In PBS’ American Experience documentary Jimmy Carter, The New Yorker writer and former Carter speechwriter Henrik Hertzberg says:
Jimmy Carter was what the American people always SAY they want – above politics, determined to do the right thing regardless of political consequences, a simple person who doesn’t lie, a modest man, not someone with a lot of imperial pretenses. That’s what people say they want. And that’s what they got with Jimmy Carter.
And herein lies the rub.
In 1976, Americans were reacting to Watergate and wanted a President LEAST like Richard Nixon. We got him, in the form of Jimmy Carter; it turned out that Carter could deliver non-Nixon decency, but not the leadership that the era required.
Today, many – and the polls indicate, most – Americans seek a non-Trump. I share the view that ANYONE would be better then Trump, but Jimmy Carter is instructive that “anyone”, while better than Trump, might not be the best for the country.
In Jimmy Carter, we hear from those who know Carter best – including his wife Rosalynn Carter, his vice-president Walter Mondale, and right-from-the-start Carter insiders Jody Powell, Pat Caddell and Bert Lance. How the times made this man, then propelled him to such improbable electoral success and then finally doomed his Administration, is a great and cautionary story.
To stream Jimmy Carter from iTunes, search for “Jimmy Carter” under TV Episodes (not under Movies). Jimmy Carter is also available on DVD from American Experience.
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 Warhere.
PBS’s American Master series is airing the documentary Mel Brooks: Make a Noise, which reviews the career of master filmmaker Mel Brooks. In particular, we glimpse inside the making of such masterpieces as The Producers (one of my Greatest Movies of All Time), Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. We see clips from those movies and hear from Talking Heads (including Brook’s best friend Carl Reiner). But the best part of Make a Noise is hearing from Brooks himself. He’s personally delightful and remarkably clearheaded about what makes his films so funny.
Detropia, the absorbing documentary about the plight of contemporary Detroit, will be broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens beginning May 27. Detropia tells a compelling story in an unexpected and effective way.
Before watching the film, I knew that Detroit has lost half of its population and was not surprised to learn of its 30-50% unemployment. But I didn’t expect the blocks and blocks of abandoned homes and businesses and the streets with no traffic. Detropia’s Detroit looks like New Orleans after Katrina or San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. Essentially, there’s been an economic tsunami here. I was astonished to see city leaders seriously considering the demolition of large parts of the city and the relocation of residents into more efficient and more cohesive concentrated neighborhoods.
How did this happen? And what can be done? There’s no agenda by the filmmakers – other than keen-eyed observation. The filmmakers give a voice to three sets of local witnesses who tell the city’s story. And there’s an interesting and unexpected choice to feature the city’s opera.
Most surprising, despite being a movie about urban decay, Detropia is still a visually arresting and often colorful and beautiful film. And, despite the hopelessness of Detroit’s situation, the perspective of the local witnesses keeps Detropia from becoming depressing.
The filmmakers, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp, 12th & Delaware), deserve recognition for making Detropia so compelling without it becoming a screed. Indeed, Detropia is a Sundance award winner.
Just watched Pearl Jam Twenty on the PBS series American Masters. It’sCameron Crowe’s (Almost Famous) documentary on the formation and rise of the band Pearl Jam. My initial test for any rock band documentary is whether it’s better than an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music.
The first 43 minutes of Pearl Jam Twenty is pretty good. There’s the drug overdose death of the lead singer in Pearl Jam’s predecessor band (usually the fatal rock OD is AFTER the rise to stardom). There’s a wonderful video of an early performance where new lead singer Eddie Vedder unleashes the rage in his voice when angered by an overaggressive bouncer during a performance at a small club. Finally, playing before a festival crowd of 60,000 for the first time, Vedder ends a song, gazes across the masses and inhales, literally breathing in the sweet smell of success.
But then the documentary tails off, and there’s not much in the last hour except for Vedder’s ad lib at an awards show cracking up Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant backstage. If you’re a big Pearl Jam fan, then the last hour is probably worthwhile.
