Ken Burns in Chicago
The American Revolution premieres November 16 on PBS.
I had an opportunity to attend An Evening with Ken Burns last night as the legendary American filmmaker tours the country to promote the forthcoming premiere of The American Revolution on PBS this November.
I was lucky in that the visit came on a Thursday following a two-day chag. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to attend. When the Jewish holidays fall during the week, it makes it an incredibly chaotic time of year. It’s hard getting anything done. As a writer whose own income is dependent on incoming ad revenue, that’s the toughest part because I’m not watching movies or writing about them when I’m offline for a complete total of two days—let alone promoting my pieces on social media, too. The same goes for Buttondown subscriptions—it’s hard finding time to write when I’m not online. September was made even more chaotic with finding the time to write with having been on the ground for a week and a half in Toronto.
During a reception in Chicago, he announced locally that he’s working on a documentary about President Barack Obama. He’s filmed several 2-hour interviews already and might have one or two more scheduled down the road. A documentary about Dr. King is also in the works. But at the moment, he’s currently working on one about LBJ. Whether that comes out before the next book in the Robert Caro series remains to be determined.
I’ll have more to say after watching the full multi-part documentary but it’s important to tell the whole story about the American Revolution and not the sanitized and revisionist version that you know who would prefer that we learn and hear. Burns and co-directors Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt started working on this back in 2015 while putting the finishing touches on The Vietnam War documentary.
It goes without saying that supporting public broadcasting is more important than ever. Burns wasn’t shy about the impact that gutting the Corporation of Public Broadcasting is going to cause for his projects, let alone others.