[PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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[PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

Post by Holman »

Ken Burns (of Civil War fame etc) and Lynn Novick have created a new 10-part, 18-hour documentary on the Vietnam War. It premieres on PBS September 17.

There are already some good preview videos at the link above, including one that's 25 minutes.

I have a TV hooked up to Roku and DVD, but I don't have cable or an antennae. What's the best way for me to watch this? Does PBS post their content online?
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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Holman wrote:Does PBS post their content online?
Yes
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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Isgrimnur wrote:
Holman wrote:Does PBS post their content online?
Yes
Thanks!

I wonder if everything gets there, though. I remember having trouble finding Wolf Hall.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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I'm sure it's variable to some degree. Time will tell.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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I know my Roku had a PBS app and if you entered in the location of your local PBS station you could access their shows. That was over a year ago so I don't know if it still works that way.

Many PBS programs are available online.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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I'll look into it.

I enjoyed Burns' Civil War, and word is that this series treats Vietnam with appropriate complexity.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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Holman wrote:I'll look into it.

I enjoyed Burns' Civil War, and word is that this series treats Vietnam with appropriate complexity.
I will watch this series but Burn's has a habit of adding about 10% extra crap into his documentaries now. He will bring in every social connection you can imagine and he will try to pull at every emotional string he can find.

I recently watched a 6 hour PBS series on the American involvement in WW1. It wasn't done by Burn's but it was pretty obvious the series was influenced by the Burn's method.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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The reviews I've seen range from "Very Good" to "Masterpiece."

I'll be watching it tonight.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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Side note: Trent Reznor (yes, the Nine Inch Nails guy) and Atticus Ross composed the soundtrack. It's absolutely brilliant, you can listen to it here.

His film score work has been quite amazing, and I'm starting to listen to it more than his NIN work.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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I've got the dvr set. I've actually never watched his Civil War one, I wish I had access to that one.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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Having been there and the emotions still not being completely healed I'll not be watching this.
Knowing Ken Burns' work I'm sure it will be very good.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

Post by Kraken »

I'm in. Sunday nights already keep the DVR busy (The Orville and Feed the Twerking Dead among others), but I put this show at the top of its priority list in case there's a conflict.

The war formed the background of my childhood and was a tangible threat in my adolescence, taking out one friend's older brother, but the draft ended just before I turned 18.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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I'm planning to watch via the PBS channel on Roku, but it appears that streaming access is delayed: episode 1 is airing now (8pm EST) on TV but won't be available until 9pm onlines.

It's not much, but given our family schedule the delay means we'll have to watch later. My kids are interested, and I want to see it with them.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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So we didn't have time to watch last night, but Episode 1 is now watchable on the PBS website.

I'm heading out to work but just now watched the first 10 minutes. Just that was enough to leave me a little shaken. This is powerful television.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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I would not say I am enjoying it, but it is good TV and I am gaining a new perspective.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

Post by Smoove_B »

mori wrote:I would not say I am enjoying it, but it is good TV and I am gaining a new perspective.
Yeah, "enjoy" isn't the right way to think about it, but it really is quite detailed and very interesting. All of my knowledge on Vietnam is really the late war. Seeing the historical perspective and trying to understand how the whole situation unfolded from the 1940s through the 70s is fascinating.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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tl;dr: blame the French.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

Post by Moliere »

Chaz wrote:I've got the dvr set. I've actually never watched his Civil War one, I wish I had access to that one.
Civil War and his other works are on Netflix.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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The historical narrative is riveting, but the personal testimonies are especially interesting.

I've watched the first two episodes (up through JFK's assassination), and the interviewees include many American servicemen but also veterans of the Viet Minh, Viet Cong, NVA, ARVN, green berets, and OSS/CIA as well as journalists (e.g. Neil Sheehan) and civilians both North and South.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

Post by Smoove_B »

Exactly. It's the history interspersed with the interviews that really keeps me watching. And it's not just interviews with one side - the wide variety of perspectives and observations is impressive.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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One terrific structural element is jumping forward to late 60's details that reflect themes developing earlier.

For example, discussion of French colonial dismissal of Indochina's culture will shift to an American veteran of 1967 talking about how little he understood and how much he hated the rural Vietnamese with whom he had no way to communicate. It breaks historical continuity, but it's thematically very powerful.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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Holy crap, tonight's installment hit hard.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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I missed something from an earlier episode. President Johnson knew that the Nixon camp manipulated the South Vietnamese government to delay the Paris peace talks until he won the election. Johnson called Nixon and Nixon lied to him, and Johnson knew it but never acted on it. Why? They touched on it earlier but I was not watching.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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mori wrote:I missed something from an earlier episode. President Johnson knew that the Nixon camp manipulated the South Vietnamese government to delay the Paris peace talks until he won the election. Johnson called Nixon and Nixon lied to him, and Johnson knew it but never acted on it. Why? They touched on it earlier but I was not watching.
He couldn't expose Nixon's shenanigans without revealing the classified methods by which the intelligence was obtained; the FBI was bugging the South Vietnamese ambassador's phone, and the NSA was intercepting his communications with Saigon.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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I'm on episode 2 and it's really fascinating.

I confess I didn't know much about Vietnam going in. It's not something they cover in history class to any depth, so everything I learned came from movies, games, and the handful of non-fiction first-hand accounts I've read over the years. It's nice to finally have a good understanding of the political circumstances surrounding it.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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There is a great book by Neil Sheehan called A Bright Shining Lie about John Paul Vann, he is referenced in the 2nd episode. The book explains in first person terms why we failed in Vietnam, and why we fail (in my estimation) in the middle east.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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YellowKing wrote:I'm on episode 2 and it's really fascinating.

I confess I didn't know much about Vietnam going in. It's not something they cover in history class to any depth, so everything I learned came from movies, games, and the handful of non-fiction first-hand accounts I've read over the years. It's nice to finally have a good understanding of the political circumstances surrounding it.
I haven't started watching yet, but I'm coming from almost the opposite perspective: My adolescent political awakening was immersed in news and analysis of Vietnam and Watergate (inseparable subjects in my mind), so it's going to be hard to show me things I didn't know or had never considered. I trust Burns to do that, though.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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It doesn't directly tie in to the series, but Michael Herr's Dispatches is a good read. It's a memoir of his experience as a war correspondent in Vietnam.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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Kraken wrote:
YellowKing wrote:I'm on episode 2 and it's really fascinating.

I confess I didn't know much about Vietnam going in. It's not something they cover in history class to any depth, so everything I learned came from movies, games, and the handful of non-fiction first-hand accounts I've read over the years. It's nice to finally have a good understanding of the political circumstances surrounding it.
I haven't started watching yet, but I'm coming from almost the opposite perspective: My adolescent political awakening was immersed in news and analysis of Vietnam and Watergate (inseparable subjects in my mind), so it's going to be hard to show me things I didn't know or had never considered. I trust Burns to do that, though.
I haven't started watching it yet either but from what I've been hearing the biggest innovation in this telling of the story is the inclusion of the interviews with Vietnamese who were there. Burns and Novick spent a lot of time tracking down those people for their unique perspective.

I imagine we will binge the whole thing one of these weekends and I'm looking forward to it.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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The interviews are very strong. I'm sure this is the first time I've seen ARVN, VC, and NVA veterans talking about their experience in ways that feel personal rather than just "military-historical." And of course the American interviews are very powerfully affecting.

Last night we saw Ep 4, and it included an interview with a VC fighter who described his late realization that the American soldiers were humans who protected their friends and wept for their dead just like the Vietnamese.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

Post by Kraken »

Z-Corn wrote:
Kraken wrote:
YellowKing wrote:I'm on episode 2 and it's really fascinating.

I confess I didn't know much about Vietnam going in. It's not something they cover in history class to any depth, so everything I learned came from movies, games, and the handful of non-fiction first-hand accounts I've read over the years. It's nice to finally have a good understanding of the political circumstances surrounding it.
I haven't started watching yet, but I'm coming from almost the opposite perspective: My adolescent political awakening was immersed in news and analysis of Vietnam and Watergate (inseparable subjects in my mind), so it's going to be hard to show me things I didn't know or had never considered. I trust Burns to do that, though.
I haven't started watching it yet either but from what I've been hearing the biggest innovation in this telling of the story is the inclusion of the interviews with Vietnamese who were there. Burns and Novick spent a lot of time tracking down those people for their unique perspective.

I imagine we will binge the whole thing one of these weekends and I'm looking forward to it.
Same here, although I might need to free up space on the DVR before it's entirely recorded.

I didn't mean to make myself out to be an expert on the war, btw, just to say that I grew up immersed in it. Getting the Cong perspective is sure to be enlightening.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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Holman wrote:The interviews are very strong. I'm sure this is the first time I've seen ARVN, VC, and NVA veterans talking about their experience in ways that feel personal rather than just "military-historical." And of course the American interviews are very powerfully affecting.

Last night we saw Ep 4, and it included an interview with a VC fighter who described his late realization that the American soldiers were humans who protected their friends and wept for their dead just like the Vietnamese.
I am only thru episode 4 as well.

I remember a documentary done years ago that had Vietnamese leaders on it, I specifically remember Gen. Giap, but I don't know what it would have been or who produced it.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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Scuzz wrote:
Holman wrote:The interviews are very strong. I'm sure this is the first time I've seen ARVN, VC, and NVA veterans talking about their experience in ways that feel personal rather than just "military-historical." And of course the American interviews are very powerfully affecting.

Last night we saw Ep 4, and it included an interview with a VC fighter who described his late realization that the American soldiers were humans who protected their friends and wept for their dead just like the Vietnamese.
I am only thru episode 4 as well.

I remember a documentary done years ago that had Vietnamese leaders on it, I specifically remember Gen. Giap, but I don't know what it would have been or who produced it.
It was probably Vietnam: A Television History. It was a PBS documentary released in the early eighties. In my Vietnam War class in college we saw the videotaped episodes and read the companion book Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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I don't know why but it surprises me you had a Vietnam War history class. I guess because my view of it is still in my mind.
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[PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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My alma mater has a Vietnam Center and Archive. They may still do a conference every three years. They also have an oral history project.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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dbt1949 wrote:I don't know why but it surprises me you had a Vietnam War history class. I guess because my view of it is still in my mind.
Took that class in the late 80s. It was taught by a veteran who did a great job but right off the bat he said he wouldn't answer any questions about his own experiences. Shared a poem at the end that he wrote which I think was about his first encounter with an enemy soldier.

Glad you came home dbt even though a part of you may still be back there.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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$iljanus wrote:
Scuzz wrote:
Holman wrote:The interviews are very strong. I'm sure this is the first time I've seen ARVN, VC, and NVA veterans talking about their experience in ways that feel personal rather than just "military-historical." And of course the American interviews are very powerfully affecting.

Last night we saw Ep 4, and it included an interview with a VC fighter who described his late realization that the American soldiers were humans who protected their friends and wept for their dead just like the Vietnamese.
I am only thru episode 4 as well.

I remember a documentary done years ago that had Vietnamese leaders on it, I specifically remember Gen. Giap, but I don't know what it would have been or who produced it.
It was probably Vietnam: A Television History. It was a PBS documentary released in the early eighties. In my Vietnam War class in college we saw the videotaped episodes and read the companion book Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow.
That is probably it. I do have that book and I thought he made a documentary about it but I wasn't sure.
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Re: [PBS] Ken Burns'/Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War

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$iljanus wrote:
dbt1949 wrote:I don't know why but it surprises me you had a Vietnam War history class. I guess because my view of it is still in my mind.
Took that class in the late 80s. It was taught by a veteran who did a great job but right off the bat he said he wouldn't answer any questions about his own experiences. Shared a poem at the end that he wrote which I think was about his first encounter with an enemy soldier.

Glad you came home dbt even though a part of you may still be back there.
I had a history teacher do that in a junior college class in the 1980's, only it was about WW2. He talked about his experiences and had another vet in who talked about his experiences.
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