I've become comfortable with the fact that I don't like Ken Burns. He went to Hampshire College, and that's cool. His documentaries have their slow-panned moments of tingly truth—especially The War and Jazz. But still.
As I recently tuned in WGBY and took in a chunk of Burns' latest, which appears to be called A Film by Ken Burns: The National Parks, America's Greatest Idea, I experienced the same old itchy discomfort I always have to overcome to enjoy his work. This time, that itch was attributable to the stultifying documentary, not directly to the pixie-eyed pontificator of hyperbole himself. In A Film by Ken Burns: The National Parks, America's Greatest Idea, the subject is pretty much great views and the people who preserve them. It's worthy stuff, of course, and I'm sure everyone involved had a great time crawling through high grass to catch a glimpse of grizzly bears and what have you.
There's a major problem with the subject, however—one not even the Burns clich? of panning across still photos while Peter Coyote rumbles along delivering flag-waving grandiosity can rectify. As worthy as the national parks are, and as noble as their creators and advocates were, the vistas in question are mostly huge and therefore incredibly static. Long shots of cool stuff cut with talking heads and still photos are a recipe not for gripping interest, but for the hastening of slumber (slumber of majestic repose, possibly, but still slumber).
Which all means I felt pretty good about not liking Ken Burns this time. I've struggled, you see, with not liking Ken Burns. In part, that's because when I interviewed him some years ago he seemed so pompous, full of faux-academic phrases signifying nothing, and even rather rude.
That's still going on. Recently, when asked if he thought 12 hours would be better spent watching The National Parks or visiting the Grand Canyon, he began his answer this way: "We know there is, in that Platonic sense of the shadow of the cave, the power of the removed art that might be the galvanic thing that makes action happen."
Didn't the Geneva Conventions outlaw doing that to innocent metaphors?
I should rise above it, of course. Why should I let a distaste for Ken Burns the dude rob me of enjoying Ken Burns: Another Documentary?
But then The War, despite some quite compelling stories, seemed to be revealing its girdle when I watched it. The approach—the stories of four towns and their involvement with World War II—was supposed to be a handy distillation proving that the war infused the nation with stories and scarring events. Instead, it seemed for all the world that the story had been done in too-easy fashion. Not fair, probably—an undertaking that huge could never really be easy. Yet a tacked-on section about Hispanic soldiers seemed tacked on, and a prominently featured musical selection swelled with a tinny, cheap-suit patriotism.
But as I sat watching The National Parks and before that the pre-screening interviews with Burns and crew members, I finally came to a catharsis. Yes, Burns annoyed me personally. Yes, his films are exactly one-quarter as good as he thinks they are. But it's not those facts that really seal the deal.
I've realized the ?ber-truth: Ken Burns thinks he's teaching us all how to be American.
He's taught us all about the war that ripped us apart. He's taught us that baseball is our pastime. He's told us about jazz, America's greatest musical invention. Many of us knew about these things already. But somewhere in the era of those films, near as I can tell, Burns started believing something remarkable: that he was not only covering history, but making it. When I interviewed him, he took credit for a renewed popularity of jazz—apparently, he thinks it's because of him that John Coltrane records still sell.
This week, my Automobile Association of America newsletter arrived. The subhead of the AAA Ken Burns interview said Ken Burns hopes people will soon pour into the national parks—i.e., he will have taught us all another lesson about how to be American and inspired our vacation plans.
The lessons of our history are important, but perhaps documentaries were a poor career choice for Mr. Burns—the teacher of the lessons himself cannot so easily bask in the limelight in the documentary form. It's not simply that Burns is teaching us how he believes we should be American—clearly, he wants us to realize he is gloriously responsible for the lessons. Just look at his DVDs: unlike few other directors, his name always appears with the titles, sometimes even above them.
This doesn't seem like a good trend. The whole business of American-ness traditionally revolves around self-reliance and the creation of a personal identity that contributes to a greater whole (E. Pluribus Unum and all). Should PBS have put one man in charge of showing us how it's done?
In my preferred version of the future, this problem solves itself. Ken Burns will, at long last, turn the lens toward his real subject and make a film called A Ken Burns Film: Ken Burns, America's Other Greatest Idea. And then the powers that be, somewhere deep in the PBS bunker, will call Burns in and say, "Burns! We can't raise money on this crap! Now get out there and find me some grandiose *&%#% to pan over so the contributors get all weepy, and do it pronto! Oh, and hire Peter Coyote."
And Ken Burns, finally, won't be able to deliver, because every image archive, every grand event in American history will have been wrung dry of every slow-pan in every direction. And then we can all get back to figuring out how to be American without Ken Burns butting in to say it's "galvanic."
