Post by maggiethecat on Jul 2, 2007 9:28:04 GMT -5
Last night our local PBS station ran a 30 minute “preview” of the new Ken Burns series, The War, which will air in September. I watched every second, and I had my standard reaction to Ken Burns: the man is absolutely brilliant -- The Civil War forever changed the way documentaries are made, and for the better -- but sooner or later I just want to smack him. (Maybe it’s the elf haircut.)
This new series about WWII looks amazing, but he did make a number of claims that I found . . . interesting.
First of all, he states that they’re going a different route with this series in that they’re only interviewing “ordinary” participants and not talking to historians or experts. Great idea, except he showed interview footage of Paul Fussell, who was identified only as “Infantry.” Paul Fussell is one of my literary heroes, the author of numerous splendid (and important) books including The Great War and Modern Memory, Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War and Why I’m Glad They Dropped the Bomb and Other Essays. Yes, he was an infantryman, but to only identify him as such is somewhat disingenuous. That said, I’m glad Burns included him as he is prickly and fiercely articulate.
A minor point, to be sure. Then Burns dropped the real clunker. The War, he claims, will be the first look at WWII that is unsentimental and honest, a complete reversal of the way in which “Americans have romanticized the war for fifty years.” Huh? Personally, I think most people stopped romanticizing that war when John Wayne stopped making movies about it, and I never met anyone who’d been involved directly who thought it was anything other than an insanely brutal but necessary exercise.
I could see Burns making that sort of claim maybe fifteen years ago, if you make the argument that most people get their history from movies and popular culture. But after Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Band of Brothers, I found his claim that his film will be the first to show that WWII was no walk in the park a little . . . well, arrogant. And more than a little patronizing.
Not that I won’t watch every minute of it. I just know that sooner or later I’ll want to throw something at the TV.
This new series about WWII looks amazing, but he did make a number of claims that I found . . . interesting.
First of all, he states that they’re going a different route with this series in that they’re only interviewing “ordinary” participants and not talking to historians or experts. Great idea, except he showed interview footage of Paul Fussell, who was identified only as “Infantry.” Paul Fussell is one of my literary heroes, the author of numerous splendid (and important) books including The Great War and Modern Memory, Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War and Why I’m Glad They Dropped the Bomb and Other Essays. Yes, he was an infantryman, but to only identify him as such is somewhat disingenuous. That said, I’m glad Burns included him as he is prickly and fiercely articulate.
A minor point, to be sure. Then Burns dropped the real clunker. The War, he claims, will be the first look at WWII that is unsentimental and honest, a complete reversal of the way in which “Americans have romanticized the war for fifty years.” Huh? Personally, I think most people stopped romanticizing that war when John Wayne stopped making movies about it, and I never met anyone who’d been involved directly who thought it was anything other than an insanely brutal but necessary exercise.
I could see Burns making that sort of claim maybe fifteen years ago, if you make the argument that most people get their history from movies and popular culture. But after Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Band of Brothers, I found his claim that his film will be the first to show that WWII was no walk in the park a little . . . well, arrogant. And more than a little patronizing.
Not that I won’t watch every minute of it. I just know that sooner or later I’ll want to throw something at the TV.
