Just got home from the Ken Burns' talk on his new doc, "The War" (about WWII).

[BlueIris]

To air on PBS, beginning September 23rd, at 8 p.m. And mark your calendars for it, folks, because it's going to be a-mazing.

The hour long "preview" we got tonight was incredible. I don't want to give out spoilers unless people are open to that, (if you are, post below) but I will say that from what I viewed, this fourteen-hour documentary may be the most orginial discussion about American experiences of WWII ever to air on television. I highly recommend it.

Burns was eloquent and charming, especially in the Q&A session after the talk, where he fielded a lot of excited inquiries, many from Oregon WWII veterans. He stressed that this new film is an attempt to show us "the good war" from a much more human perspective than American audiences are used to. He also stressed that what he tried to capture the most was certain elements of the war which are common to all wars (scared soldiers, the brutality of combat and the struggle to live with memories of combat after participating in warfare). One curious comment he made, though, was that the film (which entered its early pre-production phase in 2001) "doesn't have a political bone in its body." We'll see what comes of that.

The post-lecture talk only focused on current events a little, actually, and never really arrived at "politics," except for Burns' own passing mention of Iraq and his statement about documentaries, storytelling and society (which I loved) that "the only real communication occurs between equals." The less equality we have, the less we communicate to each other.

Anyway--set the TiVo, the DVR, whatever. This one is definitely worth your time.

[Radio_Lady]

1. Thanks for posting, BlueIris. Good to hear from you.

In peace,

Radio Lady Ellen Kimball -- c/o OPB's Accessible Information Network (formerly "Golden Hours")
Portland, OR 97219