Ken Burns: The War

[WSR]

I've been looking forward to this documentary for quite some time, and it finally airs tonight on PBS. It is a seven part series that covers WWII. Here is the link if you want to check it out: http://www.pbs.org/thewar/

[EagleFan]

Thank you.

[sterlingice]

I'm not really a history or war buff so I'm probably not going to check it out, but I figured there'd be more love for it on the board.

SI

[Radii]

Awesome, thanks for the heads up, the DVR is ready to go!

[StarBuck]

I watched it, and thought it was very good. I'll defo tune in for the other part. The plight of the Japanese Americans being forced from their homes had me in tears. Homes, businesses, everything taken from them.It's hard to believe that actually happened. I heard stories about how many of them chose to kill their pets before leaving because they did not want to just turn them loose and suffer or starve on the streets. Can you imagine that happening to your family?The images and the stories from the war vets put me in a somber mood.Very poignant moments. Here in NJ it continued with New York war stories, which had many of the people who were in the Ken Burn's film.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by StarBuck

The plight of the Japanese Americans being forced from their homes had me in tears. Homes, businesses, everything taken from them.It's hard to believe that actually happened. I heard stories about how many of them chose to kill their pets before leaving because they did not want to just turn them loose and suffer or starve on the streets. Can you imagine that happening to your family?

Didn't catch this show earlier, sounds good. Ever since a HS con law class where I was picked to represent the US gov't vs. Korematsu I've found this topic fascinating. Clearly given today's sensibilities it would never fly, but given the potential for espionage there was a fairly legitimate rationale at the time behind the internment - or more accurately "exclusion zones" with most west coast Japanese choosing the camps. Maybe I was just grasping at straws/semantics, but technically we never forced people into the campsz, and arguing that did bring up some interesting Con Law questions.

[Radii]

I DVR'd this at the time but its so rare that i find 3 hour stretches to watch TV I have only today finished the entire series. I never studied World War II in depth in any history class(the term/year always ended long before we got that far in general history classes and I never took a 20th century or WWII class specifically), so this was an amazing history lesson for me. I knew the names of many of the battles and of many of the key islands in the Pacific, but the timeline was a big mess so from a general history perspective it was extremely valuable.

Additionally, the storytelling was simply amazing. The collection of individuals they used to tell the stories from each battle were just perfect. The human touch put on the events were just right. The beginning and the end of each episode always contained extremely emotional and perfectly poignant stories, I found myself moved to tears probably 5 or 6 times during each "part".

They didn't over-politicize anything I don't think, including the dropping of the Atomic bombs. Three or four of the individuals that were interviewed heavily for the documentary, including one American Jewish man, came upon concentration camps in Germany on the way to Berlin. Watching these veterans describe(or in some cases refuse to go into detail) the things they saw and their feelings as they saw first hand what was happening inside Germany is probably the most compelling, heart wrenching thing I've ever seen .

Anyway, netflix, find a rerun on PBS, buy it, whatever, its extrodinarily long, and it took me about 2 months to make the time to find the time to watch all of it, but it was absolutely time well spent.

[Flasch186]

For Chanukkah my parents got me a box set of 60 hours worth of film and documentary from WWII....i dont think it's this one though.

[Galaril]

Yeah, I agree this like all Burns stuff was very, very good. I never saw the baseball one he did but heard it was very good as well.

[path12]

Originally Posted by Galaril

Yeah, I agree this like all Burns stuff was very, very good. I never saw the baseball one he did but heard it was very good as well.

The baseball one was awesome. You need to find the episode about the Negro Leagues. One of the very best things I have ever watched, and Buck O'Neil is just a treat.

[Flasch186]

apparently mine is all from national archive footage, while cool, it is very very dated. Its kinda like watching hour long versions of those news episodes that would show before movies in the old days with the trumpets playing the whole time.

[SunDevil]

Ken Burns also did a movie on the Civil War. It was awesome. It should be a requirement that all Americans watch that as the civil only happened a 150 years ago, and we as a nation have a lot to remember and learn from that tragic and bloody war between Americans.

[gottimd]

I keep on catching the same episodes on PBS. I am tempted to rent them from Blockbuster, but overall, very well done and highly recommended for a war buff.