Ken Burns: preference

Transcript context

…You can go back in time to the American past. Which place and decade do you most want to visit? Well, it’s interesting you said that — I am speaking to you from my barn, the loft of my barn. Which doesn’t keep animals; it’s got bedrooms, and it’s got an informal great room where we bring in folding chairs and have screenings and tables and work with our consultants when we’re not limited by pandemics. It’s where up in this loft I’ve spent — sharing my space with my youngest child’s toys on the other side — where I’ve done all my editing work and mixing work for most of the last two-and-a-half years. This barn is in a tiny little village I’ve lived in for more than 43 years in Walpole, New Hampshire. I would like to go back to Walpole, New Hampshire, in the 1870s, provided I had access to antibiotics, and to be able to enjoy my beautiful town. I’ve got pictures of it. In fact, there’s a picture of it in the book: of a young woman standing by a country road, a track. You can just see the wagon ruts, wheels up and grass in between, by a stone wall with some flowering trees nearby. It must have been nirvana, in a way, a kind of — the winters were severe; there were diseases that took people — but it was a special place. I’ve never had the courage to leave this place, nor do I wish to have it. It was where I retreated from New York City to be able to pursue historical documentary (strike one) on PBS (strike two) about American history (strike three). Taking, I was positive back in 1979, a vow of anonymity and poverty. I’m very happy to say the first film that I was halfway through making when I moved up here was nominated for an Academy Award, and all of that stuff didn’t happen. The great courage was actually to stay here and continue to make the films from here. And I’ve always wanted that time machine to take me back to this beautiful town and to see it and to hear those sounds I’ve imagined: the birds free of the traffic from Interstate 91, about five, three, four miles due west in Vermont. (The Connecticut River divides us from Vermont; it’s not too far away.) To hear the silence; to also hear the new set of associations and sounds that come from the bustling of skirts or the wagon wheels or the horses or some of the other things. And then the things that are the same: the wind in the leaves and children laughing and playing. This is my world. Usually it’s like, Who would you want to meet? I can tell you that: it would be Abraham Lincoln or Louis Armstrong or Frederick Douglass. These are hugely important — Elizabeth Cady Stanton — hugely important people that I’ve delved into. I think with that simple time machine, I just go back where I am and see what it was like in 1875, whatever it would be. Do you accept the common stereotype that New Hampshire residents are a bit ornery and nonconformist? Does that ring true to you?…

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