Posted on 10/02/2007 4:55:18 PM PDT by VOA
This is just a television heads-up for the last episode of the first
airing of PBS/Ken Burns production "The War".
(VOA's boilerplate from prior threads)
All commentary regarding personal experience, family tales of WWII,
and critique of how Burns (and PBS) handles topics are welcome.
Hopefully the threads on the seven episodes will serve as
guides when this large documentary becomes required viewing in
high schools.
Comments on how Burns handled the documenatry (positive,
negative, or neutral) will come in handy when "the younger
generation" sees the series. Especially if Burns takes a
"Smithsonian" tact to some topics...leaving people to wonder
"who the good guys were" during the epic struggle.
First thanks for the great job you did [plus Jim R].
Some last comments:
Overall it was over focused on current political correctness set in the WW II era. [I didn’t see anything about American Italians or Germans who fought against their family heritage or Irish fighting on the side of England.]
For war, I like ‘Band of Brothers’, for sociology [post war], I too like ‘Best Years of our Lives’.
I was in Europe during the 6 and 7 periods so what was most interesting was what was going on in the Pacific and on the home-front. I particularly liked seeing the post-war celebrations. And I did like Truman dropping the bomb because I could come home instead of humping Pacific Islands.
Bottom line I would be in no hurry to see it again. I do own Private Ryan and I do see it again.
The part last night about the Holocaust was POWERFUL. It should have been played last week when that nutjob from Iran was in this country. Those American solders that saw it first hand told a powerful story. It sent chills down my spine.
Relocating families,building only 139 cars one year,gutting manufacturing facilities and revamping to build weapons,rationing...VERY patriotic and extreme. Today everyone would bitch that it's inconveniencing them from watching Deal or No Deal or making them miss bowling night....
I didn't say Iwo wasn't a worthwile invasion. But I do remember Burns downplaying it's necessity. Someone pointed out the Pelelu (sp?) certainly did not need to be invaded, but I seem to remember Burns talking about Iwo as if it was a wasted effort, even if he didn't explicity say so. Perhaps I remember it wrong.
The whole racial issue is a footnote. We didn't go to war over black vs. white issues. That's like documenting the wall street crash of 29, and spending a third of your time documenting how it affected the african-american boot blacks. Or documenting the creation of the National Parks and spending considerable time on the segregated bathrooms in Yellowstone lodges. Segregation was everywhere during those years, and we handled the war as we handled everything else then. I'm only surprised that Burns didn't spend time covering the fact that we didn't allow Women into battle zones, as we do now.
Race didn't have any appreciable affect on the war's outcome, the tactics used in battle, the manufacturing effort at home, the politics of the war effort, or the resulting international power structure set in place after the war. Had the US been totally white, no doubt the results of the war would have been the same, as long as we had the same number of workers.
If the history was on race relations, then covering how race was dealt with during the war would make sense. But the reverse doesn't make sense.
The academic world is infatuated with race today, and Burns is catering to what they want to see in order to gain critical acclaim.
I loved the opening comments last night about how if there’s “no evil, no God,” and “no evil, no war.” The problem today is that people don’t believe in evil, because if they did they’d have to believe in God too. And people don’t recognize evil when they see it. That’s why they are against the war in Iraq, they don’t see or understand the evil we are fighting.
There is actually some controversy about it. The main rationale for taking Iwo Jima beforehand was to provide a base for fighter escorts accompanying the B-29 raids, but only ten such missions were flown. 2251 B-29s made landings on the island, but apparently the vast majority weren't real emergencies. The Japanese planes on the island were a minor nuisance. The Japanese did have radar on the island that provided early warning to the home islands, but they also had it on other islands that were never attacked. The Wikipedia article on the battle gives a quick overview of the controversy, most of which comes from within the armed forces.
“The part last night about the Holocaust was POWERFUL.”
Agreed. And I’m still blown away by those two photos I hadn’t seen
before (mentioned in post 17 above).
I suspect that Burns will be deluged with requests to even just
“throw together” a compilation of any images/clips that
“ended up on the cutting room floor”.
But in this digital age, that might be a fairly simple affair for
some assistants to just pull out any digital copies of things they
copied from the archives...but Burns didn’t have time for inclusion.
RE: The Holocaust
Burns did a good job on that.
But for an even better documentary look, I think PBS’s FrontLine
production “Memory of The Camps” is the stunner that high school students
should be made to watch (after parents sign waivers!).
IIRC, the film had sat untouched for decades in a British archive,
but after re-discovery, someone patched it together, even though
sound-tracks were missing for some segments.
And I think Alfred Hitchcock did some of the early editing work (just
after WWII).
One memorable scene was a British chaplain standing next to
some of the open-pit graves, saying that what he’d seen was beyond words.
And I do give Burns credit for coming up with some images that concisely
got across most of what is covered at greater length in
“Memory of The Camps”.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/camp/
“I loved the opening comments last night about how if there’s
“no evil, no God,” and “no evil, no war.” “
Agreed.
That may be why I have a liking for one “radio preacher”,
Chuch Swindoll,
who did his USMC hitch in the early 1950s.
And I’m reminded of some commentary from another Marine.
Please see post 11 at this URL:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1905212/posts
Apologies to you if it came out that way.
I just get aggravated with others who love to second guess, not knowing all that was involved in decisions that were made.
At some of the most poignant moments, he used a very slow piano transcription of the Nimrod Theme from Edward Elgar's "Enigma Variations".
Where he showed genius was his use of Olivier Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time". This piece was written in 1941 when Messiaen was interned in a German POW camp. (Messiaen was a career organist in a small Catholic church in the Paris suburbs up until the day he died in 1992, and he was a French Catholic mystic.)
The quartet is scored for piano, violin, cello and clarinet, and its third movement ("Bird Calls") is for solo clarinet. Burns used it quite frequently, cutting out right after the clarinet imitates an air raid siren. It was especially eerie when he used it over photographs of the death camps.
The fifth movement ("Praise to the Eternity of Jesus") is scored for piano and cello and is wonderfully solemn and sad. Messiaen provides a basic metronome pulse for the 16th notes and dispenses with a time signature, using measures of various lengths. Burns used it well.
Once in the final part, Burns used the 8th and final movement ("Praise to the Immortality of Jesus") toward the end of the show. This movement is scored for piano and violin, where the piano provides slow heartbeat figures while the violin sings around them.
Good choices.
“As a classical music person, I was pleased to hear some of Burns’ choices.”
As a “dummy” when it comes to classical, I do thank you for the “liner notes”.
I’m afraid that I grew up with a country-and-western dad, fundamentalist
church-music mother, and then was possessed by rock-and-roll due
to my contemporaries.
If I see “The War” again I’ll turn up the volume a bit and pay closer
attention.
AND...
if you will indulge my ignorance on classical music, maybe you’ll
entertain a question about a current commercial.
Have you see the “Believe” commercial for the launch of “Halo 3”,
with the futuristic battle diorama, and a piano piece by Chopin?
(gad, I had to search for that info about the commercial!).
I’m not a gamer of any sort, but I find myself liking the commercial
and the music is about 70% of it for me.
Sure, it may be a bit of “prostitution” for the Chopin...but without
that commercial, I’d not have been exposed to that music.
http://blog.musicnotes.com/main/2007/09/chopin-prelude-.html
All of the Chopin preludes are worth a listen.
I believe one can watch this 14 hour series and come away with a balanced interpretation of what WWII was really all about for Americans. Am constantly searching for new books and information about the war. I think now is the time when alot more info will come out of the significance that Ultra had when it was released.
Could have done without that damn “saw blade music” however
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