Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Here’s what I learned from Asheville public radio station WCQS this week: a portion of the latest project from hot documentarian Ken Burns will be premiered in Asheville later this year. That tidbit was revealed in a WCQS interview with the superintendent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The National Parks: America’s Best Idea is an upcoming six-part, 12-hour series. PBS stations plan to air the series nationwide this September. A piece of the series that covers he Great Smoky Mountains National Park will be shown in Asheville prior to the nationwide showing.
I gotta say that I love Burns’ work, and I can’t wait to see the series. We’re lucky here in Asheville to live so close to one amazing national park.
Here are a couple of stories that offer more info.
Portion of a good story here:
Burns stressed that his look at national parks is a history.
“This is not a travelogue or nature film,” he said. “It’s not just pretty pictures of wildlife and nature, although both of those are in there in great abundance.”
Burns has called it “the most stunning cinematography” he and his company — Florentine Films — have ever shot. He insisted the jaw-dropping surroundings were not a story distraction but rather a plus.
“We have a hugely complex narrative that’s taken 10 years to wrestle to the ground,” he said. “Our great fortune is we got to set that against a backdrop of some of the — if not the — most spectacular scenery in the world.”
The narrative focuses on how the national parks came about, starting with Yosemite and Yellowstone (the latter became the first one, in 1872).
“It’s the story,” he said, “of how individuals fell in love with these places and helped preserve them, bit by bit.”
Some of them are big names: Abraham Lincoln, who as president during the Civil War gave the first expression of our national parks by setting aside land that would later become Yosemite; Theodore Roosevelt, who greatly expanded the park system; the naturalist John Muir, an ardent defender of wild places (especially Yosemite) who helped convince Roosevelt of their value; and the photographer Ansel Adams, whose shots not only captured the West’s beauty but also in their own way helped to save such places.
But many were relatively anonymous people who held as much passion for the parks. Some, Burns says in PBS liner notes, saw them as “a visual, tangible representation of God’s majesty.”
And this story illuminates:
Acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns can now add “honorary park ranger” to a resume that already includes two Academy Award nominations, seven Emmy Awards, and 20 honorary degrees. Acting National ParkService Director Dan Wenk recently presented Burns and his production partner, Dayton Duncan, with honorary park-ranger certificates and traditional ranger hats during a ceremony in the Department of the Interior Auditorium. After receiving the awards, Burns and Duncan previewed and discussed a short film they based on “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” their upcoming six-part, 12-hour series. PBS stations plan to air the series nationwide this September.
“Ken and Dayton have created a documentary film on the national parks and the origin of the National Park Service that provides Americans an opportunity to reflect on the significance and value of our national parks,” Wenk said. “Their film will assist the National Park Service in communicating important messages and themes, such as the wonder of our natural and cultural heritage preserved in the National Park System; the unique American ideas and ideals that the System represents; and the inclusion of America’s diversity in its past, present, and future.”
Duncan, the series’ writer and co-producer, first thought of making a film about national parks during a cross-country vacation in 1998. The project, eight years in the making, traces the birth of the national park idea in the mid-1800s and follows its evolution for nearly 150 years. Creating the series was a labor of love for Burns and Duncan. Both said that many of their fondest memories include experiences shared with family members in national parks.
Burns, the director and co-producer, said the cinematography in the series is the most stunning of his nearly 30-year career. He mixed scenic shots with archival footage and photographs and supplemented them with first-person accounts from historical characters. Burns also added personal memories and analysis from more than 40 interviews. Like his prior epic works, including “The Civil War,” “Baseball,” and “Jazz,” Burns’ latest documentary has a quintessentially American theme.
“National parks embody an idea as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical: that the most magnificent and sacred places in our land belong not to royalty or the rich but to everyone — and for all time,” Burns said. “While making this series, we discovered more than stories of the most dramatic landscapes on earth. We discovered stories of remarkable people from every conceivable background. What they had in common was a passion to save some precious portion of the land they loved so that those of us who followed might have the same chance to fall in love with that place. Without them, parks would not exist.”
