Ken Burns Pans Over National Parks

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Like all Americans, I like big things.”

The same could be said for Ken Burns, the man behind “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” a documentary coming out in the fall of 2009 on Roosevelt’s relationship with the United States National Park system. Burns, who spoke in Sanders Theatre last Friday, is known for making documentaries on a grand scale—grand in scope, length, and audience viewership. For example, his most famous documentary, “The Civil War,” deals with this crucial point in American history over the course of 11 hours and nine episodes, and has been seen by more than 40 million viewers.

“It chose us,” Burns says, in reference to the selection of Theodore Roosevelt for his latest project. “There’s always been that siren’s call to us, to what’s pristine.” While shooting earlier documentaries such as “The West” and “Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery,” Burns became familiar with the American landscape. “We were stunned by how few places we could go that did not have the hand of man on it.”

So it seems natural that Burns came to turn what he calls his “energetic camera’s eye” onto the man who created the world’s first national park system. The project brought him to campus, home to the Theodore Roosevelt Collection in the Harvard College Library, which is now holding an exhibit in Pusey Library through Dec. 23. Tweed Roosevelt ’64, Vice-Chair of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, says that the association was more than happy to facilitate Burn’s work. “Books reach many Americans. But films reach many, many more,” he said.

Burns is famous for bringing history to life, even when dealing with periods before the advent of the moving image. One technique people who use Apple editing software will be familiar with is his namesake, the Ken Burns Effect. In this technique, the camera slowly zooms or pans across a still image, carrying the viewer’s focus along with it. Burns, who originally wanted to be a feature film director in the style of John Ford, was exposed to the potential of the still image by his photography professors at Hampshire College.

“I decided to explore with an energetic camera’s eye the entity of that photography,” Burns said. He’s been at it ever since. “I have spent my life trying to express history in a broad, popular way.”

Burns emphasized that he tries to liven up the history that can often be dismissed as dead or boring by exploring the larger meaning and implications behind it. “I think that the excavation of the dry dates and facts have really little meaning,” said Burns. “Why you really want to mine the past for those artifacts is if they can suggest something bigger than the sum of their parts, and that involves higher emotions.”

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Schuetz can be reached at schuetz@fas.harvard.edu.