A Real-Life Hero: Ken Burns

In this endeavor to highlight "heroes and she-roes," people I think have in some way made the world better, I feel a certain kinship with filmmaker Ken Burns. Though I am using only these blog posts as my humble medium, Mr. Burns and his collaborators make films about Americans who have had an impact on our country--often epic in their scope and depth. These films tell stories of who we are as a nation through the stories of those who helped to make us so.

In a world of ever-shrinking attention spans, his films are long, involved, detailed, rejecting the notion of easy narrative and exploring the complications and contradictions that are woven into our collective history. In so doing, these films give us a truer picture that we can get from a Facebook post or a series of tweets. They require engagement of their viewers, and give knowledge, insight, humor and compassion in return.

While he is best known for his lengthy reflections on giant topics in American history (the excellent recent series "The Roosevelts" lasted 14 hours), my favorite film bearing Mr. Burns's name is a short (90 minute) piece called, "The Address."  It concerns a unique school in Vermont and a group of young men and teachers who, though none of them are famous, are definitely heroes and she-roes in my view. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Ken Burns on the Internet Movie Database

Ken Burns on Wikipedia 
(Have a real-life hero or she-ro to nominate for this blog? Let me know at misslynn [at] misslynn [dot] com!)