During wartime, films should be patriotic and show glorious death, like those John Wayne made during WWII (examples, Flying Tigers, Shores of Iowa Jima), and not show death and destruction, like I’m sure this Ken Burns film will. (I saw his Civil War program.)
During WWII John Huston, the film director, made for the army (he was in the military then) a film called The Battle of San Pietro. This was a documentary made on the spot as US forces captured an Italian town from the Germans.
The idea was to film combat as it really is with all the death and heartbreak to show it to troops in order to help perpare them for the experience before going into combat. When the army brass screened the film, their reaction was that it was too graphic. If they showed it to the troops, they’d resist going into combat, and the brass banned the film. After the war, a censored version was released.
That’s why I suspect showing Ken Burns The War at this time might, in part, be due to anti-war liberals’ desire to break America’s will to continue with the Iraq War until victory is achieved.
Doesn’t anyone think it’s suspicious that liberal PBS is screening this WWII program when we are in the midst of a war?
Ken Burns makes buckets and buckets of money for PBS. They’ll show anything he makes as soon as its ready.
Adam Buckman is a pretty conservative reviewer, so I think he would be sensitive to ulterior motives in this presentation.
War is violent. War is about killing people or being killed. I don’t think there’s anybody who doesn’t know that already. I don’t see any pacifist agenda in honoring those who step up to the ugly business when it becomes necessary.
This film has been under production since 2001. It is scheduled to run now because it is finished.
I just finished reading the book that has been released to coincide with the film’s release. It is powerful and gripping. I can’t wait to see the film.
No, I don’t think war films should show “patriotic and heroic” death. Going to war requires patriotism and some reasonable degree of heroism, but death is never anything but awful. That’s why we should never, ever go to war unless we are certain we have no other choice and we exert whatever energy and resources are required to win with the least possible loss of life.
World War II was a truly brutal experience for those who fought it. My Dad was a navigator on a B-17 flying out of southern England in 1944-45. He had a horrible scar on his forehead from a wound he received and I am named after his co-pilot who got his badly shot up airplane back to England after the pilot was killed and my Dad and half the crew were wounded. I never, ever heard my Dad utter a word about his combat experiences other than to explain to me how I got my name when I was 8 years old.
We are going to be lucky enough to hear some of those stories from men like my dad beginning Sunday. If it is as good as the book has been, it will be great.
He sure knew how to make you want to run up that hill behind him.
I think one of my cousins got the Duke's autograph on his bib overalls during the shooting of the movie near Dubuque.