re: Ken Burns newbie - which order to watch the documentaries?

People give Burns a lot of grief for the formulaic way he approaches his major works, but I find it like reading a series of history books written by a great historian.

Good friend of mine is a documentary filmmaker. Some 10-15 years ago, on a whim, he called up the offices of Florentine Films (Burns' production company) to see if there was someone he could speak with about the grant writing process. The secretary told him to hold the line, and in a couple of minutes he heard that familiar voice "This is Ken Burns, can I help you?"

Burns spoke with him for an hour about filmmaking and the challenges of pursuing a career as a documentarian. He gave him a great bit of advice: "Never compromise your vision for your film for convenience sake. If it's meant to be in your film, you'll find a way to make it happen."

I’ve only seen a few start to finish. Loved them.

The War was the first one I saw. Starting Dust Bowl now. I’ll watch one or two episodes a week.

Most are on Prime. Was looking for the Yosemite one but didn’t see in Prime.

I've watched:
The civil war
The War
The Vietnam War
The Roosevelts

They were all great. The 3 war docs are incredibly emotionally compelling.

quote:

---

quote:
The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009; 6 episodes)

This is one I have been wanting to watch BAD lately. May have to break down

---

It's so fricking good...the stories are amazing on how each of the Parks became...it's the history of America's National Parks and our love for them and a love letter to the people who fought to ignore capitalism for once and set aside majestic land for future generations.

It really makes you proud to be an American.

It was a given that the Grand Canyon would probably be a National Park and that our first National Park - Yellowstone would be one.

But then conservationists came forward and said, wait...a National Park can't just be one little space with a McDonalds right at its gates...it has to include the surrounding area, the foreground and that's how we got Grand Teton National Park which abuts the South entrance to Yellowstone.

The big hero in the National Parks is John Rockfeller Jr. who secretly bought up all the land around Yellowstone, tried for 20 years to give it to the government and finally said, okay...if you don't want this, I'll just sell the property.

This was the big feud in Wyoming and in the Senate for those that represented and supported cattle ranchers around Yellowstone.

And there are the stories from people who talk about how the best memories they have of their Mom and Dad is going to the National Parks with them.

I've rewatched this doc more than the Civil and Baseball.

They’re all good and stand on their own. If you’re a history buff and like the multi-episode documentaries, I highly recommend Civil War, Lewis and Clark, and The West.