Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/99748
SOCIETY NEWS KEN BURNS RECEIVES 2012 FREEDOM AWARD n the evening of September 20th, in the Congressional Auditorium of the Capitol Visitor Center, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society celebrated two milestones: the 50th anniversary of the Society and the 20th presentation of its distinguished Freedom Award. The Freedom Award is presented annually in recognition of those who have promoted freedom, democracy, and representative government. In presenting the 2012 award, the Hon. Ron Sarasin, Excerpts from Ken Burns' remarks: have found it impossible in the more than thirty-five years of my professional life to turn my attention beyond American history. . . . I am interested in listening to the voices of the true, honest, complicated past, a complicated past that is unafraid of controversy and tragedy, but equally drawn to those stories and moments that suggest an abiding faith in the human spirit, and particularly the unique role this remarkable, but also sometimes dysfunctional, republic seems to play in the positive progress of mankind. That quite simply has been my creed, my mantra, the lens through which I have tried to see our history. . . . Each film asks one deceptively simple question, "Who are we? Who are those strange and complicated people who I 48 THE CAPITOL DOME ........................ I have wanted to be a filmmaker since I was twelve years old. My mother died when I was eleven; there was never a moment in my life when I was not aware that she was desperately ill, and after she died my father had a very strict curfew for my Ken Burns takes questions from the audience. younger brother and me. But he forgave it for me when, at like to call themselves Americans?" night, we would stay up until one or What does an investigation of the past two a.m. on a school night watching an tell us about not only where we've old movie on TV, or he would take me been, but where we are, and where we out well past that bedtime and that may be going? History is this delicious curfew to see an old movie. And we harbinger of our future and insurer of watched together many, many films. our future. If we don't know where We looked at Vertigo by Alfred Hitchwe've been, we can't possibly know cock and Odd Man Out by Sir Carol where we're going. Reed. We looked at Buster Keaton films WINTER 2013 ALL PHOTOS BY KATIE GARLOCK/PORTRAITIONS O USCHS president, remarked: "Congressman Fred Schwengel founded the U.S. Capitol Historical Society in 1962 so that people could 'catch something of the fire that burned in the hearts of those who walked and talked in [the Capitol's] halls.' Ken Burns approaches history similarly. His documentaries capture the human story of America, making our nation's political, cultural, and social history eminently accessible and engaging to millions."