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ORIGINAL: warspite1

Tin Star


Well I've given up on that... very disappointing.

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ORIGINAL: berto


After slogging through watching the full 18-hour cut of the Burns/Novick documentary The Vietnam War, I can say ...

It was fairly even handed, a bit slanted, but closer to 50-50 than to 60-40 or worse. Except for one sainted politician (no, I don't mean JFK, who got his share of criticism, albeit with punches pulled), the virtues and faults of all participants, all sides were on display. There was, inescapably, an asymmetry of treatment, because on one side you had open, free societies (with a free press, freedom to protest, etc.) and on the other totalitarian societies (with absolute control of the media, having the ability and will to incarcerate dissidents, etc.). So although the sins of one side were covered at great length in commentary, film, still pictures, and music, the faults of the other side were usually mentioned briefly, in words, in passing only. (Several North Vietnamese said they might yet get in trouble for speaking so freely about their bad stuff.) Still, those faults were mentioned, if not dwelled upon. Give the documentary makers credit for that.

(About the 10-hour international cut, I expect they left out footage and details about U.S. domestic politics, and many of the talking head commentaries.)

Unavoidably, lots of politics of course, but more air time was given to the conflict and the experiences of the ordinary fighting men and women and their leaders.

Well worth a watch. Engrossing. Highly recommended.

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ORIGINAL: berto


The politics of the documentary makers are well known. It was evident who they most closely identified with -- the war protesters. The protesters were the clear heroes here.

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ORIGINAL: berto

(About the 10-hour international cut, I expect they left out footage and details about U.S. domestic politics, and many of the talking head commentaries.)

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ORIGINAL: berto
The politics of the documentary makers are well known. It was evident who they most closely identified with -- the war protesters. The protesters were the clear heroes here.

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ORIGINAL: berto


After slogging through watching the full 18-hour cut of the Burns/Novick documentary The Vietnam War, I can say ...

It was fairly even handed, a bit slanted, but closer to 50-50 than to 60-40 or worse. Except for one sainted politician (no, I don't mean JFK, who got his share of criticism, albeit with punches pulled), the virtues and faults of all participants, all sides were on display. There was, inescapably, an asymmetry of treatment, because on one side you had open, free societies (with a free press, freedom to protest, etc.) and on the other totalitarian societies (with absolute control of the media, having the ability and will to incarcerate dissidents, etc.). So although the sins of one side were covered at great length in commentary, film, still pictures, and music, the faults of the other side were usually mentioned briefly, in words, in passing only. (Several North Vietnamese said they might yet get in trouble for speaking so freely about their bad stuff.) Still, those faults were mentioned, if not dwelled upon. Give the documentary makers credit for that.

(About the 10-hour international cut, I expect they left out footage and details about U.S. domestic politics, and many of the talking head commentaries.)

Unavoidably, lots of politics of course, but more air time was given to the conflict and the experiences of the ordinary fighting men and women and their leaders.

Well worth a watch. Engrossing. Highly recommended.

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ORIGINAL: wings7

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ORIGINAL: berto


The politics of the documentary makers are well known. It was evident who they most closely identified with -- the war protesters. The protesters were the clear heroes here.

I respectfully disagree, Ken Burns is a Centrist. I look forward to viewing it. [:)]

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ORIGINAL: Goodmongo

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ORIGINAL: wings7

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ORIGINAL: berto


The politics of the documentary makers are well known. It was evident who they most closely identified with -- the war protesters. The protesters were the clear heroes here.

I respectfully disagree, Ken Burns is a Centrist. I look forward to viewing it. [:)]

As you said you haven't watched it yet. But Berto is 100% correct. It was VERY clear who the heroes in the documentary were. Basically Burns elevated the anti-war demonstrators to the same level as the people doing the actual fighting. He even played up Kent State to be on par where they had sacrificed for the country same as the vets. I have no idea if Burns is a centrist as that term is defined differently for each and every person alive today. But the documentary does indeed elevate the anti-war folks to hero status.

One more example. The show shows Kerry's speech and basically goes to some effort to say a large number of the vet's committed atrocities. He painted the vet's with a very large brush. But when it came to the anti-war folks the show tried very hard to say it was a small faction (Weathermen and a couple other groups) that were responsible. Even the standard of violent protests (breaking windows, throwing rocks etc.) was portrayed as "the crazies" (term actually used) to separate it from the anti-war marches.

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ORIGINAL: Orm

Anyone read the Vietnam book that go along with the Burns documentary?

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ORIGINAL: Goodmongo

So I watched all of Ken Burn's Vietnam series. I give it a grade of B-. Here's why. First off I felt he covered most of the facts correctly. I think he only got things wrong on number of draftees vs. volunteers (claiming at one point the whole force in Vietnam was draftees) and being very misleading on number of blacks killed in the war. he used statistics that left out officers and prefaced it by saying "enlisted men".

The other thing he did that was unfair in my opinion is the time spent on various subjects. For example when it came to US atrocities he would spend 20-30 minutes on it but as soon as it was switched to the Weathermen or NLF atrocities there was a 1-2 minute segment that basically mention it but never got into the details he did for US stuff.

It was also clear that he sided with the war protesters point of view. He would have 3 or 4 people comment on it from the anti-war side then maybe one vet saying how badly they were treated. Or take for example the various marches on DC against the war. There would be long segments on how many people showed up etc. But then there would be 1-2 sentences on how polling viewed the data where the majority of the US population did not agree with the anti-war folks, especially their tactics.

At a B- it is worth watching. But it also does have an agenda and that is to say the anti-war folks were the "good" Americans.

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ORIGINAL: warspite1

I'm currently watching BBC's Rellik with Richard Dormer (Game of Thrones and Fortitude). This is a crime drama where we see the end - the shooting dead of a suspect by police - and then the events are played backwards in time. Never seen this concept before - but it really works!

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ORIGINAL: VPaulus

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ORIGINAL: warspite1

I'm currently watching BBC's Rellik with Richard Dormer (Game of Thrones and Fortitude). This is a crime drama where we see the end - the shooting dead of a suspect by police - and then the events are played backwards in time. Never seen this concept before - but it really works!

The backword narrative/structure was used before in at least two movies that I have seen, Memento and Irréversible.
In my opinion both are worth seeing, but Irréversible... let's say it's not a movie for everyone.

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Very useful Goodmongo. Thanks.

I'd hopes that Ken Burns' work wouldn't take the 'easy way' out and reproduce the facile modern view of the war that you describe. I'll have to investing my time and attention now.

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ORIGINAL: warspite1

I was really excited to see a poster yesterday at my train station for a film called:

The Death of Stalin

However, at the bottom of the poster was the tag line - A comedy of terrors... I assumed from that that this wasn't a serious film [:D] and sure enough it is a satire.

When I got home I checked out a trailer for it - and it looks pretty funny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukJ5dMYx2no

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ORIGINAL: warspite1

Up to the end of episode 4 of the Ken Burns documentary. As someone who knew nothing about the war, this is proving excellent to watch and learn from.

One comment that annoyed me though was the anti-war bloke who rather self-righteously proclaimed that when the middle classes got involved it was a protest about self-interest and not about the injustice of the war. Presumably he asked everyone about their motivations? [8|]