Famous documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has a new sprawling documentary on WWII coming out this fall. WTTW Chicago has been running half-hour previews of it this July. Can anything more really be added to one of the most documented events (ever?) in human history?
One one hand, what more can be said? On the other Ken Burns is a masterful filmmaker and will undoubtedly add something to our insight and understanding.
From the website: THE WAR, a seven-part series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, tells the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from four quintessentially American towns. The series explores the most intimate human dimensions of the greatest cataclysm in history — a worldwide catastrophe that touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America — and demonstrates that in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.
The trailer on the PBS website certainly looks compelling but as with most contemporary retellings of the war, Burns wants it both ways: war is hell but what a great war it was.
I also notice that the History Channel has been rerunning the excellent Band of Brothers series this summer.
UPDATE: Well, after watching the half-hour preview I don't think that this series will overly romanticize the war. I'm really looking forward to seeing it this spring.
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