Ken Burns hits again with new baseball documentary

TELLURIDE, Colo. – It's not a Telluride Film Festival without documentarian Ken Burns greeting festivalgoers and filmmakers on the streets.

And this year he had one of his own films screening at the Labor Day holiday weekend fest, an addendum to his original PBS series on baseball called "The Tenth Inning."

YOU'RE SORT OF THE UNOFFICIAL MAYOR OF TELLURIDE AT THIS

POINT.

Oh, no. I love it. This is my 21st festival in a row -- 22 overall -- and there's not a time when I don't come. I come a week before and I've made a lot of friends in town. I'm on the board of governors, a lot of responsibility. I give, as I've given for 20 years, what's affectionately called by the former director Bill Pence, the benediction, where the staff at the last moment on Thursday night are given their marching orders, and I come in and give a homily of some kind that's made up on the spot. I'm here sometimes as a filmmaker, as I am this time, but more often than not as just a civilian enjoying the festival.

FOR A FILMMAKER, WHAT'S THE BENEFIT TO SHOWING YOUR MOVIE

HERE -- BOTH IN TERMS OF EXPOSURE TO FILM LOVERS AND ALSO IN A

BUSINESS SENSE?

It's just that: It isn't about business. And you can tell, when films are being shown there's nobody on the streets. This is not like Park City, this is not Cannes. They serve their purpose as a marketplace, but this is not a marketplace. This is a place where people who love films get a chance to see films that have been so carefully selected. It's not 250 films over a week and a half. It's 35, 40 films, which if you're lucky, you'll see 18.

I'VE NEVER EVEN GOTTEN CLOSE TO SEEING THAT MANY.

That's my total. And it rearranges your molecules in a purely cinematic way. And you make deep friendships that may, I suppose, have beneficial commercial things for some people that bring their films here. But usually my films are about to be shown a year from now on PBS and it's already done. I've got my outlet. So to me, it's just sharing, it's the special community that takes place in dark rooms with strangers.

IS THERE ANY EXTRA BENEFIT TO DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS?

Oh, yeah. I don't think you come to Telluride to get attention. You come to Telluride to join a conversation that's been going on now for 36 years about what this medium is about and what its possibilities are. We are so consumed in the Hollywood thing that it's sort of out of perspective. But you come here and you find an Algerian or an Iranian filmmaker who has in his baby finger as much talent as what's being stamped out as widgets in Hollywood. So it's refreshing to see that. As a documentary filmmaker, the same laws apply, the same laws of storytelling apply to us, it's just based on fact. So you come into a conversation, you come into a stream of consciousness about filmmaking that's great. I think that's the biggest point, it isn't a marketplace, it's really about the art of it and the enjoyment of it. It's the only one I go to.

"THE TENTH INNING"-- WHEN AND WHY DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAD

MORE TO SAY ABOUT THAT?

It's funny, the last bit of action that original nine-part, nine-inning, 18-and-a-half-hour magilla described was the 1992 World Series. Then we came out in '94, and we were the only baseball. There was no other baseball -- it had been on strike, and that had never happened. I went, 'Hmm, I'm not going to do any sequels, but isn't it interesting that this whole new era has begun?' And then my Red Sox won in 2004 after lots of dramatic action. And then the steroids thing burst full on, and I said, 'That's it.' The Red Sox winning made me think about it -- and I have to say, parenthetically, that my scenes on the Yankees are as good as anything I have ever done, and my co-director, Lynn Novick, is a Yankees fan, and she's as proud of the Red Sox scenes as anything. And that's the way we did it. But the point was that that was said to be the most dramatic comeback in the history of the game, and that made me think about it. And then when the steroids thing exploded that following winter it made me want to do it. And the responses we've had have been so great when we've had screenings. I've been touring the country throwing out the first pitch at ball games.

WHERE?

Where haven't I? Texas, Florida, Washington just before Stephen Strasburg's debut, Camden Yards, I did Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Dodgers Stadium. I just threw out at a Rockies game.

WHAT DO YOU THROW, THE DEUCE?

I throw a strike! It's been pretty good. In fact, Miguel Olivo, who's the catcher for the Rockies, said it was the first strike he'd had all year. It was the best pitch that was thrown. The Rockies had an amazing game. They were losing 10 to 1 by the end of the third, and they beat Atlanata 12 to 10, and it was just a phenomenal game. But the lead in the Denver Post was, "For the first three innings, the best pitch thrown and caught by someone in a Colorado Rockies uniform was Ken Burns' ceremonial first pitch."

WHAT'S NEXT FOR YOU?

We're in post-production on a three-part, six-hour history of Prohibition. We are in the middle of editing a big series on the Dust Bowl. We're doing a film on the Central Park jogger case. We're doing a huge, huge mega-series on the Roosevelts, Franklin and Eleanor. And we're gearing up for Vietnam.