A. Scott Berg
Biographer
A. Scott Berg is the author of five bestselling biographies: Max Perkins: Editor of Genius (1978) received the National Book Award; in writing Goldwyn: A Biography (1989), he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship; and his 1998 biography Lindbergh won the Pulitzer Prize. For 20 years, Berg was a friend and confidant of Katharine Hepburn, and his biographical memoir, Kate Remembered, published upon her death in 2003, became the #1 New York Times bestseller for most of that summer. His biography of Woodrow Wilson was published in September 2013 and received several history prizes. He serves on the board of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History and as a Charter Trustee of Princeton University. He is currently writing a biography of Thurgood Marshall.
Events
1:00 p.m. - Warner Bros. Theater
In his keynote address at the inaugural History Film Forum in 2015, filmmaker Ric Burns said “When you traffic in film and history, fiction or nonfiction, you are borrowing the authority and power and majesty of the real and counting on its potency to lift your tale. You, therefore, have a contract with the audience whether you know it or not: you’re going to take them as close to a truth as you can, no matter what the limitations are that get in your way.” This session looks at the responsibilities of filmmakers as public historians.
7:00 p.m. - Warner Bros. Theater
Join us for an exclusive sneak peak of never before seen footage from the new film from PBS’s American Experience series: The Great War. The Great War is a six-hour, three-night event that will premiere in April 2017 in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into the war on April 6, 1917. Drawing on the latest scholarship, including unpublished diaries, memoirs and letters, The Great War tells the rich and complex story of World War I through the voices of nurses, journalists, aviators and the American troops who came to be known as “doughboys.” The series explores the experiences of African-American and Latino soldiers, suffragists, Native-American “code talkers” and others whose participation in the war to “make the world safe for democracy” has been largely forgotten. The film is executive produced by Mark Samels and directed by award-winning filmmakers Stephen Ives, Amanda Pollak and Rob Rapley.
