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I don't want to let any time go by without posting that this masterpiece is easily Ken Burns'finest effort to date. Incredibly moving (I shed more than one tear) and I learned a great deal. Although I have all seven episodes in hi def on my DVR, I am expecting the DVD box any day. If you missed this be sure to catch it when it is rerun.
Follow Ups:
I can understand that zooming and panning on a still pic might be appropriate for THE CIVIL WAR but here we are clearly in the motion picture era and tons of footage was shot. I'm certain that tracking it all down was no meager feat. It's weakest production value was it's choice of music which it seemed to go back to again and again and there was no fresh approach. There was certainly enough recorded back then by many Hollywood and Radio personalities. I'm sure it wasn't easy to find people who survived combat who were still alive and willing to candidly talk about the experience. This I felt was it's strongest value but certainly not on par with John Huston's LET THERE BE LIGHT. But it was certainly refreshing compared to the commercial fare of so called "reality" television. I thought THE CIVIL WAR was vastly better conceived. I wanted to hear someone like Shelby Foote.
One of the American veterans of the European Campaign interviewed for "The War" told this story:When the allies took a bunch of prisoners in Europe towards the end of the war, one of the German prisoners, a 24-year old, looked at the American directly and asked in perfect English, "Where are you from?" The American, a bit taken aback by the perfect English, replied, "America." "What part?" the young German persisted. "The Northeast part, the American told him. "What part of the Northeast?" "Connecticut," the American told him. "What city in Connecticut?" "Waterbury." "Where the two rivers meet (the German named the two rivers)?" "How did you know that!!?" the American demanded, shocked that the 24-year old German could have known so much about Waterbury, one of the rivers so small you could jump across it. "I was training to be the Administrator after the war," the young German told him.
the first night I fell asleep, but wrote that off as being tired from a long day and was mad that I missed it. After a few attempts and the same result I concluded that it's boring. The footage is tremendous but does seem at times forced or slightly inaccurate with the narrative. The interviews are heartfelt and moving, but some variety would ease the boredom. (That's not a critique of the interviewed, only the production)
In short the BBC's "World At War" does a better with the interviews and is a much more compelling documentary.
Baba-Booey to you all!
The talk from the same people over and over is boring. There doesn't seem to be any development of the situation (you just sort of end up at a battle). There's no connect-the-dots theme going on. The documentary film used doesn't seem to fit all the time. It's interesting to watch but seems a little out of place at times. And the "sound-over" (especially the machine gun fire and airplanes) seems a little over produced. I enjoyed "The Civil War", "Jazz" and "Baseball", much more. It still beats anything else on TV right now though.
s
It started out great. Got me hooked. I'm not up on World War II history so I learned a lot. But it got extremely annoying. The emphasis on 4 American towns seems OK, until you hear their names repeated for about the 100th time. The music seemed OK at first, but the (Edgar Meyer?) sad cello was repeated to death as well. The footage was impressive, these guys have the money and connections to dig up old footage. For that reason alone, it was worth the time. But I would not sit through it again.
I disagree. I think it was smaltzy, overloaded with hometown trivia, but mostly just boring and droning. It had none of the punch or grace of "The Civil War". It certainly had some excellent segments and told of courage, but overall as a multi-hour documentary product, it was flat, relied on too much recycled material seen too many times. And it had the most distractingly bad music/soundtrack I think I've ever heard. Burns' TCW was superb but his recipe demands fresh ingredients and doesn't work with stale, canned stuff. The final episode last night was by far the best.
Don't taze me Bro!!
zx
then I realized it was YoYo Ma torturing his cello. Typical Ken Burns tinkling pianos as well. IMO the period music works for obvious reasons but the rest is quite forgettable.
The program itself re-hashes some familiar territory and is schmaltzy to say the least, there was some new footage which was interesting. I could watch 'The Civil War' several times over with nary a thought to boredom but this latest Burns effort just doesn't cut it IMO.
J.B.
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Don't taze me Bro!!
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