The War

Today in class we watched a segment of Episode 5, "FUBAR" from the series The War. This episode focuses on some of the disasters of World War II that most people don't often hear about, such as the Battle of Peleliu or Operation Market Garden. Before this class, I had never seen any of this series by Ken Burns. From what we watched in class, I am very interested in watching more of the episodes in the series.

The film is geared towards the American public as it focuses on 4 towns in the United States and the people that lived there. The towns could represent any place in America that was affected by the war. Burns uses photos, video clips, interviews, documents, narrators etc. to portray what the war was like for everyday people. People are pulled into the film because they can make a connection to the people that are being presented. I found that I wanted to know what happened to these various people because I was given so much information about their experiences, something that isn't always portrayed in a war movie. This film leaves out the leaders that most people hear about during this time period. FDR and Churchill were never mentioned in the segment we watched. The use of big time actors, such as Tom Hanks and Josh Lucas, as narrators also draw people into this film. Recognizing their voices allows you to make a connection with what is being presented to you.

The one thing that stuck out the most to me while watching this film was the use of photos and clips when talking about a specific event during the war. I didn't know if the photos and clips were from the actual events being described in the film. The question was raised whether this was history or not? I'm not sure about this because the footage used was authentic, but it might have been used for something it doesn't represent. This is definitely something to think about and raise with my future students in History.