I just completed viewing Ken Burns'
The War. The man is a master. What an incredible documentary. The series focuses on four American cities: Sacramento, Mobile, Waterbury, CT, and Luverne, MN, and how the war affected those towns. At the same time, however, Burns works it in that the entire nation was affected in much the same ways that these four towns were. His use of archival video footage and photographs is typical Ken Burns; which means it's incredibly well done. An aspect of this documentary that allows it to stand apart from others he has done is that the stories are told by those who have lived them. Interviews with war veterans and Americans on the homefront add a personal touch that cannot be equaled by historians simply telling about the war, as in other Burns documentaries. This is an amazing piece of filmmaking that helps lend understanding to a sometimes incomprehensible subject: that of brutal war.
