to lead people into hell.

But I also believe it's important to lead the way out.

We are in a renaissance of documentary.

People are realizing that there is as much drama in what is

and what was as anything that the human imagination dreams up.

And you have the added advantage of it being true.

In order to be a good director, you

have to be able to tolerate contradiction.

There's no objective truth.

This is human experience.

We see things from different perspectives.

And that's OK.

It's really important that history not be

distilled to sort of the Great Men theory.

All of those people that are famous

don't do the fighting and the dying.

The best history is the place where so-called ordinary people

exist.

You want to use everything at your disposal

to activate your audience's imagination.

[PUNCHES LANDING]

The cannon firing.

[CANNON FIRING]

Troops tramping.

Bat cracking

There are a million things that you

can do-- that you have to do-- until you go, whoa.

That's working.

We find ourselves in one of the most challenging moments

in the history of the United States.

The role of the filmmaker then becomes even more important

and more urgent.

If you've got that thing that is burning inside you saying,

I have to do this.

Now we can begin to talk about how you start.

I'm Ken Burns, and this is my MasterClass.