Veteran documentarian Ken Burns is on the Board of Governors for the Telluride Film Festival. The creator of classic PBS documentary mini-series like The War, Baseball, and Jazz, all of which have a total runtime of many hundreds of minutes, it’s a wonder this guy watches anything other than the archival material he uses to assemble his films. He mentions a film called Hunger by Steve McQueen that’s playing here. No, it’s not the ghost of the Steve McQueen you might be thinking of, this Steve McQueen is a Turner Prize winning British video artist turned filmmaker. A full review of Hunger with an interview is coming soon.

Ken Burns talks Mad Men and David Fincher after the jump.

Spout: What films have you been watching lately?

Ken Burns: Well, I come to the Telluride Film Festival to sort of end a drought. Being a very busy person, and living in rural New Hampshire, and having a small child, I  don’t get into the communion of dark theaters very often. So to be here, to see Hunger by Steve McQueen, this great British director, is a revelation. I’ve sponsored a tribute to David Fincher, so we’re looking forward to seeing the uncut directors version of his Zodiac, and of course to see the clips from his others films is exciting, and looking forward to the whole rest of the cinema. You know, during my daily life I spend a lot of time with sports, I spend a lot of time with politics, which I follow astutely, and this is a particularly exciting year. And as a member of the Academy, I wait for those screeners that come sometime around Thanksgiving and don’t stop until January, that gives me a chance to catch up on what I’ve been missing.

Spout: My next question is what you’ve been watching on TV, but I guess you already hinted at that.

Burns: I’m mostly a sports… I’m a huge baseball fan, I’m a devoted fan specifically of the Boston Red Sox, so I spend a lot of time catching up with their activities. I watch a lot of news. It’s funny, it’s been a long time since I’ve had that addiction to a fiction program that I have to see. My kids tell me what they are, and buy the DVDs for Arrested Development and Mad Men, and I catch up that way. But I’ve got the kind of schedule that makes it literally impossible commit to a specific time.

Spout: What about the internet? Is there anything originating there that you’re sort of tuned in to, or no?

Burns: I don’t have the time. I see a lot of my friends who spend a lot of time there, and I just don’t have the time. I can’t spend two or three hours surfing, I just have a lot of work to do, and kids to raise, and movies to make. It’s something that I miss. When I do have a moment and play around, it’s always fun, but I’m not there as much as most of the people I know are.