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First, I should say that I am not an automatic fan of Ken Burns' work, feeling that his "JAZZ" is seriously flawed, with its heavy reliance on Stanley Crouch and Wynton Marsalis and their idiosyncratic and parochial view of the music and its history, not to mention the passing over of some major figures, such as Bill Evans (who influenced countless pianists) and major movements in jazz, such as Fusion, electric jazz, and the New Thing in the sixties. Having said that, I am rewatching "The War" on DVR and finding it still as moving, both intellectually and emotionally, as I did when I originally posted positive commentary here. I was frankly astounded at the cynical comments my original post evoked. I now think more than ever that it is a masterpiece. The balance between the "big picture" and the experience of the four towns and their residents (something the films make clear at the beginning of each episode), the two conflict theaters, and the fighting and the home front experiences is beautifully achieved. The music is just great, and the repetition is hardly as annoying as the constant use of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" was in Burns' "Baseball". Is there too much cynicism here, sdomething I have suspected before? We are just amateurs, he is a professional and he's done a great job here and I'm not ashamed to say that some sequences brought tears to my eyes. I can't wait for the DVD box I ordered from Amazon at a great savings over the PBS price.
Follow Ups:
I shared my original post and the first three responses below with my best friend and he responded thusly (used by permission):
Yeah, OK.
So the narrator mispronounced 2 German names. So they don't like "The Death of Falstaff" as a theme. He didn't go back over the "Why" of Hitler? What? This has never been covered? It needs to be flogged yet again?
For many years we've been hearing about how many WWII vets die each day in the US. Think about how many of their sisters, brothers, friends are dying without telling their stories.
Think about the standard-issue war history that barely mentions the utter incompetence of our generals at Anzio and at other places, bogging down our men and getting them unnecessarily killed. I didn't know about those facts, or if I did, I didn't know any of the details.
Was I interested in the Minnesota newsman's essays? In the reactions of the soldiers and family members in Alabama? Did it pain me to look at Waterbury and what it went through? Absolutely. I found those stories riveting. What about the man who decided, finally, to write a letter describing what it was really like in his war, then never sent it? He held on to it and read it to us, and it was a superb piece of work - or two superb pieces of work, one his, the other the filmmaker's.
I'm sorry, but the "I'm so bored by everything"/"I've seen better"/"I've made better" attitude, so self-referential, so world-weary and so preciously private, is of no value. The attitude of dismissiveness of these people is just silly.
Oh, and by the way, R. Hughes - the words are unconscionable and unthinkable. Un-contionable? What the hell is that?
Ed
Silly me; forming an opinion. Fifteen hours total, wasn't it? I guess it just seems like fourteen of them were about the old broad from Mobile, and accompanied by the wailings of dieing or horny cats.
Don't taze me Bro!!
Your friend sounds like a schmuck with no patience for people who don't agree with him.
Used by permission...
m not going to defend him or his opinions but because he disagrees with YOU you call him a schmuck? None of HIS comments were ad hominen.
...your friend's note was dripping with attitude and condescension. The other reply also indicates this. I wasn't responding to his opinion about the film, but rather to his suggestion that anyone with the temerity to criticize the film is being "bored by everything," "dismissive" and "preciously private" (whatever the heck that means).
Elliot Berlin
...and there's a lot about it I don't like (along with his other films). Most of my professional friends have major issues with the way Burns makes films. He is overly controlled and controlling of his material, which is one way of understanding the way he imposed limitations in subject matter and perspective in Jazz by focusing the major commentators to experts of a very limited and specific point of view (as commented by someone else). When you think about the variety of perspectives that exist on jazz the idea that he limited himself that way is positively indefensible. His work and style is also endlessly repetitive.You can try and convince yourself it's just professional jealousy but that ain't it!
eb
when he will be doing Part Two of The History of Jazz, for the rest of us.
Rod
So well put. Made me laugh.
...with his misguided, "definitive" treatments, is that it can partly preempt the ability of other filmmakers to get funding in similar subject areas. The widely held, false idea that Burns had created a definitive jazz documentary history can only make it harder for others, with deeper understanding and more nuanced approaches, to get funding and support for additional projects on the subject. And it's hard to get funding for jazz films to begin with.
If anything, its fallen lower. It had some moving segments, but that's also its failing. Unlike "The Civil War" which was an entirely powerful experience, "The War" provides a few occasional powerful moments in hours of sentimentality and lifeless narration. I just wish I could remember them. After a week, the Grinning Old Woman from Mobile is my biggest recollection, and that doesn't say much for a series on WWII.I've also realized that Burns and his music directors really missed a unique opportunity to put the familiar ballads of the era in their true context of wartime dread and heartbreakingly long separations. Instead, they went for the cliche of 40s jazz, not helped by that too-repetitive, appalling instrumental moaning that so many found a major distraction. Burns spent so much time on the talk show circuit pumping the series because he knew it needed pumping.
Don't taze me Bro!!
The narrator (?same one Burns used in "Jazz") butchers many of the German names.
Two examples--Dönitz becomes Donitz (no attempt to pronounce the Umlaut)
Torgau an der Elbe (where the Russian and American armies meet at the end of the war)--the final syllable of "Elbe" is dropped. No one, not even the parochial British, pronounces it this way.
I realize that the narrative is "filtered" through American eyes and ears somewhat, but couldn't Burns have picked somebody who has a little familiarity with these names? The guy has obviously never seen these names before in his life, or at least had to pronounce them.
I am a professional film maker. I've always worked with producing documentaries and teaching films for science and medicine and some of my stuff I couldn't show you unless I gave you an air sick bag. I greatly looked forward to seeing Ken Burns latest offering but I was sadly disappointed. It seems we get so few and fewer of these QUALITY shows as the years progress and as public and educational broadcasting gets to go begging for money. Considering the time and money he spent on it, I believe the final effect should have been much more satisfying than it was. But this is my opinion. I thought his choice of narrator and choice of music left much to be desired. But overall it was a monumental feat and certainly is worthy of a view. It just doesn't strike me as effectual as many earlier offerings about the war and the Holocaust such as Alan Resnais; NIGHT & FOG. It was long! A weeks worth of 2 hour per night installments is a little too intensive. I thought it certainly not up the the quality of earlier Burns offerings; FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, HUEY LONG,THE CIVIL WAR, ETC.
One man, Adolph Hitler, caused this much suffering in the world. WHY? A Christian nation, largely Lutheran and Catholic, clearly in the wrong, running amok in aggression and racial cleansing. WHY? How could thinking people allow such a person to come to power? Obviously they were deceived. But the outcome of this deceit was truly un-contionable and un-thinkable. Yet, the German people rationalized it, even to the end. WHY? Burns only told the way it was through the eyes of the soldier and common citizens in the US which it affected. And I suppose that's OK. The USA took care of business! It just seems in the interest of humanity that we can't let such a thing ever happen again.
I've also studied journalism and the documentary film in depth and have even taught university level courses in the subject. We certainly need more film-makers like Burns, but more especially when you think about it looking back at 1980s, we could be treated to a cornucopia of fine offerings in any week on PBS; Carl Sagan's COSMOS, THE SCARLET LETTER. PBS is just not producing like they once did here in the USA and most of the material being aired now is more than ten years old and has been bought from the British. The British do a fine job but Ken Burns is the only American film maker making historical films that I see on PBS. I'm sure it's a matter of MONEY and it really shows. I, for one, am hard pressed to find anything on the tube to watch or show an interest in. The quality of American broadcasting is in decline. The major networks can produce one of these "reality" abominations much cheaper that hiring a production company to produce a show like FRAZIER. But it's interesting to note that the No.1 comedy program on TV is a show similar to FRAZIER; TWO AND A HALF MEN.
And it's good film making to that end.
It's not his best work... Or is it?
Like "The Civil War", it's a view of conflict through an American lens.
On that level, I found it very engaging.
I did find the narration and music to be lacking or, somehow, inappropriate at times.
Nicely assembled, and some INCREDIBLE footage.
SF
NT
Too bad "The Civil War" is faulty history. Generally IME the more someone knows about the War of the Rebellion the less they care for Burns' work.
I'm not talking nutbag neo-Con stuff either but things like Burns totally missing the importance of the western theater of the war. The importanr war wasn't between the New York and Virginia, it was between Illinois and Tennessee.
Burns never intended that TCW be a definitive Civil War history lesson. It is was masterful, captivating documentary vehicle that put a generation in touch with critical but overlooked time in their nation's history and motivated millions to study it more deeply. For that, Burns will always have my gratitude. There are only a handful of TV events that have had the impact of TCW.
Don't taze me Bro!!
Assuming of course that anyone alive today can connect with and translate the vibe of that conflict.
I don't really consider his work Documentaries in the usual sense, more like long winded features or series.
For some reason 'The Civil War' really put the hook in me and created a mood that was hard to dispel.
J.B.
it's difficult to do justice to such huge subjects; but we saw the Civil War through the eyes of the people who were there, from frontline nurses to eccentric Generals, private soldiers writing letters home with some great photography + music which seemed consistently relevant to the themes he presented
If Burns Civil War was formulaic, it was a very workable + enjoyable formula
Grins
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