Ken Burn's Documentary "The Vietnam War"

Yep. And a fascinating story it is. It won a Pulitzer, but unlike most Pulitzer winners, there’s never a dull moment.

Billy Paxton (RIP) made a cracking good TV movie of it (with Clarence from RoboCop as Westmoreland!!)

While it would be great to see it made with current gritty standards, it’s still a fascinating look at how things could have gone in VN, had more invested players been listened to.

I’d love to read the book.

You have the right idea. Let’s just say that I was really disappointed by the movie. Paxton was actually pretty well cast as Vann, but there’s no way a TV movie could do justice to the book.

You mean it doesn’t provide fuel for epic Jothamian debates? :disappointed_relieved:

I just finished the documentary. I think it gets better around the 4th or 5th episode but suffers from focusing too much on the American perspective. I get that it is an American work by Americans for Americans but it irks me that Americans still think they own the story of Vietnam.

Just finished the 6th episode. The North Vietnam guy talking about the mass killings after the attack on Hue said something like “hope you do this film right, don’t want something happening to me”. Not sure how difficult it is for a film maker to get access to those film archives in Vietnam and find people talking about their experiences. Also, there is probably way more material to work with on the American side to begin with. Always amazes me to see how those reporters where able to keep their cool and shoot photos and videos right when it happened.

Going to watch Episode 8 now.

“The veneer of civilization is thin” – good boys turn into savages in no time. That’s something I will remember from Episode 7.

It almost feels like the Viet Cong were the better guys in the war when watching this documentary. Must be hard for proud Americans to hear veterans praise their former enemy’s fighting spirit and at the same time lament the pointlessness of certain campaigns during the war.

How did the Vietnamese fair after the war, I wonder? Need to do more reading on that.

Well, they won :slight_smile:

No more than it ever has been. Mostly on the latter score–it’s no discredit to fight a tough enemy. But both of those points have been well noted in the US going back to the war itself.

They had problems. Conflict with China came fast, and they were involved in Cambodia as well. The devastation caused by the war was tremendous. Remember the “boat people” refugees? The most despicable aspect of our intervention to my way of thinking was the use of defoliants known to be contaminated with dioxin, which doesn’t just go away.

1 Like

Finished watching the last episode. Quite strong and uplifting in the end.

John Musgrave’s accounts left the deepest impression on me

“My hatred for [the Viet Cong] was pure, I hated them so much. And I was so scared of them. Boy was I terrified of them.”

1 Like

I think it’s safe to say the U.S. had no idea what it was getting into. We never imagined we’d be getting our asses kicked by little guys in pajamas.

Not really. We knew. We knew what happened to the French. The British knew from Malaysia and they told us too. Anyone who knew anything about the country told us. But we knew better.

I think most of all they underestimated the fighting spirit of the North Vietnamese. They didn’t falter despite constant bombardment and defeats. In one of the later episodes a guy remembered that many North Vietnamese fighters would desert their units, walk home to their families, and then return back to the front a weeks or months later. They were also always able to fix the damaged supply routes, which was a major factor in keeping the fighting going.

No doubt, the presumption was that “if we drop enough bombs on these guys they’ll give in sooner or later”. That was the whole strategy of the war in a nutshell. The Vietnamese cleverly figured out how to defeat it by not giving in.

Did anyone ever find a convenient way to watch this in Taiwan, or just, er, taking to the high seas? (There’s enough Ken Burns on Netflix that I guess this will show up there eventually, but I have no idea how long it’ll take.)

Watched it all here: https://tixmovies.com/watch/the-vietnam-war-season-1-episode-4-ob9ii-snz.html

1 Like

On Netflix now.

2 Likes

@BiggusDickus, this is definitely worth a watch if you haven’t seen it

2 Likes

Will do