Ken Burns

And, you know, we've seen these clips a gazillion times.

And I'm talking to Sarah Bostein, the co-director, and

and we just look at each other simultaneously and say, we've got to get rid of that.

We have to change that shot.

And so suddenly we're working with an editor who happens to be in Paris this semester and the editor that's in New York, and we're changing things, and I love the fact that we did that.

I'm actually embarrassed that I'm telling you about it because I feel like in some ways I'm advertising the fact that that's what we do.

I'm just trying to say that somewhere along the line I've made the opposite of decision

of what was sort of career-wise supposed to be what I was supposed to do.

In fact, Robert Penn Warren, the poet and novelist, told me that – he looked at me once and he just said, careerism is death.

And I've never used the word career.

I've always said my professional life.

Because careerism suggests that you're following some sort of rut, and that's not what I wanted to do.

What do you mean by rut?

A path?

A carved path?

A carved path that's already well-worn.

I mean, look, if you want to be a doctor or a lawyer, you've got to follow some well-worn paths just by virtue of that.

Everybody that I know that's working in documentary that has been working at it for a long time and makes their living from it have come from completely unique paths.

It's been their own way.

And I like the fact that I made this.