Forget Butker. Ken Burns' Brandeis Commencement Speech is Much Better

Wow! I think I'll follow envirogator's lead.

 

I'd be embarrassed to admit to that level of cultural illiteracy. BTW, a Master of Fine Arts in Film from FSU would be pretty impressive but I think his masters is from Columbia U.

 

Ken Burns has contributed more to our shared understanding of our history than maybe any other American, alive or dead. And that’s not an exaggeration. If you have missed his documentaries, or won’t watch them now for political reasons, that’s your loss, truly. They are beloved from all corners of the political spectrum and are amazing. The Civil War may be the single best long form documentary ever made. Again, zero exaggeration. Imagine an 10 hour historical documentary that has a rating of 9 on IMDB, higher than almost any movie ever made. And that’s just one of many in his filmography.
As for his speech, few are more qualified to speak on the convergence of politics and history. Disagree with him, fine, but you should be hearing what he is saying and not dismissing it out of hand.
Jmo.

 

It is embarrassing. And funny coming from such an arrogant poster.

 

Just to let you know he is an award winning documentarian. I imagine he is liberal but his work on the civil war among others is fantastic. Pick any one at random and watch it. You won’t regret it.

 

And the irony of right-wingers bashing him is that Burns is very patriotic. Virtually everything he's ever done involves American history and American culture. And he's been criticized for his Civil War doc being too sympathetic to the Confederacy and the South.

 

Just to let you know this wasn’t questioning you for your conservative positions but from not knowing who Ken Burns is. He is a master of the documentary and he is in his documentaries generally in love with the topic not any ideology.

 

The Presumptive GOP nominee is was just convicted

 

While I do not doubt your intelligence (I readily concede that you are a smart guy) and maybe it's just me you actually seem to be proud of of both your willful ignorance beyond your area of expertise and your apparent decision to remain in the same echo chamber politically with other people with whom you happen to agree.

 

A democrat accusing someone of being in an echo chamber??? Now that is rich.

Actually, who is the ignorant one to question someone who simply has never heard of of a documentary maker. I’m quite sure that I know of many historians, sports authors, engineering and business authors and professors that you have never heard of. I would not nor will not question either your intellect, education, or call you ignorant simply because you don’t read or follow the same people that I do.

Who’s really the “willfully ignorant” one in this conversation? I truly tire of liberals immediately questioning the intellect of those who disagree with them. Straightening them out is not quite as fun as dressing down pompous engineers or “scientists”?who play the “this must be too complicated for you to grasp card”, but it is a close second.

 

Then it’s obvious that his skills mastery in documentaries does not translate well to commencement addresses.

 

You seem to do an excellent job of embarrassing yourself. You probably should work on that before you make referrals about others.

 

Until this thread, I had never heard of him. I am not the least bit embarrassed. I am not a big TV watcher in general, and rarely watch documentaries. I read an awful lot on subjects that interest me, including many of the subjects of his documentaries. However, watching a documentary, to me at least, is like reading just one book on a subject and considering yourself knowledgeable. Your knowledge is limited by what the author (or documentary maker) chose to tell you. I watched Craig Maizin's HBO Docu-Drama about Chernobyl, but had previously read 2 books and read a 3rd after watching the series, but that event of is of personal interest to me. I did not documentaries to read about The Civil War, the Dust Bowl, our Founding Fathers, etc....

I am almost never on the side of @AgingGator in a political discussion, but I am 100% in agreement with him on this one.

 

I couldn’t thank you and agree with you with multiple emojis. You’re completely correct. Reading multiple books of the same historical event or period is really the only way to learn about and understand what happened.

One added thought; in a documentary or single source, you are not only limited by what the author or documentary maker told you, but also what they didn’t tell you.

 

You think this isn't true for books, too?

 

Here's a list of Ken Burns documentaries so those of you who have never heard of him can check him out.

• Brooklyn Bridge (1981)[a]
• The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God (1984)[a]
• The Statue of Liberty (1985)[a]
• Huey Long (1985)[a]
• Thomas Hart Benton (1988)[a]
• The Congress (1988)[a]
• The Civil War (1990; 9 episodes)[a]
• Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (1992)
• Baseball (1994; 9 episodes – updated with The Tenth Inning in 2010, with Lynn Novick)
• Thomas Jefferson (1997; 2 episodes)
• Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery (1997)
• Frank Lloyd Wright (1998, with Lynn Novick)[60]
• Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony (1999)[61]
• Jazz (2001; 10 episodes)[62]
• Mark Twain (2001)
• Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip (2003)[63]
• Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2005; 2 episodes)[64]
• The War (2007, with Lynn Novick; 7 episodes)
• The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009; 6 episodes)
• Prohibition (2011, with Lynn Novick; 3 episodes)[65]
• The Dust Bowl (2012; 4 episodes)[66]
• The Central Park Five (2012, with Sarah Burns and David McMahon)[67]
• Yosemite: A Gathering of Spirit (2013)[68]
• The Address (2014)[69]
• The Roosevelts: An Intimate History (2014; 7 episodes)[67][70]
• Jackie Robinson (2016, with Sarah Burns and David McMahon; 2 episodes)[71]
• Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War (2016, with Artemis Joukowsky)[72]
• The Vietnam War (2017, with Lynn Novick; 10 episodes)[73]
• The Mayo Clinic: Faith – Hope – Science (2018, with Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers)
• Country Music (2019, 8 episodes)[74]
• Hemingway (2021, with Lynn Novick; 3 episodes)[75]
• Muhammad Ali (2021, with Sarah Burns and David McMahon; 4 episodes)[76]
• Benjamin Franklin (2022, 2 episodes)[77]
• The U.S. and the Holocaust (2022, 3 episodes, 7 hours total; produced and directed with the assistance of Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein)[78]
• The American Buffalo (2023)[79][80]

Ken Burns - Wikipedia

 

Absolutely. That’s why nc and I both said we prefer reading multiple sources. I’m also careful not to read one that sources much from another that I have already read.

 

I have never seen one of his commencement addresses. Honestly though watch almost any of his documentaries. He seems to love his topics. Perhaps he only does documentaries on things he loves. Perhaps he falls in love with topics he researches.

 

Roger Federer’s speech was apolitical and arguably more thought provoking.