Ken Burns Film Festival Presents “The Civil War” Episode Five
By Laken Franchetti, News Editor
Ken Burns Film Festival director Jake Boritt interviews Ken Burns at the Majestic Theater on Friday Feb. 10, 2023 (Photo Laken Franchetti/The Gettysburgian)
On Friday, the Majestic Theater presented episode five of the 1990 documentary series The Civil War by filmmaker Ken Burns. This event was part of the festival “Who Are We?: A Festival Celebrating the Films of Ken Burns.”
Majestic Theater founding executive director Jeffrey Gabel gave opening remarks. He shared that people from over 28 states had come to Gettysburg for the festival’s event. Over 2,200 tickets were sold for Burns’s three presentations, and there were reservations for over 2,600 tickets for the festival’s free events. Gabel then introduced President Bob Iuliano.
Iuliano thanked Gabel and the Majestic Theater staff for all of their hard work in organizing the festival. Iuliano welcomed attendees to the “first of its kind” film festival, and he focused his introduction on this central question: “Who are we?”
“Over the next three days we will dedicate ourselves to these three words that so beautifully represent Ken Burns’ beautiful documentaries on American history,” Iuliano said. “Together we’ll reflect on thirty five hours of programs that examine this question from the widest range of disciplines and perspectives, including through Ken’s timeless work on art, on war, on music, on leadership and on justice.”
Iuliano encouraged the audience to participate and engage in challenging conversations about the past to learn more about today and work towards a brighter future. He believed that this sentiment is what Gettysburg College provides through their consequential education.
Iuliano thanked festival director Jake Boritt and the numerous historians, guest speakers, and film festival sponsors for their knowledge and support. He then expressed deep thanks to Ken Burns.
“I want to extend a deep and personal thanks to Ken Burns, a friend of this college and a friend of this town. He is an innovator, an artist and above all, a really truly dear friend to this community,” said Iuliano.
Iuliano gave an introduction to the documentary series, which was directed by Burns and produced by Burns with his brother. “The Civil War” has won over 40 major awards that include two Emmys, two Grammys, a Peabody and the first Lincoln Prize awarded by Gettysburg College in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
The screening of the episode, titled “The Universe of Battle,” included commentary from writer Shelby Foote, historian Barbara Fields, historian Ed Bearss, historian Stephen B. Oates and former U.S. Congressman James Symington. The film also featured Daisy Turner, the daughter of an African American soldier who fought in the Civil War.
The episode detailed General Robert E. Lee’s movement away from Vicksburg, Mississippi, to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The three-day 1863 Battle of Gettysburg was explained through the episode, as well as the events that directly followed. Other events included the Confederate surrender of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, the draft enacted by President Lincoln and the battle of Lookout Mountain in Tennessee.
The documentary episode also touched upon women in war and African American soldiers. Women were involved with the U.S. Sanitary Commission, and their help cut the disease rate in half during the war. The episode described African American activity in war regiments, and highlighted the first all-Black regiment, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry.
The episode concluded with Lincoln’s trip to Gettysburg on Nov. 19, 1863. Lincoln believed that his speech, which lasted less than two minutes and only contained 269 words, was a failure. Edward Everet spoke before Lincoln at the dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg National Cemetery, yet he spoke for over two hours.
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was narrated over the final minutes of the episode as images from the war were presented.
Following the episode’s end, Burns participated in an interview with Boritt.
“It’s been overwhelming to watch it. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen it. I’m so happy too that my most significant collaborator that I’ve had whose beautiful words wrote this script, Jeff Ward, is in the audience, and we have been working together for forty one years,” Burns said. “Listening to this, it’s been just a soul-transforming experience.”
Burns shared that one of the reasons for creating this documentary series was to shed light on what the war was really about.
“The popular view of the civil war was a completely skewed one from what we have now and the kind of dedications we have to inclusion that we didn’t have before, and the thing that I am proudest about with this series is how much it centers on what the war was actually about,” Burns stated.
Burns then shed light on one of the people featured in this documentary: Daisy Turner. Turner’s father was able to create a life in Vermont following the war. He had fought for the Union and had gone to Virginia to kill his former overseer. Burns had the opportunity to interview Turner, who was 104 years old, deaf, and nearly blind. He shared that the interview did not go as expected, and when he tried to leave, Turner stopped him.
“She said, ‘Do you want to hear the soldier’s story?’ And I had no idea what she was talking about,” said Burns. “And I just sort of said, reflexively, yes… and here is a woman, who is one hundred and four years old, reciting a poem she had committed to memory for at least ninety years.”
The poem that Turner recited had been passed down from her father and was sewn into the film in five parts.
Burns also shared his experience with writer Shelby Foote, who is in the documentary series 89 times.
“We got the film back, and I just said I wanted to pull back from Shelby… I want to pull back because then we would see Ward Lamon, and if we pulled back father, we would see Abraham Lincon on film. It was like he was there,” Burns explained. “There’s always something in the way he spoke about it. This is a person who had been over every gram of this war.”
Burns described how Foote held a great amount of knowledge on the war and even knew facts about Lincoln’s self-appointed bodyguard Lamon.
Burns then got to a discussion surrounding the music used in the series, and he described the unconventional way in which the music was completed. They recorded the music before finishing the series’ editing or narration, giving Burns the opportunity to make the narration fit the music. Music also presented itself as an important outlet to reach the audience on an emotional level.
“Those notes get quickest to your heart, and then you hope that they follow with the words that you used and the words that you’ve assembled,” said Burns.
When asked about his inspiration for filmmaking, Burns gave credit to his mother, who died when he was young. Burns shared a discussion that he had with his father-in-law relating to his mother where he said that Burns wakes people from the dead through his films.
“He said, ‘You wake the dead. You make Abraham Lincoln and Jackie Robinson come alive. Who do you think you’re really trying to wake up?’”
This discussion opened Burns’ eyes to the connection between his filmmaking and his mother.
To conclude the festival event, Burns shared what he is working on. He has completed a film titled “American Buffalo,” which is set for release in October 2023, and details the history of buffalo and the complex relations the animal had with people. Burns is currently working on his first non-American film that is centered around Leonardo da Vinci and set to come out sometime in 2024. Burns is also working on an American Revolution film, and he joked that this topic is more complicated since there are no photographs.
Burns ended the interview with reassurance for those waiting for more of his documentaries.
“We’re very busy,” he said.
