Quote:
Originally Posted by 8ballrollin
On the downside, if you are somewhat moderately read on WWII, there was not much new. But I guess that’s not the point. It seems to want to capture the American experience of the world-changing event. Which is fine.
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Yes, it is fine. The WWII story has been told so many times that I am not sure if it is fair to expect too much new material. But Burns and his colleagues have stated that it was never their objective to do a detailed chronology of the strategy and military history of the war. Rather, they intended to focus primarily on the human experience. I think the balance is just right. With 14 hours you can include plenty of military history to set the stage for the human history. Overall, I think the story is being told beautifully.
There were some powerful moments tonight. The Bataan Death March always gets to me. And the shot of the US sailor face down in the surf at Pearl Harbor stuck with me for some reason. The interviews of the Japanese-American citizens were also quite powerful. Especially the soft-spoken woman who was a freshman at Berkley when the war broke out. She said that on Dec 7, 1941 she was already conscious that everyone started looking at her differently and she realized that her world had instantly changed. The fact that she was so humble, so articulate, and so
American made it all the more moving.
I enjoyed the interviews with the former marine pilot from Luverne Minnesota. He knows how to deliver a story or describe a memory with tremendous insight. So far, it appears that he may be the Shelby Foote of the series.