When a documentary filmmaker, working in the style that I do, suggests that there has been a shooting ratio of 40 hours to every one hour of finished film, that doesn't mean that the other 39 are bad.
Ken BurnsRead
History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are.
Interpretation
What this quote means
History helps us understand our current identity rather than just focusing on past events.
This quote emphasizes that history's true value lies not in merely recounting past events or revisiting grievances, but in shaping our understanding of the present and informing our identity. Ken Burns suggests that understanding where we come from allows us to define who we are today, encouraging us to learn from history to better navigate our present lives.
Themes
HistoryIdentityPresentUnderstandingSelf
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared during a history class to emphasize the importance of learning from past events.
More from Ken Burns
All quotes βI record all of my music with authentic instruments in a studio before we start editing, doing many, many versions. The music shapes the film as we edit so it has an organic relationship to the content.
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Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being.
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It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the intelligence of the past
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In most films music is brought in at the end, after the picture is more or less locked, to amplify the emotions the filmmaker wants you to feel.
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Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.
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Similar quotes
There are some places where history just grabs you by the jugular. This is one of them.
Simon SchamaRead
The year of my birth, 1940, was the fulcrum of America in the twentieth century, when the nation was balanced precariously between the darkness of the Great Depression on one side and the storms of war in Europe and the Pacific on the other.
Tom BrokawRead
Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day (the 4th of July)? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior?.
John Quincy AdamsRead
The deciphering of ancient scripts changed forever the way Europeans were able to imagine the story of humanity, destroying centuries of received authority about the past with repercussions as important for our understanding of time and history as the geological studies of the same period.
Neil MacgregorRead
When I started working on women's history about thirty years ago, the field did not exist. People didn't think that women had a history worth knowing.
Gerda LernerRead
Every February, we reflect on and honor the achievements, struggles, and icons that comprise Black history. As a proud, Black man running for office and raising two young, Black boys in the South, I am acutely aware that I stand on the shoulders of giants.
Jaime HarrisonRead