Ken Burns' The War

rugcat · Sep 22, 2007

Ken Burns' latest promises to be well worth watching, not only for WWII buffs, but for anyone who wants to understand a defining time in our history, with an impact on our society still felt today.

Here's one review by Tim Goodman of the SF Chronicle.

Shadow_Ferret · Sep 22, 2007

Nothing Ken Burns has done has interested me, but I am a huge WWII buff and plan on DVRing this one.

rugcat · Sep 22, 2007

Shadow_Ferret said:
Nothing Ken Burns has done has interested me...

I'm guessing you're not a huge jazz fan.

Shadow_Ferret · Sep 22, 2007

I love Jazz. I don't like his documentaries.

Rolling Thunder · Sep 23, 2007

It starts on my local PBS channel tonight. I plan to tape it as well.

Haggis · Sep 23, 2007

Shadow_Ferret said:
Nothing Ken Burns has done has interested me, but I am a huge WWII buff and plan on DVRing this one.

Different strokes. Everything he has done has interested me. I am so looking forward to this one.

WendyNYC · Sep 23, 2007

rugcat said:
Ken Burns' latest promises to be well worth watching, not only for WWII buffs, but for anyone who wants to understand a defining time in our history, with an impact on our society still felt today.

Here's one review by Tim Goodman of the SF Chronicle.

I love Ken Burns, especially his New York series.

I'll watch!

joyce · Sep 23, 2007

I love anything Ken Burn does and can't wait to see this.

Raiyah · Sep 24, 2007

I saw it last night. It was past midnight, and I had to get up early for classes, so off to bed I was. It was awesome, nonetheless. Hopefully they'll have more re-runs.

I liked the idea of bringing perspectives on the war from different parts of the country as oppossed to jumping back and forth with random people. This way you became attached to the people and their stories, therefore making the idea of war very personal.

Rolling Thunder · Sep 24, 2007

I actually became bored after the first half hour. I thought the back story was too much. If he would have started out in one of the attack sequences it would have been more powerful once I started to get to know the people involved better. I'll keep watching though.

Maryn · Sep 26, 2007

I'm still watching it.

On the first night, it was evident that the Hispanic segment was shoddily tacked on. I think if you want to appease those complaining of omission, you should incorporate their segment, even if it means serious re-editing.

One of the things I'm enjoying is how much real footage they've got, including some German and Japanese film.

Although I'm not a WWII buff nor a Ken Burns buff, I'm finding this interesting enough to stick with it (don't worry, I taped "House") and have learned a bit that I didn't know, too.

SPOILER
And I cried when we learned Babe had died 8 days before his 21st birthday, even though I suspected he hadn't made it, since he wasn't on screen commenting. END SPOILER

Maryn, glued to the tube as usual

Will Lavender · Sep 26, 2007

Anyone else miss David McCullough?

Like Maryn, I am in awe of all the footage they have. And Burns is one of the finest filmmakers we have. But I'm not into this as much (granted, I haven't seen it all but have it locked and loaded on Tivo; my three-year-old, strangely, doesn't care for documentaries) as I was Baseball and the flat-out tremendous The Civil War.

talkwrite · Sep 26, 2007

I am loving it. I studied WWII in college but never got this much information. The suffering is unnerving.
I want to know the name of the narrator. That guy's got talent- and a lot of good work, I hear him all the time. I also want to know was the footage filmed by the military officially yet not released publicly at the time? I'd like to know how Burns got it.
Burns is on a speaking tour and is scheduled to come to my town already.

avalancheof1977 · Sep 26, 2007

Keith David is the narrator.
http://www.pbs.org/thewar/about_production_credits.htm

rugcat · Oct 3, 2007

I watched the whole series. (Which played hell with my writing schedule.)

Profoundly moving, astonishing in scope, the best thing I've ever seen on WWII and one of the best things I've ever seen period.

Haggis · Oct 3, 2007

Hoping for more reruns. I missed way too much of it.

Shadow_Ferret · Oct 3, 2007

Rllgthunder said:
I actually became bored after the first half hour. I thought the back story was too much.

I became bored after the first half hour too, deleted the recording and stopped any future recording of it.

rugcat · Oct 3, 2007

Shadow_Ferret said:
I became bored after the first half hour too, deleted the recording and stopped any future recording of it.

That does not surprise me.

Will Lavender · Oct 3, 2007

Haggis said:
Hoping for more reruns. I missed way too much of it.

PBS will surely rerun it. IIRC, they ran The Civil War repeatedly in the months after it first aired.

Ol' Fashioned Girl · Oct 3, 2007

Incredible presentation. Hard to watch. Hard to turn away. I can only imagine in my nightmares how bad it must have been to live through it... or lose someone during it. Not quite as good as 'The Civil War', but I loved Shelby Foote.

Haggis · Oct 3, 2007

Ol' Fashioned Girl said:
Incredible presentation. Hard to watch. Hard to turn away. I can only imagine in my nightmares how bad it must have been to live through it... or lose someone during it. Not quite as good as 'The Civil War', but I loved Shelby Foote.

Absolutely agree. I loved listening to Shelby Foote. And what a great writer.

Oh. And OFG? I've got a Shelby Foote beard. Just in case you ever decide to dump old guy.

Ol' Fashioned Girl · Oct 4, 2007

Haggis said:
Absolutely agree. I loved listening to Shelby Foote. And what a great writer.

Oh. And OFG? I've got a Shelby Foote beard. Just in case you ever decide to dump old guy.

I saw that in your profile pic a few days ago... hubba hubba!

I'll put you on the list of volunteers.

joyce · Oct 4, 2007

Ol' Fashioned Girl said:
Incredible presentation. Hard to watch. Hard to turn away. I can only imagine in my nightmares how bad it must have been to live through it... or lose someone during it. Not quite as good as 'The Civil War', but I loved Shelby Foote.

I agree. I enjoyed the presentation and thought Ken Burns did another great job. I also loved Shelby Foote and The Civil War, but then I've always been partial to history and the Civil War.

Mike Martyn · Oct 5, 2007

I enjoyed the Civil war series but the current documentry has a much more personal meaning for me. I was born in 1951 and the war had been over for just six years. There was still rationing.

As a little boy, Iwould sneak to the top of the stairs and listen to the talk when my parents had friends over. After a few beer, talk would turn to the war but none of them ever talked about what they did in the war

Instead, it was always "What every happened to so and so. I've never forgotten the answers I heard.

"He died in the battle of the Bulge."

"He died at the siege of Hong Kong."

"He died in the Philopines."

"His bomber never came back from a night misson over Berlin. Might have crashed in the channel."

"She was a nurse in Hong Kong and you know what those bastards did to women."

And on and on it went.

My father was an air raid warren and so he had a pistol. He and my mother had a suicide pact in case the Japanese attacked.

One night the air raid siren sounded and my father loaded the pistol and got ready but it was just a false alarm.

Believe it or not, in my family that was considered a humerous story.

Stew21 · Oct 5, 2007

I watched the second part and a little of the third part. I'm hoping to get lucky and catch the rest of it. Ive really enjoyed it.

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