User reviews

I am a 1958 Baby Boomer. My dad was a medic with the 97th. Now I know why he didn't really talk about the war much. He mostly talked about the friends he had made, and the sites that he had seen. After viewing some of the grizzly images in "The War", I can only imagine the horror he must have endured caring for the wounded and dead. My dad passed away in 1999, but I found myself often while watching "The War" wishing that he were there sitting next to me to answer many of the questions that this documentary brought to mind. Mostly I wanted to give him a big hug. I feel that I know and understand Dad so much better now. Thanks Dad and thanks Ken Burns.

I still think that the gold standard of WW II documentaries is the 1970's World at War series. Laurence Oliver's ominous Macbeth style of narration set the tone and the 26 episode series covered WW II really well. Critics point out that it showed the war from more of a British point of view. I suppose the fact that Britain and it's dominions were fighting against the Germans and the Japanese for longer than any of the other allies in the Far East, North Africa, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, Scandinavia and continental Europe is perhaps understandable. If casualties alone was the standard used to measure sacrifice or relevance then the USSR could lay claim to that . Over 15 % of it's population in some form of another perished in the eastern front amounting to millions in a war of annihilation against the Germans. Taking it on it's own I don't think there is a conflict in human history that can match the brutality and barbarism that took millions of lives in such a short space of time. They are all important topics in the context of WW II and they have over the years been excellently covered and narrated by American as well as British production companies. One aspect that has not been really been examined thoroughly is the WW II purely from an American point of view.

Ken Burns probably needed to remind a new generation of Americans whose understanding of war is limited to computer games and watching smart bombs and predator drones on TV or on you-tube bombarding specs on the ground from a command center in Florida. In previous wars, Americans endured greater sacrifices. A lot of boots on the ground was the order of the day and American troops encountered huge numbers of well armed and fanatical opponents. Interestingly Burns seemed to focus on four states of the USA, Connecticut, Alabama, Wisconsin and California. I don't know why he picked these these in particular, but probably because it gave a good geographical balance of how it affected the lives of the families and the servicemen in the USA.

There is no doubt that mainland USA protected by the vast Atlantic and Pacific oceans had an easier time in WW II than the other allies. The US was never really under a serious threat of either large air raids or invasion. Yes crude attacks were attempted both by the Germans and Japanese but only for propaganda purposes. If it was an accident of geography (and the isolation explains the USA's late entry into the war) lucky for the USA and lucky for the world too! Remember it was a world war and the arsenal of democracy as it was known could offer vital military equipment and manpower for the war effort.

From a standing start,(although lend lease to Britain and armament production had been steadily rising since 1940) the USA really got it's industry going on a total war footing. Japan and Germany had a ten year head start in war capacity and training. By 1942 Americans were fighting in North Africa, by 1943 Italy, 1944 France ,as well as doing a bit of island hopping in the pacific to boot and by 1945 it was all over. In fact Americas limitless natural resources, raw materials, manpower (and woman power) and huge industrial potential uninterrupted from air raids were vital. Not only was it important for victory but also in shaping the post-war world, i.e. the Marshall plan. Americas efforts in the aftermath of the war with European and Japanese reconstruction should not be underestimated.

The American military with their self confidence, bold ideas, optimism and big band music and might have irritated and annoyed the other allies. In Britain they were over sexed, over paid and over there. However, amusing that might sound it doesn't really go anywhere in telling the whole story. On the cover of this DVD set there is a photograph of a tired and gaunt looking American GI, a far cry from the beaming soldier fresh off the boat in the snazzy uniform out on the town. He could have been from any where in the USA perhaps Connecticut or Wisconsin, but his haunted face tells the story. He was probably in his early 20's wanted to go college or get married, join his fathers business, work on the farm or be a lawyer, perhaps he wanted to be a baseball player. Yet his life was turned upside down, conscripted into the service and after boot camp was shipped off thousands of miles from where he grew up to places he had never heard of!

American blood was spilled as far and wide as Iwo Jima, North Africa, Normandy, Bastogne and Guadalcanal, Anzio, Remargen and Midway, just to name a few, ten of thousands of Americans died on land in the air and at sea. American forces were involved in some of the most vicious fighting of the second world war. Victory over Hitler nor Japan could have been achieved without US participation, but the USA couldn't have done it all alone too, allies were vital too.

It gives an interesting account of the war from how it impacted the lives of Americans and how they saw it from their point of view. I got the impression from Burns that the US fought harder in the pacific, it was more personal, probably because of pearl harbor but moreover the Japanese were really easy to hate, they were exceptionally cruel to their captives. Well narrated in an easy going style by Keith David. Must movies for Americans to watch after this is THE VICTORS 1963 and finally the very impressive BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES 1949.

As a 1951 baby boomer, I am the proud son of a world war 2 vet. Growing up, Dad talked little about the war. What I learned about the war was from history books and war movies. But Ken Burns has changed all of that for me and I am sure the Millions who have seen and will see this incredible documentary. For now I am not just the son born after the war but someone who knows and feels what went on for 5 years in Europe,North Africa, in the Pacific and the Far East. I have learned things no book or film ever taught me: the sights, the smell and the taste of the horrors our boys faced as we fought toward victory. This is a movie that is going to be too late for the many Vets that have passed on during the 62 years since V-J day. But it is now here , for the record , for all us now and future generations to say "THANK YOU" to the greatest generation for saving the world from the most brutal humans that were ever put on this earth. Again, Thank you Ken Burns for this incredible experience.

I'm glad that the other reviewers here have seen, and enjoyed "The Civil War" by the same filmmaker. However, I don't see why it is so important to them to explain that they enjoyed it more than this film. Especially without explaining if they enjoyed this film more than other documentaries ON WORLD WAR TWO! It's apples 'n oranges folks.

I, for one, am enjoying it (last installment, tonight!) immensely. And, I would say, MORE than any other WORLD WAR TWO DOCUMENTARY I have ever seen (and I believe that I've seen most all of them). Focusing on four American towns was just the right size character study for this subject. Very, very, good film.

I spent the last week reading and then watching this remarkable series, i.e., reading a chapter in Geoffrey C. Ward's 400+ page book and then watching the corresponding episode of the documentary film. While the script of the films, also by Ward, reproduces much of what is in the book, often verbatim though not necessarily in the same order, there is also much that had to be left out to limit this massive undertaking to seven approximately 2-hour film episodes.

Reading the book is already a very moving and informative experience. It is very well and powerfully written. But watching the seven installments of the movie is yet more powerful, indeed often overwhelming. (I could not handle more than one episode a day.) It is one thing to read the recollections of the witnesses, almost all of whom are master story tellers. It is that much more powerful to hear their voices and see their faces as they recount them. Much interesting detail is lost in the narrative in going from the book to the movie, so the movie is less informative than the book. But in terms of conveying the emotional impact the war had on both those who fought in it and those who lived through it here in the States, which in the end is one of Burns' goals, the movie is far more successful than the already very successful book.

Some previous reviewers get lost in irrelevant sidetracks. Burns makes it very clear from the start that he cannot tell the whole story of the War, so he is limiting himself to how it affected people in four mid- to small-sized American towns. (He cheats a little on this with witnesses like Glenn Frazier, who wasn't from Mobile, and Sascha Werzheimer, who was from Sacramento but spent the War in the Philippines, but I'm not going to fault him on that.) Complaining that this series does not cover the war in Yougoslavia or other places is therefore irrelevant; no one could cover all of the war in 15 hours of documentary, and Burns tells us from the very beginning what limits he is imposing on his presentation. If you want something else, this is not the place to look for it.

Others complained about the music. I truly cannot understand why. Burns' team makes masterful use of songs popular during the War, and of a deeply moving score by Winton Marsalis that makes already powerful visual and vocal footage that much more devastating. I wouldn't listen to the sound track by itself, but putting it beneath the rest of what is going on makes it that much more devastating.

It is clear that Burns and Ward want to make several points, none of which I see as particularly left- or right-wing. They show that some of the American generals in the war had overbearing egos (MacArthur in particular) and some were simply incompetent. They show that war brings out the worst in some human beings, whatever the nationality, reducing them to something subhuman, such as the American GI who extracts teeth from an enemy corpse to get the gold fillings or the Japanese soldiers who emasculate dead GIs. (We actually see brief film footage of what appears to be GIs robbing Japanese soldiers' corpses of their possessions.) But we also hear of incredible courage and stamina, often told by men whose courage and endurance is equaled only by their humility.

As several of the veterans say, you cannot understand what it was like to live through the worst of the war unless you were there. This movie doesn't challenge that assertion. It does, however, do a remarkable job of giving us some idea not just of the facts of the matter, but of what the war did emotionally to those who lived through it, on the fields of battle and here at home.

On the last page of the book's text, one of the witnesses, Quentin Aanenson, says that "the dynamics of war are so absolutely intense, the drama of war is so absolutely emotionally spellbinding, that it's hard for you to go on with a normal life without feeling something is missing." It is that absolute intensity that this movie series does an often overwhelmingly good job of conveying.

"Dear God, we need your help real bad. Don't send anyone else but yourself, neither. Not even Jesus. 'Cause this is no place for kids."

I'm half way through the series and am absorbing it like a sponge. Fantastic story tellers, especially that pilot, Quentin Annensen (sp?). Oscar-winning actors couldn't have done it any better, telling chilling stories that make me realize how lucky I am, as a young man, to not have to experience such things. (...And I thought I had drama in my life.)

My Grandfather survived the war on various submarines, so I've been a bit disappointed there's been no mention, so far, of sub warfare. But as the series describes, "there were millions of people involved and millions of stories." I'm not too upset.

To the filmmakers, terrific job. To the vets, I'll always remember you.

The music criticisms are from folks who apparently didn't live through the era. Swing songs were what everybody was listening to, dancing to and romancing to during WW II. In my opinion, the music was perfect. Even our GI's listened to it wherever they were. Even I, as a young boy remember nearly every song because I lived during those difficult times. The music picked up our spirits, took our minds off the horrible stories of combat and death occurring all around us. The sad and slow symphonic and odd flute sounds should remind one of the eerie and uncommon circumstances we all had to face during those times. And that death in combat is not a usual experience for most of us. Actually, I think the combat sequences and death scenes should be required viewing for all the kids being raised and educated today. They need to see the horrible sacrifices this nation made to be certain they, we and many other nations remained free from maniacal tyrants and killers like the Jap emperor Hirohito, Tojo, Hitler and all their ilk, and still some who stalk this country as you read this. If everyone watched and listened without criticizing to the message of those who fought this war, the families who remained at home and worried, cried, prayed and mourned their dead, they might just get in tune with why this country is so great. We get to watch films like this because our fighting men and women knew the value of freedom and many, too many, sacrificed, were wounded physically and mentally, and too often paid the ultimate price so we can watch these films and don't have to speak Japanese, German or any other conqueror's language. So, shut up about the music already! Listen to the message! Please.

Ken Burns is one of the most prolific filmmakers of our time, and his body of work encompasses a wide array of subjects such as baseball, the prohibition era, national parks, cancer research, and other things. Probably the most critically acclaimed things he makes though are the ones related to war. The documentary he produced on the vietnam war for example is without a doubt one of the most incredible and well put together things ever broadcast, and if you didn't already see it, I'd advise you to do so. Long before he made that, Burns made another documentary on war that also received universal approval, that being on the civil war. In between these two, he created a short tv series on the second world war, but unlike the other two that got an amazing reception from basically everyone, the world war II series is seen as somewhat of a mixed bag, at least by me. Don't get me wrong, it's still very well made and has moments in it that will make you laugh, make you sad, make you scared, etc. And only the very best shows can make the viewer feel all these emotions within only one episode, but my problems with the series arise when you notice that this isn't really an overview of the subject at hand. The civil war series and the vietnam series are both amazing because they cover in impeccable detail the causes of each war, who was fighting who, what were they fighting about, what long term effects the conflict had, and other things. They also include interviews and firsthand accounts from people that were there. The War has all this, but it's not a direct overview of what world war II actually was, so if you're looking for a show that covers the whole thing from start to finish, then you better look elsewhere. The series does not really go into why ww2 started or how, but rather focuses on just the US side of things. It's the story of ww2 from the American perspective. It interviews various people from 5 different US towns and how their citizens experienced the war. It's not an all-encompassing recap of what the war was about. Despite this, I still enjoyed the series, and it has many incredible stories in it that the people tell, but the fact that it's not an overview of the whole war kind of annoys me. Still, the war footage is very engaging, and Keith David's narrating is without a doubt one of the best things about this series (cultured people will recognize his voice as the arbiter from halo 2 and 3). Again, it's not bad by any means. Just not what I was expecting from Ken. I watched the vietnam war first, and that one was so ridiculously good that everything else looks disappointing in comparison. The War is great, but not a worthy competitor to the masterpiece that was vietnam.

This beautiful work of art touches the heart and soul. Truly one of the best things ever written and constructed in film. I've seen it five times and still moves me to my core Thank you mr Ward and mr Burns for this most important piece of historic telling for us an all our future generations

I have now watched this series of films twice. Its just tremendous. I don't have any other word for it. The amount of detail, the supporting cast of interviews, the music, the massive amount of images, it's all so incredibly well done, words do not suffice. If there ever has been one truly brilliant documentary on the meaning of total war, this has to be the one. As a European I realize that the story focuses on the American soldier and the American experience, which I fully understand. As a European, 'we' have of course that other masterpiece, 'The World at War'. Together, they complete the story on this black hole in human misery and history. I was sometimes moved to tears watching 'The War'. Again, the amount of detail is stunning. Watching this series of films leaves you wishing that there will never again be such a human catastrophe. In my view this film crowns the unbelievable effort Americans made to restore freedom and civilization to the world. Whatever anybody thinks or says, it's only thanks to the United States of America and it's people, that we today can walk the earth (or most part of it) a free human being. I'm glad (and lucky) that I belong to a generation (born 1956) that have been able to cherish freedom and peace without having to put my life on the line, like all these millions of men and women. This film is a Big thank you.

I have not watched this yet but was motivated to write this "review" in response to a bizarre criticism I kept encountering while browsing the reviews. Apparently some people become enraged at the very thought that an American filmmaker making an American documentary for an America audience about America's part in a historical event might present an American point of view. How appalling!!! How selfish and unfair and propagandistic to have a point of view!!! Filthy Americans!!!

We can play this game with every single country. The Soviet Union saw the war in Eastern Europe as the entirety of the war. They didn't give a damn what happened elsewhere. In fact, they never even referred to it as a World War. French accounts massively overplay the importance of the Resistance, and the British thought that Monty was an important general and that El Alamein made a difference. Why is America the only country that's not allowed to have a point of view?

For those of you who hate giving America any credit for anything, you're gonna hate this even more: without American support, Britain would have been starved into submission and the Soviet Union would have collapsed. How do you think they reinforced and resupplied the Red Army in the first place? They did it to a great extent using the stuff America provided: over 400,000 trucks and jeeps, 13,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks), 11,000 aircraft, thousands of locomotives and rail cars, several million tons each of food, gasoline and high-octane aviation fuel.

After Britain's surrender, an additional several hundred thousand soldiers would have been moved from the Atlantic Wall to the Eastern Front. A bigger army, Britain out of the fight, no distraction in Greece, and the USSR lacking the necessary transport & supplies all mean that Hitler wins, Britain becomes an irrelevant footnote, and the Soviet Union ceases to exist. Europeans fought in Europe because they had to. Americans didn't have to go there for the Second Damn Time. Americans fought there because it was the right thing to do. Americans have earned the right to have a damn point of view. Your very ability to complain about us exists because we saved your ass.

This documentation is well made, this is indisputable. But it is characteristic for US Americans to just see their point of view, skipping everything else. The Second World War was not just USA against Germany and Japan, it was much more complicated. And I expect that a documentation with a length of more than 800 minutes and the title "The War" an all-round view and not just one single view. But I could except this, if at least the documentation of World War 2 would be complete. The war didn't start on Pearl Harbor Day! Europe was until then already two years at war with the Germans winning. But because we see just the American sight, Germany and their Allies just seems weak and it is never clear why the European Countries couldn't handle them themselves. The importance of the Soviet campaign is hardly mentioned. In Contrast the Japanese seems to be the main aggressor of the Second World War. This is maybe true for Australian and US troops, but still Japan was never such a dangerous enemy as the Germans (especially because enough people living in Allied Countries sympathized with the Nazi Regime). It was also no wonder, that Japans aggressive war against China (some people call this the true start of World War 2) from 1937 is also never mentioned.

If the movie were, say, 2 hours long, it would be an interesting insight of how the USA experienced the Second World War. But in this nearly 900 minute version, there are too many flaws, which are not acceptable, at least for a Non-American.

The US involvement in World War 2, as seen through the inhabitants of four US towns. This includes some of the men who saw combat - in different branches, units and theatres of operations - plus the civilians at home.

A superb documentary series from the master of the genre, Ken Burns. Uses a similar formula to his greatest work - The Civil War: through narration, a broad yet detailed coverage of the events plus stories of the people caught up in the conflict and how it affected them. By humanising the conflict it makes the series more engaging, while still informing us of the bigger picture.

Quite emotional at times too, seeing how the war affected people. The conclusion of the series is very moving.

Good use of archival film footage and stills by Burns. I have seen many WW2 documentaries and yet much of the footage was new to me.

Good narration by Keith David. Doesn't quite have the gravitas or impact that David McCullough had in The Civil War but, then, nobody does.

The six letter title ("The War") of this Ken Burns' series is remarkably illustrative of the piece. The title is not "America's War", as would be more apt in some objective sense, but simply "The War" as if you the viewer were an 19-year old American about to be shipped off to some far-off land. To you , there was only one, The War.

This seven-part series chronicles World War II through a distinctly American lens. The subjects are mostly common Americans impelled by circumstance of birth but mostly also compelled by a genuine American idealism to make war and suffer loss. What few WW2 veterans remain with us this day may be with us still perhaps a decade or two at most. "The War" gives them one last opportunity to reflect on comrades lost and horrors seen. It gives us as viewers one last opportunity to hear their stories as you might hear your grandparent tell you rather than as the cardboard cut-outs of history books. Typically for Burns', the piece is filled with well chosen period photos, moving images, and music.

And yet, as much as we want and need to remember the sacrifices of those who served, I can't help but think that this was the wrong film for Burns' to make. Sure, he will get accolades from veterans groups and politicians the country wide. But Burns should have left the story of American heroics and sacrifice to the sentimentalists - lord knows there are enough of them. A man with Burns' skill should have broadened his ken (no pun intended) to teach his largely American audience some new ways to think about the conflict and its implications for modern society.

If an American and, say, a Croat were to start discussing the war today, the American would speak about pride and sacrifice. Even if moderately knowledgeable about history, he'd have perhaps some vague sense that the Yugoslavs were somehow involved. Never in his wildest dreams would he have guessed that the Yugoslav armed forces suffered more dead than the Americans in World War II. And such are the points that need to be made in this age where 9/11, however inherently important it is, should be put into context. 3000 or so people died in 9/11. This is a blip on the radar - a bad few weeks in Iraq or a particularly bad day in any given African conflict. The message that Americans need to learn is not more paeans about the uniqueness and greatness of their sacrifice - but rather more about the universality of it. To be a world leader, America in 2007 needs less navel gazing and more outward understanding.

"The War" - "America's War" - provided none of this. It also barely touched issues of class and race in any substantive way, other than to give a somewhat embarrassingly lopsided and timid view of the internment of Japanese Americans. We need the Ken Burns' of the world. What am I saying - we need Ken Burns' to do more than pay homage to our great, brave veterans. We need him to tell the stories about ourselves and our world that Americans just don't know.

Ken Burns has done it again. "The Civil War" was a masterpiece. "Baseball" was absolutely superb. And "The War" is another A+ piece of work. Why? Let me count the ways.

1) All wars are hell. This time Burns was able to show what little he felt most humans could suffer without vomiting, some of which was filmed on the spot. Sure, some of the editing was a little choppy. Sure, vast areas of what happened in 1939-1946 had to be omitted by nature of the immensity and complexity of what happened. But most of the younger kids who thinks wars are only fought in the Middle East and who knew nobody in their families who died, or for that matter don't even know the dates of WWII, haven't a clue. So what if they didn't like the music? Hell, they didn't have Ipods or plasma tvs or cable then. Do some reading. Try to envision what absolute hell war is. Burns showed us.

2) For the first time, we were able to hear it - extensively - from people who lived through it. How many wouldn't give a lot to sit down with the folks from those 4 towns who spent hours in interviews, to hear more about it? WWII affected, almost as much as the Civil War, everyone in the country. Go talk to them, kids. Hear what they have to say. You and your generation have never submitted to anything that meant a total effort by your country to remain free. You can't conceive what it means to say that dropping 2 A-bombs of necessity to end the war saved over 500,000 American lives. People today froth at the mouth when they read the media touting the nearly 4,000 dead in Iraq. How about saving 500,000 lives? This war was so immense and affected everything and everyone that every generation of Americans should be made to really study it. Never since have we faced what these people faced. And Burns shows it. All of it.

3) We - you - can't view this documentary in terms you are comfortable with: instant gratification, burning the flag, anti-war demonstrations, cell phones and emails, and the whole plethora of me-me-me that exists today. You need to read what life was really like then, who did what and how they did it, what they believed in, what manners they had, what they were willing to die for. Burns gives you continuous examples of people from 4 American towns for 15 hours to try to tell you what Americans were willing to do to save their way of life from seriously evil sickos who were hell bent on destroying us. Those psychos in the Middle East have the same sort of plan to destroy anything in the west; similar to plans Hitler had to literally own the world and kill off those he felt were in the way and the plans that the Japanese had of making every western country a subservient fiefdom. Read about it. Read a lot about it (if you know how to read) and then watch the Burns doc. See what it took to stop them. Oh, Hitler and Tojo and Stalin, eventually, weren't that bad? They were only comic-book characters? If you believe that, you need a serious education.

4) What happened in 1941-1945 happened. As in all wars throughout history, there were morons in charge of some, heroes in charge of others, misguided attempts, spectacularly successful attempts, incredibly unlucky attempts. But nothing ever so large, on such a scale of planning, training, executing, supplying, and staffing h as ever occurred in the history of man, and probably never will. And Burns eloquently captured some of its essence. Nobody could EVER capture all of it, or even parts of it, on the scale in which it happened. WWII was the last of the romantic wars. During WWII there were still espionage, undergrounds, passwords, night parachutings, spy chains, radio broadcasts, a whole litany of danger that stopped with the Cold War. After that, Korea and Vietnam and now the butchery in Iraq turned into cold, mechanical, medieval barbarism. Burns had to pick and choose the parts that brought the personalities of those from four American towns into view. And he did that very well.

My dad went over to Germany in 1946 to help "clean up" after the war as a member of the U.S. Army. Growing up he told us many stories of the after war devastation. I still remember those stories. I had studied WW II in high school, and this documentary helped me understand, through the eyes of four U.S. towns, just how WW II effected so many people all over the world. One thing that sticks in my mind is how the people of the U.S. all came together to save, to ration, to recycle, to just generally do without during this time. This will be a set to add to my DVD collection. Hopefully I can pass along my dad's stories as well as this collection to my grandchildren. And one more thing, I really enjoyed the music.

Ken Burns's great gift is for making sweeping events such the Second World War, understandable and personal the viewer. As an educator, I share his concern for the general lack of knowledge by young people about this war (A large percentage believe that the U.S. and Germany fought as allies against the Russians) as well as the relentless depletion of collective memory from that war's survivors. In addressing these two issues, Burns deserves our gratitude. While some may quibble about aspects of this documentary, it does succeed in its expressed mission to explain the events "from the bottom up." As for the music, I think that it was generally appropriate. I enjoy jazz but I think that its extensive use in this production reflected more of Burns's preferences than what G.I's were listening to. e.g "The White Cliffs of Dover, "You Are My Sunshine" "I'll Be Seeing You" etc. This, however, is a very minor criticism.

Ken Burns has had many excellent documentaries but this one outshines them all, it is nothing short of a work of art.

Some might complain that it focuses only on Americans but Ken Burns is American and making it for an American audience so there's nothing wrong with that. The people chosen to be in this film are absolutely fantastic, they come from all walks of life and recount the war from different perspectives. There are men who were in all branches of the service who had seen action in Europe and the South Pacific, there were people who were POWs and people who told of what life was like on the homefront. All of these people had such interesting stories to tell and came across as very genuine and likable.

The background music is fabulous as are all of the old photos and home movies. One of the things I loved most about this film was that it basically gave the stage to people who weren't famous. People like FDR, Patton and Eisenhower had a prominant role in the actual war but they get little mention in this film, it instead focuses on the so called common people and their experiences.

Anyone with even a slight interest in WW2 should see this.

The fundamental factor making the documentaries from Ken Burns so highly interesting and engaging, but also important, is the use of photographs and footage going along with the stories, whether they are being told by real people who took part in the historical events, or it's a brilliant narrator or retelling actor, headhunted for the occasion. From the groundbreaking series The Civil War (1990) to The War, Burns basically uses the same formula, and there's no need to change it because it works perfectly, and has become his trademark. The stories are told by actual survivors and there is an equal and versatile blend of perspectives, all the way from daily life or family plunders in the homeland to the most extreme horrors in combat or war prisoner camps, and the veterans are allowed to share their critical view on for instans military leaders and post war society. Regardless, the fundamental factor is how futile and damaging war is and always will be. Some reviewers claim it's only viewed from an American perspective, but Burn's documentaries are always about US history, and even though it was a global war, this series is not a patriotic clisché, but a historical document for everyone, and for the ages.

I've watched this mini-series at least a half dozen times at this point. Each time, I learn new things. Each time, I'm completely enthralled. There is so much insight, so many things that I did not know about World War II that it is sometimes difficult to absorb everything that's related. And this is, mind you, just from the point of view of the United States and its soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

In particular, the first person stories told by those who were there, who fought or were prisoners during the war, are very engrossing. Their stories are poignant, and you genuinely feel their losses and their grief. Even after so many viewings, I frequently find myself tearing up at certain points. This is one of the many things that speaks to the enduring quality of the documentary. Keith David's narration is spot on, providing an anchor that is sometimes necessary considering the material being discussed.

In short: I cannot recommend this more. Watch it.

Shallow, dull, and unnecessary, this documentary fails even to live up to its title.

To consider WWII's impact upon American life, this misnamed series starts at Pearl Harbor, relegating three years' European and five years' Asian warfare to the vaguest of backgrounds. The Nazi invasions of Poland and Russia get about a minute apiece. The Rape of Nanking is barely mentioned, in context of American newsreel consumption. Okay, fine, but don't call it "The War." Call it "Our War," or "Homefront" or "America's Americentric View of the War and How it Affected Americans." Don't insult the rest of the planet, which had already been fighting for as much as 50 months before December 7.

"The War" makes gestures toward a smalltown motif, but after a lot of talk about focusing on 4 towns, we spend time with soldiers from elsewhere. And the homefront imagery tells us nothing new: women joined the workforce. Rationing, victory gardens, no new cars. Blacks joined the workforce, racial confrontations ensued; Japanese-Americans were interned in cheerless prison camps. Guess what, Ken - I already watch PBS! Wait, wait - black and Japanese-American soldiers were segregated and under-appreciated, though they were just as heroic as everybody else. Betcha didn't see that coming. One surprise: uber-liberal public television makes exactly zero references to the experience of women in uniform.

(I'll tell you an exhaustive documentary miniseries we really need: a worm's eye view of how the troublemakers gear up to cause one of these awful world wars. This is the insight we could use, not "how did we defend ourselves?" but "how could we have been so ill-prepared as to not see this coming?")

A pretentious, plodding structure makes it worse. No single campaign is delineated beyond generalizations - "The siege of Saipan had only just begun;" "Bastogne would not be liberated for weeks." The first few hours especially contain a lot of rough, disorienting transitions. And the narration is redundant and occasionally nonsensical, as when Keith David tells us that Carlson's Raiders and Japanese Marines were sometimes "only a few feet" apart - this during hand-to-hand fighting. Who's signing off on this stuff?

This Ken Burns film needs among other things a Shelby Foote, a lively historical authority on whom the viewer may hang his faith and attention. Instead, somebody reads from contemporary journalism: Ernie Pyle, who already fumbled his own movie (a dog starring Burgess Meredith) or Al McIntosh, channeling Horton Foote. The veterans and civilians interviewed in talking-head format are charming, some of them, though only one or two show any real storytelling flair, and they do it late. Wynton Marsalis, who might have supplied our voice of wisdom, instead seems to have imagined Aaron Copland scoring a funeral of Norman Rockwell.