Nature's Nation: Improvisation,Democracy, and Ken Burns' National Parks

In his recurrent examination of what makes Americans “American,” documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has particularly focused on the twin themes of democracy and improvisation. The National Parks: America's Best Idea links the national park ideal with America's “democratic spirit.” Through an examination of its visual methods, I argue that the “Ken Burns gaze” is more consistent with the contemplative and magisterial visuality that shaped the origins of the national park movement—a visuality that sees nature as “out there” and a “finished product”—than it is with the improvisational spirit that both democracy and ecology demand in our time.     

Ken Burns and American Mythology in The National Parks: America's Best Idea

Ken Burns' series on the national parks reveals the evolving values of the American nation, particularly in relation to nature. Through both the beauty and the history of these set apart spaces, Burns presents and to some extent critiques America's mythic dreams of nature. Nature as new world garden and as frontier shapes the story that is told. This essay focuses on two themes, science and pluralism, and argues the presentation of each (the former with less depth, the latter with more) is constrained by the mythic narrative of pristine America that seems unable to evolve, either in the face of ecological values of interrelationships or pluralistic values that re-shape understandings of democracy. More attention to the problematic of the notion of preservation of pristine America would have enabled the film to speak more powerfully not only of the history of the parks, but also of their future.