''The War'' is a seven-part
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
television documentary
Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries.
Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film.
*Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...
miniseries
A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format h ...
about
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
from the perspective of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. The program was directed by American
filmmakers
Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a Film, motion picture is #Production, produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through scr ...
Ken Burns
Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary film, documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle United States, American History of the United States, history and Culture of the ...
and
Lynn Novick
Lynn Novick is an American director and producer of documentary films, widely known for her work with Ken Burns.
Early life
Novick was born in 1962, raised in New York City, and graduated from Horace Mann School in 1979. She graduated magna cum l ...
, written by
Geoffrey Ward, and narrated primarily by
Keith David. It premiered on September 23, 2007. The world premiere of the series took place at the Palace Theater in
Luverne, Minnesota, one of the towns featured in the documentary. It was funded in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
.
Content
The series focuses on World War II in a "bottom up" fashion through the lenses of four "quintessentially American towns":
*
Luverne, Minnesota
*
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 cens ...
*
Sacramento, California
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...
*
Waterbury, Connecticut
The series recounts the experiences of a number of individuals from these communities as they move through the war in the
Pacific,
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
n and
European theaters, and focuses on the effect of the war on them, their families and their communities.
A number of notable actors including
Adam Arkin,
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Ha ...
,
Keith David,
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21, 1948) is an American actor and producer. One of the most widely recognized actors of his generation, the films in which he has appeared have collectively grossed over $27 billion worldwide, making him ...
,
Josh Lucas
Joshua Lucas Easy Dent Maurer (born June 20, 1971) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in various films, including '' American Psycho'' (2000), '' You Can Count on Me'' (2000), '' The Deep End'' (2001), '' A Beautiful Mind'' (20 ...
,
Bobby Cannavale
Roberto Michael Cannavale (; born May 3, 1970) is an American actor. He is best known for various television roles, including leading roles in ''Third Watch'', ''Vinyl'', and ''Mr. Robot'', as well as recurring roles in ''Will & Grace'', which wo ...
and
Eli Wallach are heard as voice actors reading contemporary newspaper articles, telegrams, letters from the front, etc. Notable persons including
Daniel Inouye
Daniel Ken Inouye ( ; September 7, 1924 – December 17, 2012) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Hawaii from 1963 until his death in 2012. Beginning in 1959, he was the first U.S. representative f ...
,
Sidney Phillips,
Joe Medicine Crow and
Paul Fussell
Paul Fussell Jr. (22 March 1924 – 23 May 2012) was an American cultural and literary historian, author and university professor. His writings cover a variety of topics, from scholarly works on eighteenth-century English literature to commentar ...
were interviewed.
The full documentary runs 14 hours and was broadcast in seven parts on
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
over two weeks, starting on Sunday, September 23, 2007 and continuing four nights the first week and three nights the second week, from 8 to 10 p.m. (8 to 10:30 p.m. on three nights). The documentary was provided to PBS affiliates in two versions: One with profanity generally prohibited by FCC regulations (including explanations of the acronyms
FUBAR and SNAFU) and one without the expletives.
Episodes
Each episode begins with the introduction:
International releases
In some countries, notably Australia, Switzerland, Austria, France and Germany, ''The War'' was released as a 14-episode series. The
region 4 DVD release of ''The War'' splits the series into 14 episodes, but notes that it is "a seven-part documentary".
Critical reception
''
TIME
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine's
James Poniewozik named the series one of the Top 10 New TV Series of 2007, ranking it at no. 9. Barry Garron of ''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'' called ''The War'' an "artful masterpiece" and "
en more ambitious than any previous Burns documentary, including ''
The Civil War'','" for its wide-ranging illustration of the impact of World War II on the United States and its citizens. John Leonard of ''
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
'' magazine also commended the miniseries, stating that though the documentary covers areas of the subject that have already been tackled in other World War II documentaries, "it's the nuanced, retrospective witness that makes the series so affecting, the testimonies of survivors who remember both who it is they used to be and the 408,000 fellow Americans who didn't make it." Brian Lowry, writing for ''
Variety'', praised the miniseries as "a major victory for PBS", stating that it is "
monumental undertaking filled with moments of tremendous poignancy", though he noted that "The most significant quibble here is structural.... just when some stories begin to get interesting, that character is left, only to be returned to hours (and given the broadcast pattern, nights) later."
Robert Koehler, another critic for ''Variety'', found fault in the miniseries focusing mainly on the United States' role in World War II, emphasizing that it was unable to explore the various other conflicts in the war in depth such as the Japanese invasion of East and Southeast Asia and
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
.
Alessandra Stanley, writing for the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', gave the series a mixed review, praising it as a "respectful, moving and meticulously illustrated anthology of small-town lives turned upside down by what one elderly veteran calls 'a necessary war,'" while also faulting it for "view
ngthe Second World War as a mostly domestic concern" in which "the London blitz, Stalingrad, Bergen-Belsen and the Warsaw uprising are parentheses." ''
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
''
's Beverly Gage echoed these thoughts saying "it's rousing and meaningful and not technically inaccurate, but not exactly the whole truth." Jonathan Storm of ''
The Philadelphia Inquirer
''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...
'' wrote, "Once-in-a-lifetime viewing."
Keith David received a
Primetime Emmy Award
The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime ...
for
Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for his narration of the series.
Controversy
''The War'' came under fire after previews during the editing process indicated no mention of the contributions of
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
s to the war effort, whose representation in the war itself is estimated at up to half a million people; complaints followed later as to omissions of
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
and
Native American contributions and those of women in uniform.
Originally the premiere was scheduled for September 16, 2007; the fact that this date is both
Mexican Independence Day and the start of U.S. observance of
National Hispanic Heritage Month National Hispanic Heritage Month (Spanish: ''Mes nacional de la herencia hispana'') is annually celebrated from September 15 to October 15 in the United States for recognizing the contributions and influence of Hispanic Americans to the history, cul ...
drew additional fire from its detractors, and the initial airdate was later moved to September 23, 2007, with no comment from PBS.
Although at first the dispute seemed to be settled with the inclusion of additional footage to address the omission, in subsequent weeks, groups began to question conflicting reports from Burns and PBS as to whether the additional footage would be provided as supplementary material or would be integrated into the overall program.
Burns initially insisted that re-editing the series was out of the question, with PBS defending that decision on the basis of
artistic freedom. Over the months of May and June, as of mid-July, 2007, estimates put out by Burns suggested that additional footage showing interviews with two Hispanics and one Native American would be added to the series, for a total of 28 minutes additional footage to the 14 hours the program was originally planned to cover; the additional footage would air at the conclusion of the selected episodes, but before each episode's final credits.
News outlets began to report as of July 11 that the additional content had not been included in materials made available for preview by television writers and critics, prompting renewed discussion and speculation as to the eventual outcome of the debate.
Notes
External links
Official websiteLibrary of Congress' companion website*
{{DEFAULTSORT:War
2000s American documentary television series
Documentary television series about World War II
Films directed by Ken Burns
Films shot in California
Films shot in Alabama
Films shot in Minnesota
Films shot in Connecticut
PBS original programming