Ken Burns discusses lessons from Lincoln during Gettysburg Film Festival [Video]

Filmmaker Ken Burns sat center stage before a packed auditorium of 1,400 at Gettysburg Area High School. Actors Martin Sheen, Sam Waterston and film director and moderator Jake Boritt rounded out the panel. The topic: Abraham Lincoln.All four men admit they’ve visited Abe in the middle of the night — paying homage at the Lincoln Memorial and seeking inspiration in his words that grace the marble there.”‘Four score and seven years ago.’ Lincoln, in a sense, makes you do the math. They are words that invite you in,” Burns said of the Gettysburg Address.Burns has turned to Lincoln many times over the years as he has documented American history in a lifelong pursuit of appealing to “the better angels of our nature,” a phrase Lincoln himself famously used in his first inaugural speech when trying to encourage unity in a country torn apart by the issue of slavery.Burns shared with …