Ken Burns' new documentary: The Vietnam War

I'm watching this right now with my son. It's incredible. The footage is so good, which is not surprising considering the access the media had with the troops in the field. All wars should be covered like this. The lunacy of it all is on full disturbing display.

 

Nowadays embedded media are jingoistic cheerleaders.

 

and what they see is tightly controlled

 

the Battlefield Vietnam series is excellent if you're mainly interested in the military strategy, much better than the Burns or PBS series imo.

 

Two things bug me about the series which I just picked up on DVD; Peter Coyote's narration and the flash forwarding to reactions of soldiers in situations happening 10 to 15 years from the point of the narrative. Coyote's delivery is flat, insolent and inflexible. For a conflict as nuanced - even bewildering - as the Vietnam War a more subtle approach would seem to be the better fit. The one-note-Johnny effect simply doesn't work here. The flash forwarding to first hand accounts in the field are disjointing and insulting - as if the viewer needed recurrent sensation due to a deficiency in following the chronological narrative. I realize this is still television but Burns hasn't resorted to this kind of thing in previous films. Then again, he wasn't the primary director on the series. It shows. Luckily, there's far less of it in Episode 2.

The footage, as others gave noted, is exceptional.

 

Thanks.

 

The series does improve in focus, momentum, analysis and Coyote manages to modulate his delivery to a great extent. At episode 6 I'm actually more intrigued than I was at the outset of the series. Not sure if the Moogie storyline personalizes the impression of the war in the manner that the creators intended but there's no denying the impact of his story in relation to the thousands of 19 years old who shared similar fates.

 

I agree. The series gains momentum and impact as it moves along.

 

Excellent series.I'm at the end of episode 6 right now.

 

Not so much in Iraq, as I recall...

 

Im getting the idea that this is a pretty good series as far as factual?

If any of you guys have time, can you look at this thread I started?

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thre...on-the-vietnam-conflict.795691/#post-20225533

 

I think I'll make a doc called 'Ken Burns'. Lots of still images of Ken, some sepia toned. A narrator gravely intoning a series of declarative sentences. Interviews with experts slightly or mostly (or completely !) in favor of Ken. Though some do point out that though he is impish looking "he is never mischiveous". Of course the controversy of Ken vaccuming up 74% of all money available for documentaries is 'addressed' by pointing out that PBS's governance "looks" at other documentarians, but none can point a camera at a still image like Ken, or have the nerve to conflate a documentary about an issue or a sport or a music genre into the ostensible final word. The issue of why someone as wealthy as him can't get a decent haircut is never explored.

Can be used to effectively inspire the diminishing remnant of PBS' audience to 'support' the American BBC Import Service, I mean PBS. Soundtrack available with a tote bag for a 'donation of only $250.00

 

I notice he's working on this now.
Muhammad Ali (TV Movie documentary) (executive producer) (filming)

 

Does that include the 3-hour "Making Of Ken Burns" feature narrated by Charlie Rose? If so I'm in!

 

Please PM me the GoFundMe or Patreon details.

 

Like others, I appreciated the long perspective, taking into account the pre-US years. However, there's still a question that was left unanswered for me about that early period. Why were the French so adamant in holding on to Vietnam as a colony? Other former colonies were granted their independence in the wake of WWII (e.g. India, Pakistan), and even if they had let go of Vietnam, France would still have had its colonies in North and West Africa to fall back on. Why was Vietnam so important to them, that they would fight a war for almost a decade to keep it? Were there any particular natural resources there, or did it have to do with geopolitics?

 

Could it have been rubber? Or smarting after appeasement in World War II?

 

Really? Why?

HBO's recent What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali - with footage of most of his fights, including fascinating stuff from his early career, is excellent.

 

One word: Michelin.

 

So... rubber?

 

Just finished watchin it on Netflix. One of the best war documentaries. Not only shows the facts of war, but also how people being lied to from the very top. Would be very educational for naïve folks who think things have changed and lessons learned.