A CONVERSATION WITH FILMMAKERS KEN BURNS AND DAYTON DUNCAN
One of their most acclaimed films was The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. In honour of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, Ken and Dayton recently shared their thoughts with us on the National Parks and Tauck’s Ken Burns American Journeys:
Why did you decide to partner with Tauck to create these travel experiences across America?
Dayton: When Tauck first approached us about working with them to create tours relating to the films that we’ve made, Ken was reluctant – we have our own brand. So I went on a Tauck tour to check them out – and when I came back, I told Ken “These folks do what we do,” in terms of what Tauck tries to accomplish – to tell the stories of American places and to show their guests these places. We do it on a screen and they do it by physically taking you there – which both of us believe is much better than any film we could make.
Ken: We recognise in the folks at Tauck the same level of excellence that we’ve tried to achieve. We work in public television, and we do so quite consciously for a number of reasons – the least of which being no commercial interruptions. It permits us to spend the
time it takes to do it right. We found in Tauck the same commitment to do it right – to not just be good, but to be excellent.
Why are the National Parks special?
Ken: We made a film called “The National Parks,” and its subtitle is “America’s Best Idea.” We were following the writer Wallace Stegner, who said that these parks were the best idea we ever had – and it was immediately contradicted in the introduction to the film by someone saying, “No, it’s Thomas Jefferson articulating freedoms…” That’s true, but once we created a democracy you’d be hard pressed to find a better idea that we’ve had since.
Dayton: People who go to a National Park see us reflected at our best, so there is a sense of patriotism… it brings us together in ways that very few things left in our society can.
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