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Any attempt to counter how much of a weird baby youre being just makes you look like an even weirder baby
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Oct 28, 2017 02:05
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Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:Any attempt to counter how much of a weird baby youre being just makes you look like an even weirder baby People who disagree with me are children, who hate white people, and also they don't know anything, but i'm not bothered cause i don't care, my dad liked it
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Oct 28, 2017 02:06
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Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:Any attempt to counter how much of a weird baby youre being just makes you look like an even weirder baby You haven’t posted a single opinion about the documentary but thanks for the moderation. Me losing my temper about really dumb opinions doesn’t make your posts automatically good.
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Oct 28, 2017 02:10
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Mahoning posted:You haven’t posted a single opinion about the documentary but thanks for the moderation. Me losing my temper about really dumb opinions doesn’t make your posts automatically good. Why don't you explain why a pretty mild alternate opinion from yours is making you so weirdly angry?
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Oct 28, 2017 02:14
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LesterGroans posted:Why don't you explain why a pretty mild alternate opinion from yours is making you so weirdly angry? I’d love to. I am perfectly willing to hear exactly what Ken Burns should have included in a 17 hour documentary that wasn’t included. I found the US government to continually be the bad guy in each episode, one that couldn’t make a good decision if they literally fell into it. At what point do you demonize the US to the point that you can no longer count on the cooperation of the veterans who have agreed to appear in and/or collaborate on your documentary? You can call that a cop out or a compromise but a hit piece on American involvement in Vietnam (no matter how accurate or deserved) would be boring and dumb.
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Oct 28, 2017 02:22
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Mahoning posted:You haven’t posted a single opinion about the documentary but thanks for the moderation. Me losing my temper about really dumb opinions doesn’t make your posts automatically good. Counter-point: my posts are automatically good
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Oct 28, 2017 02:25
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Mahoning posted:Please tell us the name of the book you read for your senior year Modern American History class that was not biased and was really fair. "Dispatches" and "Bloods".
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Oct 28, 2017 02:29
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Mahoning posted:I’d love to. I mean Peter Davis did it 40 years ago and it wasn't boring or dumb, and lots of veterans were involved so I don't know what you're talking about. BTW does anyone remember what thread all those PD Vietnam docs were posted in semi recently? There were a bunch of things posted besides Hearts and Minds on youtube and now I can't find them or remember the names, particularly one about the presence of US "advisors" and "contractors" in SV after the US withdrawal that was badass. edit: I'm not 100% sure they were peter davis movies, but they were contemporaneous docs ~40m each and one focused on the post withdrawal period and was eerily, disgustingly relevant to Iraq and Afghanistan DeimosRising fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Oct 28, 2017 |
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Oct 28, 2017 02:30
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:"Dispatches" and "Bloods". Bloods is ridiculously good
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Oct 28, 2017 02:36
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DeimosRising posted:Bloods is ridiculously good Yeah it is, probably the first book about soldiering I read more than once.
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Oct 28, 2017 02:59
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Mahoning posted:At what point do you demonize the US to the point that you can no longer count on the cooperation of the veterans who have agreed to appear in and/or collaborate on your documentary? Dude. Duuude. Demonize. Really? Demonize. Seriously? ... You're trolling, right?
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Oct 28, 2017 04:08
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MonsieurChoc posted:Dude. Duuude. Demonize. Really? Demonize. Seriously? Demonize is the wrong word, but it's clear a lot of people evidently just wanted the whole thing to be political preaching to the choir of the left rather than a nonpartisan account of what happened. You don't have to church up the story of Vietnam to drive home the cynicism and incompetence of the US leadership, and the nastiness in American society at the time, and the documentary did a great job of showing that. The complaining here is half about tone, and half kneejerk dismissing a mainstream documentary on the subject out of principle without actually judging it on its merit. All I know is I talked a lot with conservative co-workers about the documentary as it was playing, and it's clear it had an impact on them. If it would've just been a leftist pundit account of Vietnam it would've politicized the whole thing and they would've dismissed it without even watching. That would've served nobody. If you want an account of Vietnam from the perspective of your ideology, go find one. Ken Burns thing was never intended to be it.
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Oct 28, 2017 04:34
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I hate to break it you guys but war is a political event.
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Oct 28, 2017 04:37
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:I hate to break it you guys but war is a political event. It went deep into the politics of the war. It just didn't do it through the political lens of today.
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Oct 28, 2017 04:45
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"Gotta hear both sides" couldn't be more through the political lens of today.
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Oct 28, 2017 04:50
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:"Gotta hear both sides" couldn't be more through the political lens of today. Yeah that's not what it did at all.
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Oct 28, 2017 05:04
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:"Gotta hear both sides" couldn't be more through the political lens of today. Do you want a documentary or a polemic?
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Oct 28, 2017 14:16
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I want a reckoning I'll settle for a really good Ken Burns doc tho.
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Oct 28, 2017 17:09
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Volkerball posted:a nonpartisan account of what happened. No such thing. Burns is pushing a perspective the same as any other documentarian or historian. Like what is your argument here, republicans buy shoes too? Or do you think it's good that the documentary portrays Vietnam as a tragedy for America so jingoists can relate?
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Oct 28, 2017 17:43
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DeimosRising posted:No such thing. Burns is pushing a perspective the same as any other documentarian or historian. Like what is your argument here, republicans buy shoes too? Or do you think it's good that the documentary portrays Vietnam as a tragedy for America so jingoists can relate? You think Vietnam wasn't a tragedy?
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Oct 28, 2017 17:52
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SimonCat posted:You think Vietnam wasn't a tragedy? A tragedy for whom? If you insist on pinning an overall narrative arc to it, the good guys won. It had a happy ending. Millions of people had to suffer and die because the western imperial powers decided it was better to burn Asia to the ground and depopulate it than let it go red, so yeah there were countless awful tragedies mixed up in it. But no I don't think the failure of the US mission in Vietnam was a tragedy. The fact there was a US mission in Vietnam is an atrocity, the fact that thousands of mostly poor and disinterested US citizens died is awful, but the US military empire losing and heading home tail between its legs is not a tragedy.
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Oct 28, 2017 19:08
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SimonCat posted:Do you want a documentary or a polemic? What do you think a documentary is? I Love The 90's has a political bias.
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Oct 28, 2017 19:33
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DeimosRising posted:No such thing. Burns is pushing a perspective the same as any other documentarian or historian. Like what is your argument here, republicans buy shoes too? Or do you think it's good that the documentary portrays Vietnam as a tragedy for America so jingoists can relate?
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Oct 28, 2017 19:48
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Alhazred posted:Burns portrays it as a tragedy for Vietnam though. Why's it a tragedy for Vietnam?
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Oct 28, 2017 20:00
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DeimosRising posted:A tragedy for whom? If you insist on pinning an overall narrative arc to it, the good guys won. It had a happy ending. Millions of people had to suffer and die because the western imperial powers decided it was better to burn Asia to the ground and depopulate it than let it go red, so yeah there were countless awful tragedies mixed up in it. But no I don't think the failure of the US mission in Vietnam was a tragedy. The fact there was a US mission in Vietnam is an atrocity, the fact that thousands of mostly poor and disinterested US citizens died is awful, but the US military empire losing and heading home tail between its legs is not a tragedy. So your argument here is that Vietnam was actually cool and good just because in the end it made the US look bad, and that Burns choosing not to make this a central theme demonstrates that he is biased. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Oct 28, 2017 |
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Oct 28, 2017 20:04
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Why's it a tragedy for Vietnam? Because over three million vietnamese were killed during the war and forty two thousand has died of unexploded ordnance since the war officially ended?
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Oct 28, 2017 20:13
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Alhazred posted:Because over three million vietnamese were killed during the war and forty two thousand has died of unexploded ordnance since the war officially ended? But's that's not a tragedy. That's a war. That's the problem with this neutralized framing.
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Oct 28, 2017 20:16
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:But's that's not a tragedy. That's a war. Yeah, a war that according to Burn's documentary was fueled and prolonged by american intervention.
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Oct 28, 2017 20:27
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Volkerball posted:So your argument here is that Vietnam was actually cool and good just because in the end it made the US look bad, and that Burns choosing not to make this a central theme demonstrates that he is biased. No? The wars in SE Asia were bad because imperialism is bad, and fighting wars to maintain dominance over others is bad. Lots of people died in the struggle to grant the people of the region self government, and that's bad. It's not a tragedy. It wasn't a tragedy for the US either, it was an idiotic, bungled imperial adventure. Burns is a human being, which demonstrates that he is biased. He and the rest of the artists involved created a piece of art, which necessarily frames its subject. No frame is impartial or objective
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Oct 28, 2017 20:31
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Alhazred posted:Yeah, a war that according to Burn's documentary was fueled and prolonged by american intervention. There's no need for the passive tense! I didn't think this was so controversial. War was not "fueled and prolonged by" the United States.
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Oct 28, 2017 20:32
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DeimosRising posted:No? The wars in SE Asia were bad because imperialism is bad, and fighting wars to maintain dominance over others is bad. Lots of people died in the struggle to grant the people of the region self government, and that's bad. It's not a tragedy. It wasn't a tragedy for the US either, it was an idiotic, bungled imperial adventure. You're looking at it solely through a geopolitical lens. What millions of people experienced throughout the duration of the war absolutely was tragic. Their stories overwhelm any geopolitical result, to the point that any objective account of Vietnam is going to have a disproportionate focus on the suffering and tragedies people went through. I think the disconnect here is that Burns was targeting human beings as his audience, not Henry Kissinger.
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Oct 28, 2017 20:50
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:But's that's not a tragedy. That's a war. 
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Oct 29, 2017 05:38
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*in my Foote in Ken Burn's Civil War voice* Poster against poster, this thread... is a civil.. war.
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Oct 29, 2017 07:56
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:There's no need for the passive tense! I didn't think this was so controversial. War was not "fueled and prolonged by" the United States. I'd say it was prolonged by the United States. It was pretty abbreviated once we left.
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Oct 29, 2017 14:49
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:War was not "fueled and prolonged by" the United States. Nixon literally sabotaged peace negotiations in order to make the war last longer.
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Oct 29, 2017 15:31
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SimonCat posted:I'd say it was prolonged by the United States. It was pretty abbreviated once we left. This means that the US was the aggressor in the war! Not that 'the war was prolonged by' US 'involvement'. That's what I mean, the bar is so low that even for Ken Burns, barely at the level of a high school textbook is considered ideal. Can't wait for that staid, evenhanded Iraq War documentary in 2033. HUNDU THE BEAST GOD fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Oct 29, 2017 |
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Oct 29, 2017 18:32
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Christ how are you not understanding this? Ken Burns is not and never has been one to give a modern day critical overview of history. He lets the event unfold as it happened through the lens and voices of those who experienced it. Personal accounts, interviews, letters, poetry, pictures, clips, newspaper articles, these are all hallmarks of Burns documentaries and they all have one thing in common: they are giving us first hand accounts by people who were there. His documentaries are experiential and not judgmental or critical. I’d argue you learn more from the former than the latter, since “this side was right and this side was wrong” is lazy and doesn’t let people make their own judgements. He basically lays it all out there and let’s you experience all the facts for yourself. What the hell point would there be in breaking the film down year by year and going through all the small details if you just want to force your opinion onto the audience in a very heavy handed way? If you watched his Vietnam documentary and expected anything different than that then that’s on you, not Burns. Again, it’s like watching a Spielberg movie and whining that it’s not a romantic comedy. He’s not gonna change the kind of film he makes because you read a book that told you what to think.
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Oct 29, 2017 21:40
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Cool.
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Oct 29, 2017 22:10
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Mahoning posted:Christ how are you not understanding this? Ken Burns is not and never has been one to give a modern day critical overview of history. He lets the event unfold as it happened through the lens and voices of those who experienced it. Spielberg has made at least 2 romantic comedies but I don't see how that has anything to do with anything. I'm not criticizing what Burns should have or could have done. I'm criticizing what he did. You seem to have this weird belief that Burns's portrayal of the war is neutral, drawing objectively from a well of pure experience and fact to show equally "what it was like" for "both sides". That's silly, of course - Burns had to decide whose experiences to highlight, whose to cut, who not to interview at all, what images would and wouldn't play with what accounts, which determines how we interpret those accounts, and so forth. Anytime something is presented to you as unbiased and you believe it, what's actually happening is you're being told what you already believe.
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Oct 29, 2017 22:36
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How war is sold seems kinda relevant when the US is operating out of like a third of the countries on the planet. To be all defensive about 'well what did you want him to do!?' is not at all relevant. I really like Burns' work, he made a documentary that people are considering an important cultural event, and there's more to say about it than 'it was great! very fair.' That's pretty much it.
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Oct 29, 2017 22:47
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