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Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns joins “Influencers with Andy Serwer” to discuss the spread of disinformation across America.
Video transcript
KEN BURNS: I have been making films about the United States for 45 years. But I’ve also made movies about the lowercase plural pronoun of that – us. And what I found out – you know, all the majesty and complexity and contradiction and controversy of America, but all our privacy – is that it’s just us and there isn’t ‘there is not any. There are a lot of people making a lot of money with them, and it’s being exploited, you know? And the big lie is part of the combination of that.
But a story is a story. Richard Powers, the novelist, said the best arguments in the world will not change the mind of one person. The only thing that can do this is a good story. I’m in the business of trying to tell stories. Hope they are good. And I talk to everyone. I don’t show off my politics in my films. If you want to ask me what I think about something, I will tell you. But, you know, I have road signs as the election approaches. The people of my small town know how I feel.
However, in the movies we tell a complicated American story. I had an example of a guy who was considering taking out the Roosevelts. And he said, yeah, but, you know, show me what you’re doing for the New Deal and then I’ll give you some money. He was very conservative. And I’m like, you know, no I’m not gonna do that. This is not how it works. Nobody can have that kind of thumbs up, thumbs down with me. He turned out to be a wonderful friend. But when he came to see me after the movie came out, he said Ken, it was perfect like you did. To the right? So here’s a guy who at least wanted the anti-New Deal views to get some light of the day. And we all put them on, as we spoke with Hemingway, of the writing that is of the time and that reflects the racism and sexism of the time. And here is this toxic male guy, but also interested in gender fluidity.
So what you need to do is remind people that when we tell stories, what draws us to those stories is the complexities of people, not absolute perfection or evil that just doesn’t exist. For example, when we use the word hero, we are still disappointed today that we don’t have a hero. But the hero is a Greek concept of someone with great strengths and great weaknesses. And heroism is defined by negotiation, sometimes war, within that person between them. Achilles had his, you know, his heel and his pride to go with his great strengths and great powers. So the narrative is that human beings look – sometimes in characters like Hemingway or Achilles roughly – to see themselves.
We all have that. Selfishness and narcissism and gender bias and racism and all that. And we have to negotiate it. And when we tell stories in a way that invites everyone to – Civil War or Vietnam or whatever – and say, you know, here’s what your enemy was thinking when you were shooting through those hedges. We would question the North Vietnamese on the other side of that hedge, right? And then all of a sudden it gives you a more dynamic view. And I don’t know how many veterans came to say thank you. I understand now where I was in this country, what I was doing, the temerity of this, their bravery, the bravery of us, the folly of lying politicians and generals. That’s all you want. That’s all you want to hear, it’s just that it’s a complex story.
– I think this notion, Ken, of a set of common and agreed facts for Americans is so important, and it’s harder to characterize it, to get us to agree on them, but it makes your job , I think, all the more important. .
KEN BURNS: We need to. I mean, you can’t say we’re in a post-fact place. There are people who want this to happen. It is in the financial best interests of many people to promote this. I mean, if you look at the big lie, you know the ex-president’s team raised something like $ 250 million between the election and the nomination just to support something that isn’t everything. simply not true in fact. And we know it’s not because one of the lawyers complaining on her behalf about fraud that didn’t exist is just – her defense is that no reasonable person would believe her.
– To the right. Unlocked the paradox –
KEN BURNS: So give that money back because it didn’t happen.
– To the right.
KEN BURNS: And, you know, it’s just – you just can’t – you know, you can’t do it. You have to keep telling the truth. What about the people who don’t? Their noses are getting longer and longer, which is another good story.
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