Ken Burns, television’s designated historian, decided early in his six years of research that World War II needed a narrative overlay to make it more compelling.
Forcing a four-town prism of the war onto a 15-hour project, he proposed to take a bottom-up approach to events, stressing intimate memories while avoiding traditional expert commentary.
The result is a case of too many characters in search of an author.
In “The War,” a seven-part film premiering tonight at 7 on KRMA-Channel 6, Burns offers first-person insights of folks from Waterbury, Conn.; Sacramento, Calif.; Mobile, Ala.; and Luverne, Minn. Some served in the war, others followed newsreels at home. They speak from African-American, Japanese-American and Jewish-American perspectives. They tell of racial strife amid the booming wartime industry in Mobile, for instance, or the horrors of Japanese-
American internment camps, the awareness of Jews of the growing Nazi threat, the strange new opportunities for “Rosie the Riveters” and the starvation of prisoners of war in the Philippines.
Their memories, some profound and well-spoken, some inconsequential or light-hearted, are squeezed into the whole, as if adding endless tiny details will give the global geopolitical conflict new weight. The style may make the war more human, but it does nothing to make it more coherent.
Actually, it slows the flow. We begin to wish for historians to add insight. Thank goodness for Al McIntosh, an accomplished newspaperman chronicling wartime in tiny Luverne, whose homey but wise dispatches fill the gap.
We also serve who only sit and watch: Part 1, “A Necessary War,” premieres tonight. Subsequent chapters air Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 p.m.; Sept. 30, Oct. 1 and 2 also at 7 p.m.
The initial four chapters will run in a marathon on Sept. 30 beginning at 10 a.m., leading into the fifth episode at 7 p.m.
Note, because four grown-up words made their way into this chronicle of killing, maiming and carnage, PBS felt it necessary to provide a sanitized version. Stations are offered two versions of the film, with and without the colorful language. Rocky Mountain PBS, KRMA-Channel 6, will air the edited version during the day, unedited at night.
Then there’s the problem of what Burns initially left out and, after protests and news stories, tacked on to “The War.” The experiences of one American Indian and two Latinos are appended in 28 minutes of self-contained character sketches. They are interesting tales of sacrifice and heroism, but they are clearly postscripts. In the end, it’s a testament to Burns’ power and fame that groups left out of his documentary feared being written out of history.
The far-flung battles get close scrutiny – ultimately the film supplies more colorful detail about the Philippines and Italy than most WWII accounts – but Burns feels compelled to veer back to his four-town theme. The construct is labored.
The Burns method, illuminating large concepts through the accretion of detail, is a clever device until it bogs down under its own weight. Our national knowledge of baseball, jazz and the Civil War has benefitted from the Burns storytelling touch. But piling on the details has its limits. When the droning voice-over continually notes the time of day in Luverne or Waterbury or Sacramento when a telegram arrived, the effect turns from grounding to grating.
Burns’ enormous budget apparently didn’t encourage him and co-director/producer Lynn Novick to trim. A filmmaker’s toughest job is winnowing, finding the most evocative bits, the best anecdotes and still photos to make the topic vivid.
“The War” alternates between vivid and plodding in a way that does a disservice to the “greatest generation” and those who came after.
World War II is endlessly fascinating, and the cumulative ratings for this film could be the highest in PBS history. But viewers should expect a level of frustration not encountered in the more artful Burns projects, notably “The Civil War.”
Burns has said he was moved to make this film when he learned that 1,000 WWII veterans die every day. He seems to have wanted to touch them all before they go.
By contrast, Steven Spielberg didn’t try to cover every aspect of the war in the historical drama “Band of Brothers”; he mounted the Holocaust video archive to document a generation’s memories. Maybe what Burns needed is an archive on the side.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
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