of control
34:29and we just felt
34:29that there was
34:30a kind of meeting
34:31of the minds there
34:32that I loved.
34:33We also went to the Beatles
34:35at Apple Records
34:36and said,
34:37we need your songs.
34:38You know,
34:39we have a hundred
34:39and nearly 130 needle drops
34:42and there's no way
34:43you can afford it
34:44and no way
34:45you can do it
34:46without the Beatles
34:46unless the Beatles
34:47help you out
34:48and they did
34:48and then had other composers
34:50adding stuff.
34:52David Cieri,
34:52someone that we've worked
34:53with for a long time,
34:54had some very eerie stuff,
34:55some of which we borrowed
34:56and put in the revolution
34:57because you realize
34:58whatever's going on
35:00in somebody's gut
35:01in the middle of warfare
35:02has got to be
35:03exactly the same emotion
35:04and if you touch that
35:06in World War II
35:06and you touch that
35:08in Vietnam,
35:08do you have to play
35:09some Baroque music
35:10to be accurate
35:11for the revolution?
35:12No.
35:13And there's a few instances
35:14where there's some
35:15eerie, eerie stuff
35:17and that's Dave Cieri's,
35:19there's a piece he wrote
35:20for Vietnam
35:21called Arclight.
35:22You're screaming
35:23as loud as you can
35:24to try to cover up
35:25the sound
35:26of the incoming bullets
35:27because when they pass
35:29by your ear
35:30you can hear
35:31the popping sound.
35:32You don't hear
35:33the gunshot
35:33that a .50 caliber
35:36just opened up
35:36shooting a half-inch
35:37piece of lead
35:38flying at you
35:39and the aircraft
35:40blows up
35:40and it's not necessarily
35:44you're going to hear
35:44that instrumentation
35:45in the late 17th, 18th century
35:47but it's,
35:48it's, I'm sure
35:49the emotions
35:50are exactly the same,
35:52the fear
35:52going into a battle.
35:53From a small spark
35:58kindled in America
36:00a flame has arisen
36:02not to be extinguished
36:04without consuming
36:07it winds its progress
36:08from nation to nation
36:10and conquers
36:11by a silent operation.
36:13I make those decisions.
36:14I'll say
36:14let's put in Arclight
36:16and people go
36:16and they go
36:17right
36:17and it works.
36:19Like the film opens,
36:20the revolution opens
36:21with a piece of
36:22Dave Cieri music
36:23which is like
36:24as contemporary
36:26and gut-wrenching
36:27fearful
36:28as you could
36:29possibly imagine.
36:31The American Revolution.
36:34The Americans
36:35have made a discovery
36:36or think they have made one
36:38that we mean
36:39to oppress them.
36:41We have made a discovery
36:42or think we have made one
36:43that they intend
36:44to rise in rebellion.
36:47Our severity
36:48has increased
36:49their ill behavior.
36:51We know not
36:52how to advance
36:53they know not
36:54how to retreat.
36:55I think the American Revolution
36:56was sort of haunting us
36:57across many, many decades
36:59in a way that
37:00it needed to be treated,
37:02it needed to be understood.
37:03We understood
37:03that our knowledge
37:05was superficial,
37:06that most everybody's
37:07was kind of bathed
37:08in fife and drum
37:10treacle
37:10and sentimentality.
37:12But it's also
37:13got some really
37:15daunting challenges.
37:16One,
37:16there are no photographs
37:17or newsreels.
37:18So you've got
37:18this immediate barrier
37:20that you have to figure it out.
37:22And strangely enough,
37:22when I was working,
37:24finishing a film
37:25on the Vietnam War
37:25where I had an abundance
37:27of photographs
37:28and newsreels,
37:29it was December of 2015,
37:32Barack Obama still had
37:3313 months to go
37:34in his presidency,
37:34and I turned
37:35to my, you know,
37:37co-workers,
37:38colleagues,
37:38and just said,
37:39you know,
37:39I want to do
37:40the American Revolution next.
37:41And everybody kind of gulped
37:42because they understood
37:43what the stakes were
37:44and said,
37:45okay.
37:46There's certainly
37:46a lot of myths
37:47that have grown up
37:48around the Revolution.
37:50You know,
37:50all of the stuff
37:50about George Washington
37:51and cutting down
37:52the cherry tree
37:53and wooden teeth.
37:54There's myths like,
37:55don't fire till you see
37:56the whites of their eyes.
37:57Nathan Hale,
37:58when he went to his death
37:59in New York City
37:59in lower Manhattan,
38:01a spy for Washington,
38:04you know,
38:04part of his sort of
38:05spy network,
38:07didn't say,
38:08we don't think,
38:09I regret that I have
38:10but one life to live
38:11for my country.
38:12The British officer
38:12who observed the hanging
38:14said he'd gone
38:15with great composure.
38:16I think that got added.
38:18Nowhere do we mention
38:19Betsy Ross
38:19because we do not know
38:21who made the first flag.
38:22There are lots of things
38:23that are very superficial
38:24and don't really matter.
38:25The more important things
38:26is the complexity
38:27and depth of this.
38:28This isn't just
38:29sort of Englishmen
38:30in the new colonies
38:31rebelling against the home.
38:34It's, there's,
38:35it's a bloody civil war
38:36in which there are a lot
38:37of people who remain loyal.
38:39There are Native Americans
38:40involved.
38:40There are free
38:41and enslaved black people.
38:42Women who never get counted
38:43in any revolutionary story
38:45are, besides Abigail Adams,
38:47are a significant part of this.
38:49They keep the resistance going.
38:50There are lots of players
38:51and our revolution's
38:52a global war.
38:53So it has a complex dynamic
38:55that involves,
38:56as we say,
38:57more than two dozen nations,
38:59European as well
38:59as Native American.
39:01And we phrased it that way
39:02because we tend to think
39:03of the Native Americans,
39:04particularly to our West,
39:05as them,
39:06all one kind of monolithic thing.
39:08There are many nations
39:09as distinct as France is
39:10from Germany or Prussia,
39:12pretty close up
39:13with bayonets,
39:14with muskets,
39:15which are inaccurate.
39:16We accept the violence
39:17of the Civil War
39:18and the violence
39:19of the 20th century wars
39:21that we've been involved in
39:22are the big ideas.
39:23We just sort of reduce it
39:25to just some guys
39:26in Philadelphia
39:26thinking great thoughts.
39:27That's a huge part of it.
39:29These are the best thoughts,
39:30but they're not in any way
39:31diminished by telling
39:32the complete story.
39:33What starts off
39:34as a struggle
39:35between British subjects
39:36over Indian land
39:38and taxes
39:38and representation
39:39becomes a big argument
39:41over some of the noblest
39:42aspirations of humankind.
39:44And everybody hears those.
39:45Women hear those.
39:46The second you say
39:47the word all men
39:48are created equal,
39:49the word all is the word.
39:52Slavery's over
39:52at that moment.
39:53It may take four score
39:54and nine years.
39:55Women's suffrage
39:57is going to happen.
39:58It may take 144 years,
39:59but it's going to happen.
40:01And these big ideas
40:03are incredibly infectious.
40:05And people are making decisions.
40:07We think that
40:0820,000 black Americans fought,
40:1115 for the British,
40:13who at various times
40:14seem to offer freedom,
40:16cynically offer freedom,
40:17because their entire world empire
40:19is based on the profits
40:20made from slave labor
40:22in colonies,
40:2313 colonies in the Caribbean.
40:25We're the least profitable.
40:27Many, 5,000 fight
40:28for the patriot side.
40:30Same with native peoples.
40:31On the western borders,
40:33they tend to side
40:33with the British
40:34because they're not
40:35the colonists
40:36who are trying to spill over.
40:39It's a short-sighted.
40:40They're going to lose
40:41whatever side they choose.
40:44And a lot of people
40:45sign declarations
40:46of dependence
40:47back to the crown.
40:49And then when
40:50an occupying army,
40:52as it always does,
40:53creates havoc
40:54for the populace,
40:55ravaging farms
40:57and stealing,
40:58looting, pillaging,
40:59raping of women,
41:00then it changes
41:01and they're going back
41:02to the patriots.
41:03So you have
41:03a very fluid dynamic
41:05and sometimes
41:06as much as we look
41:07at a big map
41:08and see this
41:09as a big global moment,
41:10it's an intimate decision.
41:12What's best for me
41:13right now
41:13in this place?
41:14And it may be
41:15a different decision
41:16than you made
41:17two months ago
41:18or are going to make
41:19two months from now.
41:20And that's important
41:21to give them
41:22their humanity.
41:23And that's the problem.
41:24All of our founding fathers
41:26are kind of opaque
41:27and mythic
41:28and we don't know
41:28anything about it.
41:29Our job is to try
41:30to make them human
41:31and dimensional
41:32but then introduce you
41:33literally to scores
41:34of other people
41:35who didn't have
41:36their portraits painted
41:37but didn't mean
41:37they didn't live,
41:38didn't fight,
41:39didn't suffer,
41:39aren't important
41:40to the story.
41:41So you meet
41:41a 14-year-old kid,
41:43John Greenwood
41:44from Boston
41:45who signs up
41:45for the Patriot Cause
41:46or a 15-year-old,
41:4815 years old,
41:49you know,
41:49Joseph Plum Martin
41:50from Connecticut
41:50or a 10-year-old gal
41:52from Yorktown, Virginia,
41:54Betsy Ambler
41:55who spends most
41:56of her time
41:58during the revolution
41:59as a refugee
42:00running away
42:01from the British
42:02and never being able
42:03to go back
42:04to her town
42:04because it's destroyed
42:05in the climactic
42:06final battle.
42:08It helps if Maya Hawke
42:09reads off camera
42:11the voice of this.
42:12It helps if Claire Danes
42:14is the voice
42:15of Abigail Adams
42:15and Paul Giamatti
42:16is reprising his role
42:18as John Adams.
42:19It helps if Josh Rowland
42:20is George Washington
42:21and Jeff Daniels
42:23is Thomas Jefferson.
42:25It helps if all
42:26of the people you meet
42:27are the finest actors.
42:28Our cast list,
42:30I would say
42:31there's no feature film
42:32or television series
42:33that's ever had
42:34a better cast list
42:36reading and bringing
42:37to life these people
42:38who we may have heard of
42:39like a George Washington
42:40are people we've
42:42most definitely
42:43not heard of
42:43like John Greenwood
42:44or Betsy Ambler.
42:45George Washington
42:46is super complicated.
42:47He's almost
42:49still unknowable
42:50despite all the
42:51information you can get
42:53about who he is
42:53as a person.
42:54He probably only,
42:55as the historian
42:56Joe Ellis says
42:57in our film,
42:57lets Martha,
42:59his wife in,
42:59lets maybe Lafayette,
43:01maybe Hamilton in.
43:03And so there's
43:04no passage to him
43:05and yet he's able
43:06to work with Congress
43:07and defer to them.
43:08He's able to speak
43:09to Georgians
43:10and to New Hampshireites
43:12about why they're
43:13not from their
43:14separate countries
43:15because they considered
43:15that.
43:16But this new thing
43:17called Americans
43:18were all one thing.
43:19He knew how to inspire
43:20men in the dead of night.
43:22He knew how to ride out
43:23in a battle
43:23with great courage
43:24and risk his own life.
43:26He knew how to pick
43:27subordinate talent.
43:28He wasn't afraid
43:29of people who were
43:30super smart to be
43:31his number two
43:32and three
43:32and four generals.
43:33A previous film
43:34I'd made on Leonardo da Vinci
43:35was premiering
43:36at the Rome Film Festival
43:37and I was flying back
43:39and I was half dozing
43:40off on the flight
43:41and watching
43:42Dune 2
43:44and I heard Josh's voice
43:45and I went
43:46oh that's it.
43:47It's this utterly
43:48American voice
43:48and yet
43:49you know
43:50when I brought
43:51he said yes of course
43:52and we
43:52I brought him in
43:53I said
43:54you've got to be
43:55unknowable still.
43:56You can't let me in
43:57and at the same time
43:58you have to let me in
43:59and he got it.
44:00He understood.
44:01There's an essential
44:02kind of distance.
44:04He's holding you
44:05at arm's length.
44:06I am now embarked
44:07on a tempestuous ocean
44:09from whence perhaps
44:11no friendly harbor
44:12is to be found.
44:14And some of the things
44:15have an intimacy to them
44:16that despite that
44:18allow you to sneak in
44:19and get a little sense
44:21of who this guy might be
44:23and this guy
44:23George Washington
44:24is
44:25for all of our
44:27you know
44:27new kinds of looking
44:29at history
44:30bottom up
44:30as well as top down
44:31we don't have a country
44:32without him
44:33and historian after historian
44:34say this
44:35it's just clearly evident
44:37and it's thrilling
44:38in a film
44:39in which you're championing
44:40bottom up
44:41so called bottom up
44:42people
44:42that one of the richest man
44:44and if not the richest man
44:46in the colonies
44:47is the most important
44:48person to this.
44:49Has there ever been
44:50a project that you came to
44:51and you're just like
44:51I don't know how
44:52I'm going to do this
44:53I want to hear about
44:53imposter syndrome
44:54from Ken Burns.
44:55I don't feel that
44:56imposter syndrome
44:57as much now
44:59but everything is a
45:00gigantic Mount Everest
45:01to climb
45:02and in the early days
45:03I did
45:04I just went
45:04okay you lucked out
45:06you got nominated
45:06for Academy Award
45:07for Brooklyn Bridge
45:08you know
45:08you know
45:09you're not going to do it
45:10even when the fourth film
45:11on the Statue of Liberty
45:12was nominated
45:13I went
45:13well that's just a fluke
45:14you know
45:15you just sort of felt
45:16that impossibility
45:18of each thing you undertook
45:19and I finally realized
45:20that I was biting off
45:21more than I could chew
45:22and then learning how to chew
45:23which is of course
45:24the best way to do it
45:26and I think
45:27all of these things present
45:29you know
45:30starting right now
45:32going backwards
45:33you know
45:33the American Revolution
45:34has no pictures
45:36and has no newsreels
45:38and so you have to
45:39do something
45:39I don't like to do
45:40is use reenactments
45:41but we didn't use them
45:42to reenact a battle
45:43we used them
45:44to collect a critical mass
45:46over years and years
45:47and years
45:47of people doing stuff
45:48intimate and impressionistic
45:49you're not seeing faces
45:50you're seeing hands
45:51you're seeing silhouettes
45:52you're seeing the stuff
45:54of war
45:55that gives you a chance
45:56to sort of put you there
45:58that accompany the paintings
45:59and the maps
46:00and the live cinematography
46:02of the now quiet places
46:04you know
46:05with World War II
46:06it was just doing
46:07the bottom up four towns
46:09first we thought one
46:10then four
46:11every film requires you
46:12to sort of abandon
46:13your sense of thing
46:15people think there's a style
46:16but maybe from the center
46:18of the room
46:19all films look the same
46:20but some have
46:21you know
46:22almost no first person voices
46:24because they're contemporary
46:25and we have witnesses
46:26some have lots
46:28of first person voices
46:29and only a handful
46:30of talking heads
46:31everything is calibrated
46:33and recalibrated
46:34for whatever
46:34the particular difficulty
46:37of this Mount Everest is
46:39and it's all
46:40each one
46:40it should be
46:41it shouldn't be like
46:42oh I can do this
46:43with one arm tied
46:44behind my back
46:45you can't
46:47you cannot phone anything in
46:48and in fact
46:49the biggest job
46:50I wear lots of hats
46:52but the biggest job
46:53that I have
46:54is trying to be you
46:55in the editing room
46:56and try to listen inside
46:58for the weakest voice
47:00that doesn't like something
47:01and both Sarah Botstein
47:02my co-director
47:03and I
47:04on the same day
47:06woke up
47:07even though the film
47:08was locked
47:08and unlocked
47:09the introduction
47:10which is the
47:11you know
47:11the sacred thing
47:12that we've spent
47:13more time than anything else on
47:15and blew it up
47:16moved stuff around
47:17got rid of some narration
47:19put in a new quote
47:20reframed it
47:22and it was so exhilarating
47:24and what we weren't listening to
47:26is that we'd bring it along
47:27and people would nod respectfully
47:28and they would love it
47:29and they'd talk about it
47:31but you realize
47:32you didn't love it
47:33in the way you did
47:33the first time you saw it
47:34and now we're six months
47:36into just
47:36putting up with this
47:38I've been doing this
47:39for a long time
47:39you know
47:40I've been making films
47:41for more than 50 years
47:43you know
47:43and I think
47:45that I know how to do it
47:46but I never say that
47:48right
47:48I always am
47:50kind of very cautious
47:52to go think
47:53that you're a student
47:54always
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