The Vietnam War (2017)
The Vietnam War is a 10-part, 18-hour documentary television series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick about the Vietnam War.[1][2][3] The documentary premiered on the Public Broadcasting Service on September 17, 2017.
The series cost around $30 million and took more than 10 years to make.[4] It was produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, who had previously collaborated together on The War (2007), Baseball: The Tenth Inning (2010), and Prohibition (2011). The production companies were Burns's Florentine Films, and WETA-TV in Washington.
The series features interviews with 79 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war or opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the North and the South."[5] Deliberate attention was taken to avoid "historians or other expert talking heads" and "onscreen interviews with polarizing boldfaced names like John Kerry, John McCain, Henry Kissinger and Jane Fonda" - instead, interviews were intended to provide a ground-up view of the War from the perspective of the everyday people who lived through it.[4] Episode 3 features an interview with retired UPI reporter Joseph L. Galloway, who was awarded a Bronze Star with "V" device for assisting with the wounded in the Battle of Ia Drang.[6]
The researchers for the film also accessed more than 24,000 photographs and examined 1,500 hours of archival footage.[4] Within the 18-hours of documentary, there are scenes covering 25 battles, 10 of which are detailed set-piece battle scenes documenting the action from multiple perspectives.[7] The script for the show was written entirely by Geoffrey Ward, and the narration was made by Peter Coyote.
Episodes
