Ken Burns: This is ‘one of the most challenging times’ in American history
Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, whose movies "The Civil War" and "The Vietnam War" chronicled two of the most difficult periods in U.S. history, said in a new interview that the nation currently faces "one of the most challenging times" since its founding.
He pointed to the convergence of three "viruses" — the COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice, and misinformation — that have fostered extreme political polarization that "may destroy us." But he said his films seek to tell an expansive but complex account of the country's past that taps into an authentic, collective American identity.
"This is the one of the most challenging times — if not the most challenging time — in American history. I don't want to undersell that," says Burns, whose new three-part film "Hemingway" premieres on April 5.
"The combination of the three viruses," he adds. "COVID — that's a year-plus old; the 402-year-old virus of racial injustice and white supremacy, which is having what we hope is a sustained reckoning now; and then the age-old human virus of lying, of misinformation, of conspiracy of paranoia."
"These are always there and they bubble up to the surface," he says. "We are politically polarized on the surface, and that surface may destroy us."
'Jim Crow in the 21st Century'
The three "viruses" identified by Burns have appeared atop headlines in recent days as the U.S. begins to emerge from COVID-19 restrictions and nears the one-year anniversary of the police killing of George Floyd, which sparked racial justice protests nationwide.
The rise of coronavirus cases over the last week has stoked fears of a coming spike, even as President Joe Biden says all Americans will be eligible for vaccines by May 1. COVID-19 has already killed over 552,000 people in the U.S.
Meanwhile former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is on trial for the killing of Floyd, during which several witnesses have cried recounting their attempts to intervene on Floyd's behalf. The trial also comes as Georgia passed a sweeping law that limits the ability of people to vote, in what critics argue is a thinly veiled attempt to suppress the votes of minorities. The law, which comes amid a nationwide voter suppression push, was criticized by Biden as "Jim Crow in the 21st Century."
The threat of misinformation is also omnipresent. Last week, the chief executives from tech giants Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR), and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) testified in Congress over concerns that the platforms spread misinformation. One of the executives, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, acknowledged that his company's platform played a role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that left five people dead and injured more than 140 people.
Burns spoke to Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer in an episode of “Influencers with Andy Serwer,” a weekly interview series with leaders in business, politics, and entertainment.
A two-time Oscar nominee, Burns has made films for more than four decades on a range of topics that span "The Vietnam War" and "The Civil War" to "Country Music" and "Brooklyn Bridge." In addition to the upcoming film "Hemingway," Burns will release later this year "Muhammad Ali," a four-part documentary on the legendary boxer and social activist.
For years, he has lived and worked in the small town of Walpole, New Hampshire.
Speaking with Yahoo Finance, Burns said his films aim to describe a collective American identity, despite longstanding divisions that continue to foster conflict within the country.
"I have been for 45 years making films about the U.S.," he says. "But I've also been making films about the lowercase plural pronoun of that 'us.'"
"What I've discovered," he adds. "All of the majesty and the complexity of the contradiction and the controversy of the United States, but all the intimacy of 'us' is that there's only 'us' and there's no 'them.'"
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