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X-O posted:I can't say I'm the biggest fan of Ken Burns in the first place, honestly what I've heard are some of his best stuff like Baseball or Prohibition, I've not seen. His Civil War is fine but I didn't really dig his WWII doc at all. I feel this documentary is going a little more for historical substance than I've seen him do before. I'm not done yet but I'm leaning right now towards this being one of the definitive documentaries on this war. I'm not sure I put it up there with The Great War (1964) or World at War (1973), but it's a lot closer to those than something The War that he put out 10 years ago. The War is his worst doc by far. Watch The National Parks or The Roosevelt's and see how he can take much more mundane subjects than wars and make them absolutely riveting.
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Sep 26, 2017 05:28
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There is a soundtrack available that includes all of the amazing music featured in the doc. A lot of the music featured is the music I grew up with since my dad was still listening to it in the 80's and 90's with the advent of CDs. It makes the doc even more special to me because it ties me, a 32 year old born well after the war was over, to that era. Knowing that this time of social and political upheaval was the era of my parents' coming of age. Hearing a song like "Turn Turn Turn" or "The Letter" during the doc absolutely brings me to tears.
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Sep 27, 2017 15:57
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Here is the track listing for The Vietnam War: A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall Bob Dylan Hello Vietnam Johnnie Wright Its My Life Animals Eve of Destruction Barry McGuire Turn Turn Turn Byrds Masters of War Staple Singers Mustang Sally Wilson Pickett Smokestack Lightning Howlin Wolf Backlash Blues Nina Simone The Sounds of Silence Simon & Garfunkel One Too Many Mornings Bob Dylan Aint Too Proud to Beg Temptations Are You Experienced? Jimi Hendrix Experience Im a Man Spencer Davis Group Green Onions Booker T and the MGs Strange Brew Cream Waist Deep in the Big Muddy Pete Seeger A Whiter Shade of Pale Procol Harum The Lord Is In This Place Fairport Convention For What Its Worth Buffalo Springfield Dont Think Twice Bob Dylan Piece of My Heart Big Brother Magic Carpet Ride Steppenwolf The Letter Box Tops Bad Moon Rising Creedence Clearwater Revival Soul Sacrifice Santana Tell the Truth Otis Redding Okie From Muskogee Merle Haggard The Thrill Is Gone B.B. King Psychedelic Shack Temptations Ohio Crosby Stills Nash & Young Get Together Youngbloods Gimme Shelter Rolling Stones Tail Dragger Link Wray America the Beautiful Ray Charles Whats Going On Marvin Gaye Bridge Over Troubled Water Simon & Garfunkel Let It Be Beatles God drat is that good. Half of the songs aren't available through Apple Music if you play The Vietnam War soundtrack, but I just made a playlist and added them all individually. The ones that particularly just rip my heart out are Turn Turn Turn, The Sound of Silence, A Whiter Shade of Pale, Ohio, Get Together, and of course Bridge Over Troubled Water and Let It Be.
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Sep 27, 2017 18:17
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In the last episode, the reveal of some of these veterans joining the anti-war movement after how proudly and unashamedly they seemed to talk about joining the Army/Marines and their experiences over there was just shocking. Particularly Ehrhart's story about seeing the iconic Kent State photo in the newspaper and breaking down in tears as he sat on a curb and deciding right then and there that he was anti-war.
Mahoning fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Sep 27, 2017 |
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Sep 27, 2017 19:01
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It's really easy to say "how come they didn't talk about this" but realistically, this documentary could be 50 hours and still not cover everything. I read today that the original script only mentioned the Kent State shooting in passing as part of the violence ramping up stateside. Then Ken Burns was invited to speak at KSU and saw the memorial and the small exhibit about the victims and the event and was convinced it had to be a much larger part of the doc. Part of what convinced him was that haunting audio of the professor begging the students to disperse. That gave me chills.
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Sep 28, 2017 02:52
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Captain Hindsight to the rescue! Anyways, I noticed something in the doc that kinda made me chuckle (to keep from being angry). The one black vet talked about the flying of the Confederate flag (which was oddly topical in our current state of affairs) by the troops in Vietnam. A completely different Vet talked about how he understood the protesters and why they were so angry but he was pissed that they were flying the NLF flag. 
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Sep 28, 2017 13:25
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Solaris 2.0 posted:I agree I cringed at the line when Ken Burns said American leaders went into Vietnam with the best of intentions. Since it clearly appears they didn't really care much about the well being of the country so much as using it as a chess piece on the great cold war chessboard. There was even an American diplomat who was quoted saying as much. Yeah it really made me wonder how great LBJ's legacy would be if it weren't for Vietnam. Conversely, how bad would JFK's legacy be if he had survived and been reelected and inevitably escalated the war himself.
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Sep 29, 2017 17:17
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Spatula City posted:This whole thing has me extremely terrified that stunningly amoral villains currently running the US will do their utmost to pursue a path of war with either North Korea or Iran. It's not only that no lessons were learned, it's that Republican politicians and government figures are proud of their refusal to learn anything about history, and their rejection of reality. If you want some hope, just think of how organized and prevalent the anti-war movement was 50+ years ago and then think of how much more organized it would be in 2017.
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Oct 1, 2017 00:48
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