Ken Burns Loves America and You Can, Too

Ken Burns’s obsession with this country can be felt in all 234 hours of his roughly 40 films—including his latest mega-doc, The American Revolution. At a moment when we are once again arguing about the very definition of this place, Burns might be the one thing this 250-year-old nation of patriots can agree on.

- DANIEL RILEY

On the Fourth of July—a day that Ken Burns unsurprisingly refers to as “by far, by far, my favorite holiday”—I accompanied the legendary documentary filmmaker to a naturalization ceremony on the West Lawn of Monticello, the former Virginia plantation home of Thomas Jefferson. Burns was on hand for double duty: first, to screen and discuss his forthcoming mega-series, The American Revolution; then, to give the keynote address at the event minting 74 new American citizens.

While naturalization ceremonies typically take place in a courthouse, the annual Fourth of July ceremony at Monticello is an outdoor jam with a suburban block-party atmosphere. Several hundred civilians venture from all across the country to bear witness. Tents are raised. Bunting is strung. Hot dogs are served. Attendees choke up as new Americans share their stories. Burns, for his part, nodded along approvingly at the junior fife-and-drum corps’s rendition of “Yankee Doodle.”

What Burns had to say onstage that morning was less important than what he meant as a symbol chosen for such an occasion. That is: a character, larger in many ways than mere mortal, who infuses his films with what one might call an immigrant’s love of America. (He isn’t one—but his belief in the possibility of this country is as uncynical and undiminished.) Burns has worked most days for the past five decades to tell the American story back to its citizens—a collective 234 hours of film reflecting intensely on our wars, our music, our monuments, our ideas, our ideals, our pastimes, and our peoples. (The Burns catalog is a personality test—tell me your three favorites and I will know you.)