Ken Burns

THE VIETNAM WAR: must see for everyone (and available through Sunday)

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The new PBS documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, The Vietnam War, is one of the best documentaries of the century and a superb history lesson, crucial to understand the America of today.  It’s a Must See for Baby Boomers.  For different reasons, it’s a Must See for Americans of later generations.  The ten episodes of The Vietnam War can be streamed from PBS through October 15.

It’s impossible to overstate the effect of the Vietnam War upon Americans of my generation.  I was watching TV at nine years old when I viewed a Buddhist monk setting himself on fire.  Vietnam got my attention on that day and held it throughout my youth.  I remember watching the television news, with the weekly “body count” scorecards for dead Americans, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army (NVA).  I was almost 15 when, overnight, the Tet Offensive changed the appraisal of the war by the mainstream American public.  I was almost 19 when I got my draft lottery number.  I was 22 and about to graduate from college when Saigon fell.

Last week, a carpenter about my age did some work at my house.  When he arrived, he commented that he heard through the door that I was watching The Vietnam War.  It took us about two sentences to get to the draft.  Each of us instantly remembered our lottery numbers (mine was 65, his was 322).  Both of us remembered where we were on February 2, 1972, the night of that lottery drawing.

For Baby Boomers, The Vietnam War provides context for our experience, along with some new revelations.  Younger Americans who watch The Vietnam War will now understand what happened then and how it affects our culture and our politics to this day.

Burns and Novick tell their story mostly through first person accounts, from real people recounting their experiences 40-60 years ago.  The American talking heads aren’t big shots, but people who were soldiers, protesters, POWs, journalists and family members who lost loved ones.  But Burns and Novick also bring us Vietnamese witnesses – soldiers and civilians from the ARVN, Viet Cong and NVA.  Including the Vietnamese points of view – as disparate as the American ones – works to complete the picture.

The Vietnam War also brings us new information about the era’s most iconic photos.    We all remember the shocking still photo of the summary pistol-to-the-temple execution of a Viet Cong by a South Vietnamese police official; The Vietnam War brings us the original network TV film clip that was shot and shown only once on the TV news.  There’s the unforgettable photo of the Kent State coed, with hands outstretched over the corpse of a fellow student; we also see a never-before-shown home movie clip shot of the scene by another student.  Finally, we hear from the journalist who photographed the running Vietnamese girl burned by napalm, and we see film from that scene, too.

Who remembers that “light at the end of the tunnel” was coined by a French general in Vietnam, and later adopted by American brass (a bad choice, given the French experience)?  We hear the phrase used again in a very grim joke in late April 1975.

The Vietnam War shows us that Le Duan had shouldered Ho Chi Minh aside and ran the North Vietnamese side of the war for its last eight years.   Study of Le Duan provides us with some important lessons.  First, never get in a war of attrition with a fanatic.  Second, never let a fanatic run your postwar economy or foreign relations.

The Vietnam War is unmatched in tracing the evolution in the American public’s attitude during the long, long war.  There was some public opposition to the War almost from the beginning, but the Tet Offensive in early 1968 convinced the great majority that the US could never win and needed to find a way out.  But many Americans despised the anti-war protests.  It was the protests that divided the American nation.  Oddly, at the same time there was both a policy consensus (get out of Vietnam) and a cultural civil war.

And The Vietnam War, through his own words on White House tapes, exposes Henry Kissinger (the favorite of the American press) as the cynical sycophant that he was, ever flattering Nixon and conspiring to delay peace to favor Nixon’s political fortunes.

There is no more evocative aspect of The Vietnam War than its soundtrack, with 120 songs from the era from Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Buffalo Springfield, Nina Simone, Simon and Garfunkel, Cream, Janis Joplin, Pete Seeger and even the Zombies, Procol Harum, Vanilla Fudge and Link Wray.  One episode ends with my choice as the anthem for 1971 in America – Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On.  The songs are absolutely perfectly matched with the usual and spoken content, perhaps the most masterful use of popular music on a soundtrack that I have seen (and heard).  You can even review the episode playlists .

Through October 15, you can stream, The Vietnam War here.

The Central Park Five: a sense of outrage

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THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE

PBS is now broadcasting the excellent documentary The Central Park Five, about the media-driven rush to wrongly convict five young men of the rape attack upon the Central Park Jogger.  The film is co-directed and co-written by famed documentarian Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball) , his daughter Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon from Sarah’s book of the same name.  The Central Park Five is just as credibly researched as Ken Burns’ previous work but has more of a bite, more of a sense of outrage.

The Central Park Five begins with the actual perpetrator of the crime, so we immediately are reminded that the Central Park Five teens are innocent, which helps us absorb their experience through their eyes.  That’s critical for us to understand how they could have been browbeaten into confessing to crimes that they did not commit.

We see their video confessions and hear from the Five and their families today.  We also hear from lawyers, politicians and journalists, but not from the police or prosecutors.

The story of The Central Park Five is remarkably compelling.  It’s also an important film.  Viewers will never assess confessions induced by police interrogations in the same way again.

Ten Best Baseball Movies

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We’re at the All-Star Break, so let’s talk baseball.  Here are the Ten Best Baseball Movies.

1. Bull Durham (1988):  This comedy is the ultimate baseball film, depicting the minor leagues and players on the way up and on the way down.  The very smart screenplay celebrates all of the little customs, superstitions, traditions, idioms, etc., that make up the culture of baseball.   Plus there is the all-time funniest conference on the mound.

2. Eight Men Out (1988):  Director John Sayles tells the true story of the Black Sox Scandal – the Chicago White Sox players who fixed the 1919 World Series.  Sayles used actors, not baseball players, but the baseball scenes are totally authentic.  The characters of star players Eddie Cicotte, Buck Weaver and Shoeless Joe Jackson and owner Charles Comiskey vividly come alive.

3. A League of Their Own (1992):  This film is set during the man shortage of WW II, when there was a professional baseball league of women players; grizzled manager Tom Hanks is not enthusiastic about managing the girls, but finds that they really do play baseball – real baseball.  “There’s no crying in baseball.”

4. Baseball (1994):  This is Ken Burns’ history of baseball, told in nine “innings”.  The first inning probes the hazy origins of the game, and the ninth inning explores modern corporate baseball.  In between, we see the one-base-at-a-time game of the 1910s, the Black Sox scandal, Babe Ruth and the new power game, the Negro Leagues, Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey, the move of MLB into California, expansion, and so much more.  Burns uses a delightful array of talking heads (players and observers), the most compelling of whom are Buck O’Neil, Stephen Jay Gould and Bob Costas.

5. The Natural (1984):  This is the beautifully shot fable of an promising player whose career is aborted by violence, but who, with a magic bat, reappears in middle age under a different identity as a once-in-a-lifetime slugging star.

6. Bang the Drum Slowly (1973):  Michael Moriarty plays the hotshot pitcher and Robert DeNiro plays the simple-minded catcher on a minor league team.  Roommates, they share the secret of the catcher’s alarmingly progressive disease.  This is the best sports tear jerker.

7. The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976):  This film is the story of the Negro Leaguers who barnstormed the countryside.  It’s also a rowdy and earthy vehicle for Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones and Richard Pryor.  But the baseball scenes are really, really good by themselves.

Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones and Richard Pryor

 

8.  Field of Dreams (1989):  This is the lyrical fable of a dreamer who builds a baseball field in his cornfield to connect with players of yesteryear, including his own father. “Build it, and he will come”.

9. The Pride of the Yankees (1942):  This classic tells the true story of the taciturn superstar Lou Gehrig (the taciturn Gary Cooper) who is stricken by a debilitating illness. Co-stars Babe Ruth as himself.

Gary Cooper in The Pride of the Yankees

 

10. (tie) Major League (1989), Angels in the Outfield (1994) and Damn Yankees! (1958): Major League is the crass joke-a-minute baseball comedy – the Airplane! of baseball.   Angels in the Outfield is the sweet fable about a boy who sees angels, and enlists them to help his favorite ball club.   Damn Yankees! is the musical on our list, and asks what baseball fan wouldn’t sell his soul to have his cellar-dwelling heroes win the Series?  Gwen Verdon has a show stopping rendition of “What Lola Wants”.

The Golden Age of Baseball Movies

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Tom Hanks and Geena Davis in A League of Their Own

 

More excellent baseball movies were made between 1984 and 1994 than in any other period:  The Natural, Bull Durham, Eight Men Out, Field of Dreams, Major League, A League of their Own, Angels in the Outfield, The Scout, Cobb and Ken Burns’ Baseball.

Why didn’t this trend continue?  My guess is that Major League Baseball lost the hearts of Americans during the MLB Strike of 1994-95.  That Strike even forced cancellation of the entire postseason, including the 1994 World Series.

Before the Strike, my kitchen and auto radios were always tuned to the station that broadcast my favorite baseball team; those radios are tuned to NPR now.   I was familiar with every regular player, starting pitcher and key reliever in the National League;  I’m not any more.  The Strike made me go cold turkey and killed my baseball habit.

By the measures of revenue and attendance, MLB has been even more successful since the strike, but I don’t believe that it is loved as much as before.

It was also a key time in American sports culture – as baseball was being eclipsed by soccer as a youth sport and by the NBA and NFL as a spectator sport.  Baseball did not understand how vulnerable its place in American culture was.

Americans have been burned once – and severely burned –  by baseball.  We will go the ballpark as an entertainment event, but no longer from devotion to the sport and our favorite teams.  That devotion – which so warmly received the baseball movies of 1984-1994 – is no longer there.

Bob Uecker calls the action in Major League

For the 4th of July Weekend – Ten Patriotic Movies

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I haven’t found any other acceptable lists of patriotic movies.  Other lists tend to be less patriotic and more jingoistic and nationalistic, less about celebrating the essential American values and triumphs (sometimes triumphs over ourselves) than about dominating some furriners in war or sport.  That’s why Top Gun and Miracle show up on those lists, but not mine.

Throughout our history,  American patriots have taken risks and made sacrifices for ideas and causes greater than themselves.  Here are ten movies that celebrate that authentic patriotism.

1. Casablanca:  Our greatest film also depicts the decision to make a painful personal sacrifice, abandoning the love of one’s life, to join the risky fight against fascism, racism and fundamental evil.  “I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”Now that’s the essence of patriotism.

Rick is good at being noble, after all.

 

 

 

2.  John Adams: There was a time when the English subjects in North America needed to be convinced to seek Independence.  There was a time – a long time – when the outcome of the war for that Independence was uncertain.  There was a time when the winners of that war needed to invent a new government.  And then the new government needed to be led by people without experience in self-government.  John Adams, the most overlooked giant of our Founding Fathers,  was a central player in all of these dramatic events and is the subject of this brilliant mini-series.

Unique among the Founding Fathers, his day-to-day activities were frankly chronicled in hundreds of letters to and from his wife of fifty-four years, Abigail.  These surviving letters comprise one of the most essential first-hand accounts of the founding of America, and, of course, also reveal much about the talented but prickly Adams and the Adams’ relationship.

 

 

 

3.  Gettysburg:  This is the best Civil War movie, shot on the actual battlefield with thousands of re-enactors.  It makes this list because it highlights the character of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels), a professor of rhetoric and theology, who finds himself leading a few men to defend his army’s most vulnerable position; the screenplay uses Chamberlain to verbalize the rationale for his commitment to preserve the world’s flagship democracy.

 

 

 

4.  To Kill a Mockingbird:   Atticus Finch is compelled to pursue truth, justice and fair play, and he is committed to reaching those outcomes in the American justice system that he cherishes.  In doing so, he rejects the expectations of his time and place, and he risks his community standing, his family’s comfort and security and his own personal safety.

 

 

 

5.  Saving Private Ryan:  A high school teacher is thrust onto history’s biggest stage: the Allied invasion of Nazi-held Normandy.  He is assigned a dangerous mission that he understands has public relations value, but little military tactical importance.   He appreciates how high are the risks and how little the impact that the mission will have on the outcome of the War, yet maintains his focus on the success of his mission and the safety of his men.

 

 

 

6.  The Best Years of Our Lives:    A war ends, and it’s time to total up the sacrifices made by both those who fought and their loved ones, and to recognize how they have been changed by their experiences.  Check out this beautifully re-cut trailer.

 

 

 

7:  Eyes on the Prize: American’s Civil Rights Years 1954-1965:  July 4, 1776, is the start, not the apex, of the American journey.  Since then, we have been working to fashion a more ideal America – in both tiny increments and great strides, with missteps along the way.  This series tells the story of a great stride – accomplished by underdogs.

 

 

 

8.  Seven Days in May:  Is patriotism about nationalism (us against outsiders), or is it a devotion to the American core principle of democracy?  That’s the central question in this thriller about a plotted military coup in the United States.

 

 

 

9.  In Harm’s Way:  This is the closest to a conventional war movie on this list, but one about Americans facing a conflict with determination despite being uncertain of the outcome.  It depicts even the most troubled American making the ultimate sacrifice for a greater good.  Otto Preminger introduces his own trailer:

 

 

 

10.  Baseball:  This is the Ken Burns nine part history of baseball.  There is some heroism here (Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey), but mostly this film makes the list to celebrate an essential thread in the American fabric.  Like our culture, baseball has rules, history, customs, competition, winners and losers. Like our country, baseball has been shaped by immigration, urbanization and new technologies.   Like our nation’s history, baseball’s history is replete with racists, greedy capitalists, cheaters, solid role models, eccentrics, innovators, visionaries and idealists.  Baseball has its own language, food and iconography, and is generally one of the most consistently sweet things about America. For better or for worse, there is nothing more American than baseball, and what’s more patriotic than watching Baseball?