Documentary takes a look at 'The War'

By Heather Warlick

Published: September 16, 2007

OETA and PBS will air director Ken Burns' newest documentary "The War,” a seven-part epic about World War II beginning Sept. 23, but Oklahomans can attend advance one-hour previews in Tulsa and Oklahoma City this week.

Advance screenings will be at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Tulsa Circle Cinema, 10 South Lewis Ave., and at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Oklahoma City Museum of Art's Noble Theater, 415 Couch Drive.

After each screening, a panel discussion will include World War II veterans, historians and scholars. Panel topics will include tips on collecting and sharing war stories, as part of the Oklahoma World War II Stories project. The project is one piece of a nationwide community engagement campaign in which more than 100 public television stations nationwide will reach out to veterans and their families to capture their stories of the World War II era.

"The War” preview events will include giveaways of the documentary's companion book, "The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945” and the CD soundtrack for the film.

Among Oklahomans

"There were 268,000 Oklahomans who fought during World War II and, nationally, 1,500 of those veterans are dying each day, so we are taking part in this national project and localizing it to Oklahoma so we can collect the stories of those people,” said Ashley Barcum, OETA's public information manager.

More than 700 stories have already been received, she said, and most will be archived in the Oklahoma History Center. "Each of the stories is compelling and amazing.”

The story

Burns' "The War,” which will air 17 years after his acclaimed documentary "The Civil War,” is a 14-hour series that explores America's experience in what he calls the "greatest cataclysm in human history, the Second World War.”

The series was six years in the making and will air over two weeks, with four episodes the first week and three the second week.

"The War,” directed and produced by Burns and Lynn Novick, takes an intimate look at the war through the stories of several seemingly ordinary Americans who had extraordinary experiences.

In every episode, veterans' accounts of the war are interwoven with the recollections of their loved ones back home in four geographically distributed American towns — Waterbury, Conn.; Mobile, Ala.; Sacramento, Calif.; and Luverne, Minn.

"I think the fact that we were able to constantly return back home as we ricocheted between the European and Pacific theaters chronologically through the war to return back to these four different homes as blue stars turn gold in windows, as depot agents had to give horrific telegrams, as little boys watched war movies and fought and then experienced the deaths of their friends' parents, all of those things sort of accumulate a sense of what it was like to be in that war instead of what you should know about the Second World War,” Burns said during a March interview with The Oklahoman.

"The War” features first-person voices read by actors Tom Hanks, Josh Lucas, Bobby Cannavale, Samuel L. Jackson, Eli Wallach, Robert Wahlberg, Carolyn McCormack, Adam Arkin and Kevin Conway.

When will ‘The War' air?

The seven-part miniseries will air on OETA-13 at 7 p.m. Sept 23, 24, 25, 26 and 30 and Oct. 1 and 2.

For more information about the documentary, go to www.pbs.org.

Comments