[Peace-discuss] "The War" by Ken Burns

[John W.]

I've just recently read two anti-war novels written many years ago: Johnny 
Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, and All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich 
Remarque.  They too are failures, unfortunately, because they also don't 
delve deeply into exquisitely detailed historical and political analysis, 
but merely present the human effect of war.  It's appalling, really, that 
so many authors and filmmakers don't recognize the obvious necessity of 
proper, correct political analysis.

John Wason



At 01:45 PM 10/5/2007, you wrote:

>[Burns' account of WWII appears to bear as much relation to the facts as 
>TV sitcoms usually do to family life.  Here's a typical critique.  For a 
>partial corrective, see 
><http://www.chomsky.info/articles/196709--.htm>  "On the Backgrounds of 
>the Pacific War: The Revolutionary Pacifism of A.J. Muste."  --CGE]
>
>         Critique, "The War" by Ken Burns
>
>Don't know how many readers here spent 14 hours over the past couple of 
>weeks watching the PBS documentary on World War II by Ken Burns.  I think 
>I have now seen it all -- given our local TV's rebroadcasts, I think I 
>have pieced in the parts I missed initially.  I expected so much more, and 
>I feel deeply disappointed.
>
>I have three big objections.  The First is the decision before the 
>documentary was really made to avoid or eliminate any discussion of both 
>politics, political leadership, and strategy and the makers of strategy 
>which would be the military leadership.  For the most part the documentary 
>managed this, which contributes to it's failure.  Without a political 
>framework virtually none of the combat makes all that much sense.  For it 
>is persons in power through political means that have the ability to 
>attack this today, and something else tomorrow -- and there is no way to 
>comprehend a war without the element of who was in power, and who had the 
>political means to direct combat.  Ken Burns lost this one before he began 
>if he made that decision early on.  (Does one think one eventually will be 
>able to do the History of the Iraq war without really comprehending the 
>nature of the Bush Administration?)
>
>This Documentary was advertised as about the impact of the War on various 
>local communities -- Luverne Minnesota, Waterbury Conn. Sacramento Calif, 
>and Mobile Alabama.  What did we really learn about these 
>communities?  Well, they all were letter writers, and they followed the 
>news and they collected scrap metal -- but we learned little 
>else.  Minnesota Public Radio talked with some of the Luverne Witnesses, 
>and they were disappointed that Burns had not included their community 
>canning operation.  They actually replaced commercial canned commodities 
>with their efforts.  Corn, Beans, Beets, Peas, Tomatoes, Potatoes, 
>Carrots, -- they canned it all, and exchanged with other communities who 
>could do peaches and cherries further south, and they were proud of this 
>accomplishment.  It got left out.  If the Documentary was to be about the 
>Home Front -- this was a huge part of it, and they apparently are upset 
>that it was dropped from the film.
>
>Third, in line with the promise that the Documentary was to be about the 
>home front, I expected it to include much more about sociological 
>change.  The Documentary went out of it's way to avoid this.  Part of this 
>is the timeline used in the film.  The Period for the war begins with 
>Surprise Pearl Harbor, and ends with the surrender of Japan, the 
>implications of change did not become apparent in this timeline. Not only 
>does this avoid all the politics, and the process by which Americans moved 
>toward war from let's say their position at the time of the fall of France 
>in June, 1940, or the Nazi Attack on the Soviet Union in June, 1941, to 
>the position of probable support (by 66%) for war in October, 1941, (last 
>poll before Pearl Harbor), it totally avoids discussion of the dynamics of 
>that change.
>
>Otherwise, I object to Ken Burns periodization.  For the vast majority of 
>the combatents and the victims, the war began in 1939 -- but Burns sticks 
>with the American Timeline that begins Dec. 7, 1941.  I object to his 
>failure to comprehend that American Generals such as George Marshall were 
>convinced that there would be another World War as early as about 1923, 
>because the conclusion of World War One had been so flawed, and they saw 
>the seeds of the next one in the failure of peace making in the wake of 
>the first.  Burns decision not to insert the positions of politicians and 
>Generals into the mix because it was politics or strategy means that those 
>watching his documentary are denied both what they knew and anticipated.
>
>Likewise, Burns ended his work at least with reference to Europe with the 
>surrender, and then a short shot of Potsdam.  Marshall's doctrine was that 
>wars were about politics, and that the conclusion of a war was about 
>finding a means for fixing the politics. on your terms. that had caused 
>the war.  If you failed at that, forget the glory of your combat 
>victory.  In my mind this is the only principle that applies to Iraq even 
>at a distance.  By not dealing with Occupation, and the aftermath, Burns 
>essentially blanks out the possibility of drawing a useful comparison.
>
>But what really bothers me is the Burns Trademark on this totally 
>inadequate film.  I know all too well that these days, High School 
>Teachers do not really teach the Civil War -- they give the kids hours of 
>Burns films on that subject.  I fear that will happen with this latest 
>effort.  And this latest effort is profoundly off key.
>
><http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/10/critique-the-wa.html>