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I spent 15 hours last week with Ken Burn’s “The War.” I loved it. I just didn’t like it. It is mandatory viewing, however. My Boston Herald review, with others linked below:
THE WAR: B
Ken Burns’ much-heralded epic documentary “The War” is a magnificent failure. Stirring, tragic and stunning. Informative and insightful. And a failure.
We’ll start with the failure part.
To narrow the vastness of Americas World War II experience, Burns zeroed in on four towns. Mobile, Ala., Sacramento, Calif., Waterbury, Conn., and Luverne, Minn. Then he acknowledged his mistake by cherry-picking from a few others. Burns cut himself off from a choice of the best stories. He’d have done better to let people and history, not places, be his guide. His gimmick, with its exhaustive scene-setting, doesn’t work.
Burns wanted to make a film about ordinary people, and he did. The great leaders who guided their fates, and the obstacles they surmounted, barely get lip service.
It’s a critical omission. A 15-hour effort like this won’t be repeated soon. With a school curriculum ready, it will shape understanding of this war for generations.
“The War” doesn’t celebrate triumph over adversity, or the kind of wartime greatness Burns explored intimately in his epic “The Civil War.” It is a death-obsessed dirge, dwelling on the ugliest parts of war, more interested in folly than success. It is a film about the meat grinder and the dutiful submission of good citizens.
The narration is often banal. The artful string music is often a distraction. Interviews are inexpertly conducted: To judge by often awkward answers, the most common question was the unhelpful “How did you feel?”
But there is magnificence. Never-before-aired footage, expertly edited, offers unparalleled views of combat and a new intimacy with familiar battles. The stories of the common people often stab to the heart.
It would be hard for any teller to botch this odyssey. Magnificent failure may be too harsh a label for “The War.” Let’s say, as a success, it’s OK. And it is mandatory viewing. You’ll watch it, you’ll learn from it, you’ll be inspired by it, you’ll be haunted by it. It just could have been so much more.
Series premiere Sunday night at 8 on WGBH (Ch. 2)
Subsequent episodes of The War” air Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Oct. 1 and Oct. 2 at 8 p.m. on WGBH (Ch. 2).
Jules Crittenden blogs at www.julescrittenden.com, where he is carrying a paid ad for ’The War.’
Another version, longer with more particulars, at Pajamas:
Homer sang the Iliad. Josephus wrote the Jewish War. Norman women stitched the Bayeux Tapestry and Snorri Sturluson committed the Norse war sagas to verse. Shakespeare wrote Henry V.
All masterpieces of war. Now comes Ken Burns’ long-awaited, much-heralded World War II epic, “The War.” Stirring, poignant, tragic, stunning and shocking. Informative and insightful. A magnificent failure.
My adversaries at the Boston Globe: “In the end its about killing. That’s what war is.” That’s the message from Burns. But that’s not the whole story. There is heroism, and there is bold leadership. Then, there is winning. What Globe walks away with, “There is no such thing as a good war.” Maybe, but there’s such a thing as a bad one. That’s the one that, in cases of political cowardice and/or military ineptitude, you lose.
New York Times, not a fan. “What So Proudly We Hailed” wants it to be about the entire war. How come just Yank death? Japs, Krauts, Ivans not heard from. Fair point. I would love to see Burns do that treatment, WWII A-Z, and thought about that from the moment I saw “1941-1945″ on the cover. I had no objection with his decision to look at it from an American perspective, but this just underscores how limited in vision is Burn’s 15-hour epic. With 15 hours and some editing discipline, he could have accomplished either or both of these goals. Heck, make it 18 hours if you need to.
Wall Street Journal: “Unyielding Glumness.” I’m with Rabinowitz on that. Like I said, it’s a dirge. Throwing in a little triumph, adversity overcome, resourcefulness, deft generalship and political leadership, etc., might have balanced that out a little.
A couple of raves:
Detroit Free Press, “Flesh and Blood History”
Houston Chronicle, “Ken Burns’ own private War”
Shameless Hagiography:
USA Today, “Burns Deserves Thanks of a Grateful Nation.” Get a grip, Bianco. Burns made a movie about storming the beaches. He didn’t storm them.
Topics: history, media
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:48 am on Sunday, September 23, 2007
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September 23rd, 2007 at 11:59 am
“In the end its about killing. That’s what war is.”
Typical, easy, lefty dismissal of all war. Because it’s just too disturbing and un-PC to actually examine the reasons for the killing.
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:30 pm
[...] 23rd, 2007 by Michael van der Galiën An interesting review at Forward Movement of Ken Burns’ The War - “an epic documentary” about World War II. [...]
September 23rd, 2007 at 1:28 pm
[...] Burn’s 15 hour series, “The War” premieres tonight, September 23. Jules Crittenden, a Boston Herald editor and columnist, offers his own review and summaries of and links to several other reviews. We’ll start with the failure [...]
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:00 pm
What a disappointment.
Surprise! The left is now denigrating WWII. I figured they’d get around to it. The Alf consistently gave hints about the script, in his usual ham-handed way.
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Looks like the New York Times agrees with Confederate General Nathan Bdford Forrest who said “War means fighting and fighting meand killing.” Yep. The only reason the Nazis did not win WWII was that the Allies killed enough German soldiers to defeat Nazi Germany. Would the Times prefer the alternative of a Nazi victory?
The Times and the lefties are relentlessly present-oriented. They do not really think of the alternative to winning WWII, they simply take for granted that it happened. Their present oppostion to a war carried on by the US fills them with faux opposition to all wars carried on by the US, sort of like an odium theologicum, in which the heresy espoused by a thinker late in life discredits all his earlier work for his current opponents.
And their prresent opposition to a war carried on by the US puts them on the side of the religious fascists, and acting so as to help them win against the advocates of liberty.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I’ve watched about 45 minutes total so far and already I already think that I won’t watch the rest. It’s a failure, but I don’t think it’s magnificent.
Certainly the introduction sets a tone that WW II wasn’t really necessary if only everyone would have sat down and talked it all out.
So far it’s all death, all the time.
I just haven’t figured out how Ken Burns can blame it all on George Bush.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Gary, you did better than me. I only made it 20 minutes before I turned it off. Too dismal and sentimental for me.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Very sad .. extremely disappointing .. I didn’t realize that Ken Burns has decided to follow in the footsteps of Clint Eastwood.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Wow, Burns sure bagged on McArthur in episode one. I counted about 3 vignettes where he was portrayed as the devil incarnate, up to the point of leaving the Philippines, which if memory serves, was ordered by FDR. McArthur was certainly (like most of us) a flawed individual, but he was dealt a bad hand after the US (rightfully in my opinion) had to initially abandon the PI to its logical place in the Pacific strategy.
September 27th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Brilliant and inspiring. The bravery and sacrifice was what I am taking out of it. What does Bush, the liberals and the NYT have anything to do with this are you that cynical? IBut I do admit that I love seeing the bravery of a Daniel Inouye as he compares to all the chicken hawk phonies like Bush, Cheney and even Reagan. Your criticism rings hollow and if I may say jealous.
October 8th, 2007 at 1:35 am
Vanguard, MacArthur was really quite a bad general, but Ken Burns did not understand why. It was poorly done.
JP57, obviously you wanted a documentary that wasn’t about WWII itself but confirmed your views of the world instead. Glad you got it. The rest of us got Burns’ failure to get beyond his own banal vision.