ken burns

I didn't even realize this until just now, when I was surfing around doing my "What's On" post, but Stephen Colbert is going to be on C-SPAN2 at 11:30 tonight. He's going to be part of a breakfast panel at BookExpo America, along with Ken Burns, Khaled Housseini, and Lisa See. Should be fun.

Colbert has a new book coming out on October 9, but it looks like he's doing promotion for it a little early, which is good news for us. I'm not sure if this is a brand new show or something repeated from the past week or so, but if you haven't seen it, it's new to you (to borrow an old NBC phrase)!

You'll recall my recent post where I said Ken Burns documentary about World War II angered some in the Latino community for its lack of coverage of Latinos who fought in the war. Well, Burns apparently took the protest to heart and has decided to not only go back and retool his 14-hour documentary to include the overlooked footage, but has also hired a Latino producer to help him create the new content. The War is scheduled to hit PBS in September. The series will focus on four communities in the United States and how they were impacted by the war.

As I said in my previous post, it has to be almost impossible to make a documentary about something as substantial as World War II and not inadvertently leave some stuff out. I do think it's admirable that Burns has decided to go back and amend his documentary, but at the same time I wonder what else he may have overlooked, and whether or not more people will come forward to accuse his documentary of being incomplete. People have the right to protest, of course, but I imagine pleasing everyone is almost impossible.

Ken Burns' upcoming PBS documentary about World War II has angered some veterans and leaders in the Latino community.

The protest was sparked by Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, who runs an oral history project about Latino veterans for the University of Texas.

Burns points out that not every story could be told in The War, his 14-hour documentary slated to air on PBS this September, but the documentary contains no interviews with Latino soldiers whatsoever. Unfortunately, going back and splicing in stories from Latino veterans is easier said than done, and satisfying Rivas-Rodriguez's desire to have at least an additional two hours dedicated to Latino veterans is a rather tall order, considering the documentary focuses on four specific communities and Latino veterans from each of those communities would have to be found and their stories spliced in to fit the overall narrative.

War, what is it good for?

It's good for Ken Burns, we know that much. The documentary filmmaker behind the hugely popular Civil War documentary series is preparing to delve into war yet again with a new PBS documentary about World War II. Burns originaly didn't want to do another war documentary, but decided the story needed to be told while there were still people alive who fought in the war.

The War will air starting on September 17 and will be the first new series created by Burns after he inked a deal to have his work shown exclusively on PBS until 2022. The 14-hour documentary does include some swearing from soldiers who describe their time serving during the war, which means two versions of the series might be offered to stations who want to avoid any FCC problems. I would hope stations opt to show the uncensored version, since a few curse words seems perfectly appropriate when describing one's personal war experiences.