SummaryKen Burns and Lynn Novick returns with a 10-part, 18-hour miniseries about the war features interviews, archival footage, home movies, photos, and audio clips.
SummaryKen Burns and Lynn Novick returns with a 10-part, 18-hour miniseries about the war features interviews, archival footage, home movies, photos, and audio clips.
All of it folds together into an immersive and wrenching creation that left me genuinely curious as to whether viewers will have the stamina to spend several nights in a row with the series. Certainly watching The Vietnam War is one of the most worthwhile ways to spend time with your television this fall. Just as certainly, committing to doing so will wear a person out.
Brilliantly told doco from both sides, on the political, social, and ethical tolls this war took on the USA and Vietnam.
Ken Burns proves why he's a legend of his genre (again) with this compelling doco.
Watching this, my threshold 'metrics' to determine if it's ever worth fighting in a foreign conflict are:
- if your political/business elite aren't firstly prepared to sacrifice their children - DON'T
- if your fighting to protect a political ideology and not to protect fundamental universal human rights - DON'T
- If it is a civilian conflict - DON'T
If, after WWII, the U.S. had enshrined a similar core set of enduring 'metrics' to guide it's foreign interventions, I wonder how many of it's wars were truly worth fighting.
Hour for hour, it’s one of the best things I’ve seen on TV this year--but because it frequently comes so close to becoming not just impressive but important, challenging, even agenda-setting. But it never quite pushes itself over that line.
But for all the documentary's merits, it does its best work in ferreting out the bite-size experiences of the grunts, not just the ones in uniform but the CIA officers, junior diplomats, peasant farmer and family members back home—the people didn't make policy but were whipsawed by it. Their stories are poignant, confusing, heartbreaking, maddening, blackly funny, or cryptic, often all at once.
While not quite a documentary war of attrition, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War stretches over 10 nights and 18 hours, and even though you feel that length at every turn, the series is meant to wear you down. And yet it's impossible to look away.
The strength of The Vietnam War comes from these 80-odd interviewees, who offer a glimpse into the psyches of people on all sides of the conflict--from reluctant American draftees to enthusiastic North Vietnamese recruits. ... At times, the length of The Vietnam War detracts from its appeal. Even with the headings, it can be hard to keep the years and offensives straight.
I recommend everyone with a shred of ethics, decency and heart to watch this series. There are so many shows, books, movies and opinions about Vietnam out there, it's easy to get caught up in the least important aspects of the war, who won, who made bad decisions, what to do differently....What this documentary does is bring the events of this war back to the lives of the people who were there. The personal stories of life in war that doesn't give a damn about politics only the struggle to survive and retain some semblance of humanity. It's something we should not and cannot forget.
This is a masterpiece of storytelling, from all sides. I am a student of war. But this is the first time that I can actually feel the stupidity of it all. Thousands of Americans, and millions of Vietnamese died because a few politicians wanted to save face. What a totally, complete waste of money, resources and lives. Maybe this great documentary will help remind the people in charge that there is, absolutely, nothing worst than war.
The Vietnam War was a very expansive documentary that taught me everything there is to know. A truly great film both in scope and in length. Ken Burns 4 life bb.
I am a Vietnamese refugee, coming over in 1975. I've recently devoted my husband's and my time and efforts to honoring the Vietnam vets in our area.
This was the 1st time we had seen any documentary by Ken Burns, and it was obvious why he’s so revered, since he is a masterful storyteller. The series had been advertised as one that would show all sides of the war. We were really looking forward to a documentary that would be fair to all sides. This is where things went wrong, because our expectations were in one place, and the reality of the series was in a very different place. That space in between is where our disappointment lay.
Generally speaking, the series started off with romanticizing Ho Chi Minh, nearly canonizing him, when this was far from the truth of the type of man he was. The Communist fighters were also exalted, while the US and ARVN military units were made to look like bumbling fools most of the time. Our takeaway from the series was that the creators felt there shouldn’t have been any US interference in Vietnam, that HCM just wanted to liberate and unify his beloved country, and that US involvement just resulted in lots of unnecessary deaths overseas and strife at home. What the series didn’t say, however, is that HCM wanted to unify Vietnam, but under his control (or Communist control), and didn’t care if he killed every last Vietnamese person doing it.
After many frustrating hours of watching episodes 1 through 9, we also had high hopes for the series to wrap up on an intense note for episode 10. Unfortunately, we didn’t even get that from the final episode. We compared it to a recent unsatisfactory meal, where we had eaten a bowl of rice that had no flavor to it, that made us feel really full, but not satiated, so therefore, empty, at the same time.
In spite of this, we are very grateful for this series generating more awareness about the war and about the mistreatment of its veterans during and afterwards. This has allowed many good conversations to be had, and we hope they continue.
Une série trop longue (9 épisodes d’une cinquantaine de minutes) et beaucoup trop bavarde pour réellement convaincre ; en matière de documentaire, c’est assez rédhibitoire ! Ainsi, bien des longueurs et des répétitions entraînent un étonnant ennui de la part d’un conflit qui a connu les rebondissements les plus invraisemblables et les plus palpitants qui soient … quelle ironie d’en avoir fait un truc aussi ramolli !
C’est très scolaire d’un bout à l’autre et ça manque de neutralité ici et là ; les interviews des rescapés et/ou intervenants sont souvent maladroites ; les images d’archives sont souvent décevantes et déjà vues et revues ; la plupart du temps, la série ne fait que se perdre d’une part dans le psycho-dépressif et d’autre part dans son agenda très chargé de justice sociale à la Caliméro, clairement pro-communiste.
Heureusement, il reste la clarté de l’ensemble et son aspect didactique assez efficace (c’est scolaire…) et un dernier épisode en forme d’épilogue qui semble (enfin !) maîtriser son sujet. Mais trop peu, trop **** en somme pour une série qui s’est enlisée, elle aussi, dans le bourbier des Viets et de la propagande d’extrême-gauche.