Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has chronicled American life from nearly every angle, from the Civil War on. But one American he still hasn’t been able to focus on is Martin Luther King Jr. He blames the King family for that.
Burns recently spoke at Loyola Marymount University recently for their Hollywood Masters series and was asked why he hasn’t made a film about King.
The Civil War filmmaker said that he really started thinking about making a King film in the ‘90s. “I think I am programmed to do it because every film I do somehow impacts with race, which is our great subject in America. It’s why the Civil War happened. It’s everything. But I knew that the family had a hard time letting go of him,” Burns said, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
In the early 2000s, the family called him up, suggesting that he was the perfect person to make the documentary, but when he arrived in Atlanta, the family made it clear again. They could just not let King go.
“This is a father and a husband they could not control in life. And now in death they are [trying to control him],” Burns continued. “And I didn’t want to sit before you and begin to make apologies for the film, because it wasn’t what he wanted. So I just kindly backed away. I’d still like to do it.”
Burns’ most recent documentary series centered on The Roosevelts and among his current projects is a series on the Vietnam War. He also produced the 2012 film The Central Park Five.
Conflicts with the King family have lead to other filmmakers struggling to portray the civil rights leader on the screen. In fact, Ava DuVernay’s Selma was the first big-screen biopic of King.
image courtesy of Roger Wong/INFphoto.com
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