Why no one talks about Ken Burns when the subject of great directors comes up?
A little film nerd rant for you guys... It bugs me that Ken Burns never gets mentioned as a great director. He is an auteur with an influential and identifiable style, who has never made a bad movie and who has been doing it for forty years.
Before you comment, "Yeah but a limited series is too long and doesn't count as a movie" I would like to offer some counter examples:
- Shoah, the holocaust documentary, is over nine hours long and usually shown in parts. Gene Siskel ranked it the #2 best film of the 1980s.
- Scenes From a Marriage (1973, six hours long) and Fanny and Alexander both originated as television miniseries. Bergman is often name checked on great director lists.
- The Decalogue (ten hours long) is a Polish miniseries by Kieslowski, who is likewise name-checked as one of the greats. All these movies are on Criterion.
People will say Ken Burns' style is too "basic" but if you've watched Vietnam, Jazz, or Ali you know they have killer soundtracks, engaging narration by character actors, skillful montage, deep-cut archival video, and complex yet invisible editing. So I rank them on Letterboxd and I put them on my "best" lists like they deserve.
edit: To be clear, I do not think the podcast should cover him. It would be too unwieldy. Even though he does have a blank check.