New from Ken Burns: Prohibition - WGBH

Radio Spotlight
A Conversation with Ken Burns
For 35 years, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns
has been an illuminating voice in our national
conversation—on topics ranging from the Civil
War to the Statue of Liberty to America’s national
pastime. This month, Burns and co-producer Lynn
Novick bring their signature substance and style
to a painful and little-understood chapter in
American history, detailing the rise, rule and fall of
the 18 th Amendment in Prohibition. Their threepart
PBS series will be featured in an outreach
partnership with the National Constitution Center
to foster a national conversation about civility and
democracy. WGBH’s Tina Vaz recently caught up
with Burns to talk about Prohibition, public radio
and the state of our public discourse.
QWhat drew you to the subject of
Prohibition
always looking for good stories to tell,
A
We’re
and Prohibition engages so many interesting
aspects. It’s a story of single-issue political campaigns
that metastasize with horrible, unintended
consequences. Of smear campaigns against presidential
politicians. Of unfunded Congressional
mandates and the demonization of recent immigrants
to the US. It’s about a group of people who
felt they’d lost control of their country and wanted
to take it back. And, of course, it’s about a colossal
civic failure that resulted in the only repeal of a
Constitutional amendment.
QYou’ve said that each of your films asks:
Who are we What does Prohibition tell
you about who we are as Americans
A
Like all of our films, Prohibition doesn’t fully
answer the question of who we are, but it
deepens our understanding. Prohibition—if it’s
taught at all—rarely gets past the familiar images
of flappers, gangsters and gin joints. This film
offers a closer look at how America’s “Great
Experiment” was intricately intertwined with
social factors such as women’s suffrage,
Emancipation, industrialization and immigration.
QWhy did you get involved with the
“Civility and Democracy” project
A
Like most Americans, Lynn and I are shocked
at the way in which our political dialogue has
degenerated in recent years. There have been
many other times in our history when civility
failed, and there were consequences—the Civil
War being the most powerful example. Prohibition
is a less pernicious example, but it’s an important
one nevertheless. The failure of people to talk with
each other and the absolutism of the various sides
contributed to the problem. The film seemed a
logical place to go public with a discussion of
civility and democracy in our political discourse.
QWhat role does public radio play in
advancing civility and democracy
radio has long been a beacon of
A
Public
reasoned discourse in an otherwise relatively
cacophonous world. That’s one of the reasons it’s
still so influential despite the primacy of television
and other visual media. Public radio consistently
delivers news in a completely nonpartisan way
and provides an intelligent and in-depth look at
the issues. That alone earns it my utmost respect.
QWhat are some of your public radio
favorites
A
Morning Edition and All Things Considered are
the two best programs on radio, followed
closely by Weekend Edition. Once you start there,
everything else is gravy, from A Prairie Home
Companion to Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! to the
myriad local programs, many produced by WGBH,
that I listen to all the time.
QProhibition continues your longtime
collaboration with jazz musician Wynton
Marsalis. Why is music important to your
storytelling, and what does Marsalis bring to
this project
A
Music is important because it delivers complex
thoughts and emotions in an immediate
and extraordinarily precise way. It’s a major element
of filmmaking and too often added at the
end rather than being an organic part. We record
our music early in our editing process—sometimes
even before editing begins—so that the
music can inform it.
We don’t have enough time to talk about
Wynton Marsalis’s genius! He’s one of the greatest
trumpet players and jazz composers on the planet
today. He is the greatest teacher of jazz, this
extraordinary American art form that has become
a worldwide phenomenon. And he’s a very smart
guy who continually surprises me with the depth
and profundity of his thought. We’ve been friends
for nearly 20 years, and I couldn’t imagine leaving
home without him on a project like Prohibition.
QYou’ve said that you’re in the “memory
business.” How is our national memory
faring in the age of Twitter
have presidential candidates who don’t
A
We
know the correct state in which the first battle
of the American Revolution took place, and who
can’t distinguish our Founding Fathers from our
Founding Sons. A recent study showed that only
9 percent of fourth graders could identify a photograph
of Abraham Lincoln. That’s terrifying. What
we’re trying to do in public media is to be a bulwark
against the chaos and entropy that such a
lack of knowledge fosters.
QYou’re a longtime friend of WGBH. What
do you think WGBH adds to the media
landscape
A
Public media produces the best children’s,
science, nature, drama, public affairs and, I’m
told, history programming out there today. WGBH
is the big muscle car coming down the street. It
has had an enormous influence on the history of
public media and continues to set the gold standard.
QWhat’s next for you
A
We just finished editing a film on the history
of the Dust Bowl, which will be out in 2012.
We’re beginning editing of a film on the Central
Park jogger case, focusing on the five black and
Hispanic boys who went to jail for a crime they
didn’t commit. We’re about halfway through editing
a first-ever series on Theodore, Franklin and
Eleanor Roosevelt. And we’re beginning a biography
of Jackie Robinson and a major history of the
Vietnam War.
QAny predictions for the Red Sox
A
We’re going to win the World Series. I say it
every spring!
Prohibition premieres 10/2, 10/3 & 10/4 at 8pm on
WGBH 2 (learn more about the series on page 8).
wgbh.org/prohibition 23