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You must remember this
Ken Burns makes deeply emotional films that pluck America's chords of memory. In the case of World War II, this approach feels absolutely right.
By Gary Kamiya [2007-09-25]

  • I really like The War so far ...

    because it sounds to me like the version of World War II as I've heard it told from actual veterans in my life ... including bits where they acknowledge that the American troops were no angels and killed POWs and civilians all over the French coast.

    It does not particularly sound like World War II as Re-imagined by Chickenhawks who Want to Glorify Themselves by Association.

    Which is what a lot of the WWII stuff in Hollywood and on the History Channel is like.

    I think that's why it *had* to focus on the US experience of The War. An attempt to be comprehensive would have allowed us to ignore a lot of the details - the troops abandoned at Bataan (I had a friend who was in the Death March) the secrecy, the killing of 40,000 civilians in Hamburg simply because the bombadiers didn't have very good aim and just bombed everything.

    -- Anna68
    [Read Anna68's other letters]
    Tuesday, September 25, 2007 11:15 AM
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