Ken Burns' "The War"

I am supposed to be studying; I have class to teach tomorrow, readings for seminar on Friday and then a short turnaround to seminar on Tuesday next week. However, I finished watching "The War", Ken Burns' documentary on WWII on PBS this evening and wanted to get some thoughts down about it.

First, I have to ask, what was the deal with the Norah Jones song? I am a fan of hers', but can't quite figure out what the point of her tune was. It was completely off the documentary track, far too jingoistic, and seemed to me to be a sappy attempt at pulling at the heartstrings of a viewership who is likely liberal and against the war in Iraq. Uncalled for, I thought.

As to the documentary itself, I was reasonable impressed with the approach Burns took. Understanding off the bat that he is, first and foremost, a filmmaker of the American experience, it didn't really surprise me that he approached WWII from a purely American point of view. It did surprise me that it took him until the last episode to deal in any way with the holocaust, and that he swept under the rug any implications of America's having ignored reports coming out of Europe for 5+ years that these attrocities were going on. "The Soviets must have been exagerating..." is all the explanation we got from Burns and his writers.

Actually, it seems the Soviets were at the root of most everything bad that we Americans did during the war. The firebombings of Dresden seem to have purely been a response to a Soviet demand that we bomb railroad depots that were sending reinforcements to the Eastern Front. Any ethical consideration of the tens of thousands of civilian lives that might have died thus the Soviets' fault. Bollocks, I say.

All that said, "The War" makes a powerful complement to the classics "World at War" and "Victory at Sea". It's not a stand alone documentary of WWII, but Burns never stated that is should be considered to be such.