KEN BURNS Is The Storyteller
The Civil War, Baseball, Central Park Five, Muhammad Ali+
American filmmaker Ken Burns returns with a four-part PBS documentary series about the life and legacy of three-time heavyweight champion and political activist Muhammad Ali.
Muhammad Ali offers an intimate look at the timeline of the late professional boxer’s life, from his early beginnings as an amateur boxer named Cassius Clay, a convert to Islam who took on the name for which he is best known, to the underdog who went up against some of his biggest adversaries, including Joe Frazier and George Foreman.
But beyond the pomp and circumstance of the ring, the series also explores his life as a family man and political activist; who wrestled with issues of race, religion, and politics and used his celebrity platform to protest injustice.
As the director, Ken Burns, states: “I am drawn to boxing when the person and the bouts seem to reflect something larger…and the person who is doing the fighting is one of the most extraordinary human beings that I have ever met.”
No stranger to ambitious storytelling, Burns, whose impressive career spans more than four decades, and who has chronicled America’s most prominent figures and events in The Central Park Five, The Civil War, Baseball, Brooklyn Bridge, The Vietnam War, The Roosevelts, Country Music, and more, highlights the legendary icon using archival footage and soundbites from interviews with family and friends (including his children Rahaman, Rasheda, and Hana), as well as with the many writers and scholars he inspired, such as author Todd Boyd, writer Gerald Early, and scholar of Islam Sherman Jackson.
As his daughter, Rasheda, states, the documentary film is “The whole picture. It’s the good, it’s the bad, it’s the inspiring…”.
Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon wrote and produced Muhammad Ali’s miniseries. It debuted on PBS on September 9th, 2021.
All episodes are currently streaming.
