Ah, damn. Watched eight of the nine episodes of this thing like two weeks ago and just flat out forgot to finish it. (Don't blame me! The eighth episode ends with Lee's surrender.)
I really loved the Vietnam War documentary a few months ago on PBS, and I decided the series that put Ken burns on the map was one I was long overdue to watch. I liked this a lot. Trouble is, there are only so many photos of the Civil War (thanks, Matthew Brady) and obviously there's no video or audio recorded, so eventually this grew just the slightest bit tedious to watch and listen to. Like, damn, I absolutely love me some Battle Hymn of the Republic, but it was one of maybe three musical motifs this series just kept, kept, kept revisiting. (The other two were some real generic-sounding Oregon Trail menu music samples.)
I'll also say, for the absolute bloodiest war in American history, this whole documentary was just a little rose-colored. So much respect was given to the soldiers on both sides and their wry journal-recorded observations that the whole thing felt a little romanticized for a conflict that, you know, killed 750,000 people, a full five percent of the entire male population of the country.
But yeah, I'm all in on Ken Burns. Gotta imagine I'm gonna love his Baseball whenever I finally get around to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment