Posts by Live Talks LA
Ken Burns with Lisa Napoli
From one of our most treasured filmmakers, a pictorial history of America—a stunning and moving collection of some of Ken Burns’s favorite photographs, with an introduction by Burns, and an essay by longtime MoMA photography curator Sarah Hermanson Meister
..
Ken Burns, the producer and director of numerous film series, including The Vietnam War, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, and The War, founded his own documentary film company, Florentine Films, in 1976. His landmark film The Civil War was the highest-rated series in the history of American public television, and his work has won numerous prizes, including the Emmy and Peabody Awards, and two Academy Award nominations. He lives in Walpole, New Hampshire.
.
Lisa Napoli has had a long career in journalism, including staff reporting jobs at public radio’s Marketplace, the pioneering New York Times CyberTimes, and as a columnist/correspondent at MSNBC. She is the author, most recently, of Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR. Her previous books include Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News; a biography of NPR benefactor, the McDonald’s heiress, Joan Kroc, Ray & Joan, and a memoir about media’s impact on the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, Radio Shangri-La. She is also the co-creator of the Bio Podcast.
.
“Chronicling America from 1839 to 2019, these photographs are both well-known and obscure, faces of celebrities and faces of laypeople, stunning images of landscapes and national parks alongside deserted towns and scenes of destruction. Just as arresting and poignant as his films can be, Burns has gathered a striking collection that depicts America in all its glory and grimness.”—Lit Hub
.
Burns has been making documentaries about American history for more than four decades, using images to vividly re-create our struggles and successes as a nation and a people. As much as anyone alive today, he understands the soul of our country.
.
In Our America, Burns has assembled the images that, for him, best embody nearly two hundred years of the American experiment, taken by some of our most reknowned photographers and by others who worked in obscurity. We see America’s vast natural beauty as well as its dynamic cities and communities. There are striking images of war and civil conflict, and of communities drawing together across lines of race and class. Our greatest leaders appear alongside regular folks living their everyday lives. The photos talk to one another across boundaries and decades and, taken together, they capture the impossibly rich and diverse perspectives and places that comprise the American experience.
Siddhartha Mukherjee with D.A. Wallach
Geena Davis with Rachel Lindsay
Jon Meacham with Larry Wilmore
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham chronicles the life and moral evolution of Abraham Lincoln and explores why and how Lincoln confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery in order to expand the possibilities of America
.
Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer. The Rogers Chair in the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University, he is the author of the New York Times bestsellers His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, The Soul of America, The Hope of Glory: Reflections on the Last Words of Jesus, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, American Gospel, and Franklin and Winston.
.
Emmy Award winner Larry Wilmore has been a television producer, actor, comedian, and writer for more than 25 years. He can currently be heard as host of Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air on The Ringer Podcast Network. The show features Wilmore’s unique mix of humor and wit as he weighs in on the issues of the week and interviews guests in the worlds of politics, entertainment, culture, sports, and beyond. Larry can also be seen in the Paramount+ film Jerry and Margo Go Large, alongside Bryan Cranston and Annette Benning. He also serves as executive producer alongside Kerry Washington, in the upcoming legal drama Reasonable Doubt for Hulu’s Onyx Collective which premieres this Fall. He also appeared in and executive produced Netflix’s Amend: The Fight for America. Wilmore is perhaps best known for his role as host of Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, which debuted in January 2015 and ran for nearly two years. Wilmore serves as co-creator and consulting producer on HBO’s Insecure. He also helped to launch ABC’s black-ish as an executive producer and is a co-creator of the spin-off Grownish. Previously, Wilmore made memorable appearances as the “Senior Black Correspondent” on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and hosted his own Showtime “town hall”-style comedy specials, Larry Wilmore’s Race, Religion & Sex. He has written for In Living Color, The PJ’s (which he co-created), The Office (on which he has appeared as Mr. Brown, the diversity consultant), and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He also served as creator, writer, and executive producer of The Bernie Mac Show, which earned him a 2002 Emmy Award for “Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series” and a 2001 Peabody Award.
.
“Biography at its best, the great historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, paints an intimate portrait of an individual which simultaneously provides a sweeping view of history. With this deep, compelling work, Jon Meacham has achieved this gold standard. Written with wisdom and grace, his story of Lincoln’s complex moral journey to Emancipation mirrors America’s long and troubled quest to live up to its founding ideals.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
.
A President who governed a country at war with itself has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Abraham Lincoln was president when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions inextricably bound up with money, power, race, identity, and faith. He was hated and hailed, excoriated and revered. In Lincoln we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations.
.
At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen in popular minds as the greatest of American presidents—a remote icon—or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This illuminating new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln—an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment was essential to the story of justice in America. Here is the Lincoln who, as a boy, was steeped in the sermons of emancipation by Baptist preachers; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him light to see the right.
.
This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination at Ford’s Theater on Good Friday 1865: his rise, his self-education through reading, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end. In a nation shaped by the courage of the enslaved of the era and by the brave witness of Black Americans of the nineteenth century, Lincoln’s story illuminates the ways and means of politics, the marshaling of power in a belligerent democracy, the durability of white supremacy in America, and the capacity of conscience to shape the maelstrom of events.
.
Lincoln was not all he might have been—few human beings ever are—but he was more than many men have ever been. We could have done worse. And we have. And, as Lincoln himself would readily acknowledge, we can always do better. But we will do so only if we see Abraham Lincoln—and ourselves—whole.
Shonda Rhimes & Betsy Beers with Katie Lowes
This event was taped with an audience on October 27, 2022
.
.
.
Shonda Rhimes is CEO of the global media company Shondaland. With a focus on innovation, Rhimes’s company approaches storytelling through brand partnerships, merchandise, and content for film, streaming, audio, digital, and editorial. In her career, Rhimes’s work has been celebrated with numerous awards including induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. She has shifted the entertainment industry’s business model and changed the face of television. .
.
Betsy Beers is a groundbreaking producer and the longtime producing partner of Shonda Rhimes. Under the Shondaland banner, they have developed and produced some of the most industry-leading series in television. Through Shondaland’s unprecedented exclusive deal with Netflix, Beers serves as executive producer on Bridgerton, Shondaland’s first scripted series with the streamer and the most watched series debut in Netflix history, Inventing Anna, the true story (except for the parts they made up) of the fake German heiress, Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker following legendary choreographer Debbie Allen, and will serve as executive producer on upcoming series The Residence and Notes On Love. In addition, she is executive producer of the award-winning series Grey’s Anatomy and, along with Rhimes, developed and produced the hit series Private Practice, Scandal,How to Get Away with Murder, For the People, and Station 19for Shondaland and ABC.
.
Katie Lowes is best known for starring as Quinn Perkins for the entire 7 Seasons of the ABC hit series Scandal. Lowes was most recently seen making her return to network television in CBS’ half-hour comedy How We Roll. Earlier this year, Lowes was seen starring in Shonda Rhimes’s Netflix series Inventing Anna. Lowes is the host of the popular parenting podcast titled Katie’s Crib,which is produced by Shondaland in partnership with iHeartRadio. In Summer 2021, Lowes lent her voice to Netflix’s animated film VIVO. In Fall 2018, Lowes made her Broadway debut, starring in the Tony Nominated Musical Waitress. Other credits include Ralph Breaks the Internet, Transformers 2, Super 8, Big Hero 6, Feast, Wreck it Ralph.She was the inspiration behind the motion and movement work for Idina Menzel‘s character Elsa in the movie Frozen.Additionally, she has appeared in several independent films including Dinner for Four, The Job, Callers, Bear and Café. She has been a guest star on hit series such as The Closer, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Leverage, Castle, The Sopranos, N.C.I.Sand was a series regular on the CW show Easy Money. Lowes is regularly seen guest co-hosting Live with Kelly and Ryanalongside Ryan Seacrest. Lowes is the co-artistic director of IAMA Theatre Company, which was named one of the top 20 regional theatres in the country.
.
Inside Bridgerton is the intimate behind-the-scenes story of the hit Shondaland series on Netflix. Shondaland executive producers Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers offer exclusive insights, and introduce you to the series writers, producers, directors, cast, crew, and talented creatives who brought Julia Quinn’s beloved novels to the screen. Full-color and beautifully designed, Inside Bridgerton is the official book about the show, and includes never-before-seen photographs, first hand accounts on casting, insight into the decisions behind the costumes and sets, directors’ accounts on filming your favorite scenes, and more from the creative minds that launched a cultural phenomenon.
Kevin Nealon with Judd Apatow
