Celebrated American documentarian who gradually amassed a considerable reputation and a devoted audience with a series of reassuringly traditional meditations on Americana. Burns' works are treasure troves of archival materials; he skillfully utilizes period music and footage, photographs, periodicals and ordinary people's correspondence, the latter often movingly read by seasoned professional actors in a deliberate attempt to get away from a "Great Man" approach to history. Like most non-fiction filmmakers, Burns wears many hats on his projects, often serving as writer, cinematographer, editor and music director in addition to producing and directing. He achieved his apotheosis with _"The Civil War" , which aired on PBS in the fall of 1994. He approached the national pastime as a template for understanding changes in modern American society. Ironically, this was the only baseball on the air at the time, as the players and owners were embroiled in a bitter strike.
Brother of fellow producer/director Ric Burns.
Graduate of Hampshire College in Amherst, MA
Father, Robert Burns, was a cultural anthropologist
Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, vol. 136, pages 59-67. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.
Attended Ann Arbor Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Burns great-great-grandfather Abraham W. Burns (1833-1911) was a private in McClanahans Company, Virginia Horse Artillery also known as the Staunton Artillery (Confederate) during the American Civil War. He also served in Company K,52nd Virginia Infantry.
Grand Marshal, Tournament of Roses Parade.
He worked on the film Octopussy at the Nene Valley train location as an extra and was allowed to film a Super-8 six minute movie of the filming at the Peterborough, England location. This is now available to view on the DVD. The short includes footage of Roger Moore and Michael G. Wilson and focuses on machinery and filmmaking mechanics. The sixteen year old at the time was playing an East German Border Guard and lived near to the location. Burns was affectionately known on the set as the "3rd Unit".
I can look at a still photograph of building the Brooklyn Bridge and,hear the workers hammering, the seagulls in the East River, the steam,compressors hauling up big blocks of stone. You take an old photograph,and you realize it has a past, it has a future. So what would it mean,to go inside it?,There is no communication in this world except between equals.
The black-white rift stands at the very center of American history. It is the great challenge to which all our deepest aspirations to freedom must rise. If we forget that--if we forget the great stain of slavery that stands at the heart of our country, our history, our experiment--we forget who we are, and we make the great rift deeper and wider.
I am passionately interested in understanding how my country works. And if you want to know about this thing called the United States of America you have to know about the Civil War.
You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living.
