Yeah me too. As usual here's a good review by SFgate's Tim Goodman:
WWII as only Ken Burns can tell the story
Tim Goodman
Friday, September 21, 2007
"The War" is the documentary that Ken Burns didn't want to make. Despite being an enormous, almost indescribable force for change for millions of Americans, World War II had gone from rote textbook lesson to faded memory and nearly all the way to cliched background images on the History Channel, then to the anointing of "The Greatest Generation" and finally to a remarkably well-told tale in a smattering of honest big and small screen movies.
What could possibly be added? How could it be made different? Why would Burns even attempt to tell a story that can't possibly be told with the thoroughness he's embraced through the years as one of this country's greatest filmmakers?
One motivation was learning that more than 1,000 veterans die every day. A real storyteller can't hide from what those losses mean to documenting history. But all that matters is that he did make "The War." Because as it unfolds starting Sunday - roughly seven years in the making and 15 hours long - there is little doubt that this is Burns' masterpiece.
"The War" is a remarkable storytelling feat and a visceral television experience, a twinned accomplishment that, combined, does the nearly impossible - it allows the rebirth of an overly familiar story and freshens it in astounding ways.
The archival accomplishments of "The War," alone, are reason enough to watch. There are photos and film footage (black-and-white and color) viewers probably have never seen. And for even the most familiar - Normandy, for example - there is film or rare photos that add depth to memory.
Be warned that "The War" is exceptionally graphic. Mutilated bodies, floating corpses, men killed on camera - it's all there. Much of it is difficult to see, but it's essential to the documentary.
All of this visual evidence is heightened by the stunning use of sound effects that took years (and painstaking authentication) to create. "The War" can be, at times, an aural assault. But the constant pounding of artillery mixed with the sharp whizzing of bullets and swelling soundtrack make for a cinematic experience.
"The War" invigorates history - in an honest fashion. Burns succeeds precisely in the areas that looked most daunting before he started. He tells the story from the ground up, from the people who fought the war and those who waited for them at home. "The War" is less about generals and tactics and the wonky talking heads of history lessons than it is about the experiences of veterans who can say, plainly, this is what I saw, felt, experienced and took with me. This is what happened to me and the people I knew on the battlefield. Here's why I went and how I'm different for going.
Of course, their stories are the stories of our country, and storytelling has always been Burns' strongest attribute. He has culled, from more than 40 people in "The War," a panorama of emotions.
Burns and co-producer Lynn Novick have proved that there's an art to asking the right questions of people carefully selected for their ability to be informative, nuanced, smart, touching, direct and real. This can't be overstated.
One of the brilliant aspects of "The War" is how every time people open their mouths on camera, it's as if Burns coaxed a secret or a memory from them that they wouldn't have offered up anywhere else - maybe not to their own families. This isn't a regurgitation of facts or memories or battle plans, as on the History Channel. It's people whose entire life's essence was the war, though they would never have chosen it to be. And in "The War," they open up about it in ways that will have tears flowing across the country.
"I don't think there is such a thing as a good war," says Sam Hynes, a fighter pilot. "There are sometimes necessary wars. And I think one might say 'just' wars. I never questioned the necessity of that war."
All through "The War," pictures match descriptions, memory reverberates to the sound of rockets or mortars or gunfire. Virtually everyone - whether it's Daniel Inouye's heroic and bitterly ironic involvement in the war as a Japanese American fighting in the revered 442nd Regiment, or Raymond Leopold's dispassionate tale of what medics see, or Katharine Phillips' often sweet and funny stories from the home front - has something of value to add to the film.
As the hours build and the stories interweave, viewers will find favorites emerging. It's hard to beat the stark clarity of Dwain Luce from Mobile, Ala., or the clipped but evocative memories of Luverne, Minn. fighter pilot Quentin Aanenson. You can still feel the pain in Sacramento's Robert Kashiwagi as he talks about what it was like to be Japanese American on the battlefield. Sascha Weinzheimer's story of being a young girl interned in the Santo Tomas Prison Camp in the Philippines is painful at every turn; the sweetness in her youthful face seems to harden in the photograph the more you hear about her ordeal.
Two of the most memorable elements in "The War" are voice-overs - one being Luverne's Rock County Star Herald newspaper editor Al McIntosh, whose wonderfully evocative prose is brought to life by Tom Hanks. The other is the haunting words of Eugene Sledge (read by Josh Lucas), whose unauthorized journals later became a book called "With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa." Sledge may very well be the one who closest to the heart of darkness.
There's an intimacy to these stories that makes World War II and the sacrifices and atrocities and unimaginable horror of it all keenly understandable. It's as if, for the first time, the war is personal.
Part of that is achieved from the outset, by focusing on four American towns - Waterbury, Conn.; Mobile; Sacramento; and Luverne. As the film states at the onset of each segment: "The Second World War was fought in thousands of places, too many for any one accounting. This is the story of four American towns and how their citizens experienced that war."
This allows Burns to take a snapshot - but one of astounding scope - of what life was like in battle and at home. By admitting up front that it would be impossible - even in 15 hours - to precisely document every bit of minutiae, it frees Burns from logistics and lets him focus on intimacy. He also does a superb job of telling a linear story - explaining the Pacific and European theater of operations as they unfolded, without jumping madly back and forth in time. For example, there's little need to spend hours on Iwo Jima because "The War" delves deeply into Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan and Peleliu before then. As viewers, having followed the flow of battle to that point, with horrific descriptions from survivors, you know what to expect, how bad it will be.
In many ways, Burns benefits from the previous history-buff coverage of key battles. He doesn't get bogged down in them. Certainly, the level of knowledge will differ greatly in the viewing audience - probably according to generation - but many people will come away with a far better understanding of events through the intensely personal way "The War" recasts history.
That's an accomplishment not to be taken lightly. Burns has done magnificent work on a variety of topics, but "The War" is his best work yet. Emotionally, visually, sonically - the combination lends impressive depth to "The War." Though 15 hours may seem like a commitment - especially coming just ahead of the fall television season and its many entertaining goodies - "The War" almost immediately becomes like a great book that you can't put down. And, nearly inconceivably, by the end it's clear that 15 hours was not nearly enough.
