Recently Ken Burns released a documentary on the Vietnam War…..I did not watch the film for as a vet of that war I do not need to be reminded of it for I spent 2 and half years there…….there is very little he could add that I already did not know or believe.
From all accounts it was a good documentary…..many people have watched it and come away with a “new found” understanding of the war…at least that is the way it is told by the media.
I have also read some articles that did not like the film for they said that it was a whitewash……I guess there will always be a pro and con on this sort of thing…..
I was a member of Vietnam Veterans Against The War until I got hurt and could not make the demonstrations…….and another anti-war group is the Veterans For Peace…it is these people that have said the Burns’ film does not deserve “Best Documentary” award…….
A national veterans’ organization is weighing in on this year’s Emmy awards with a full-page ad in Variety, saying Ken Burns and Lynne Novick’s “Vietnam War” series does not deserve a “Best Documentary” award.
Veterans For Peace (VFP), headquartered in St. Louis, with 175 chapters in the U.S. and six overseas, will run the Variety ad prior to the awards on September 17, to generate discussion about the series and the lasting impact it will have if “crowned with an Emmy.”The ad says that because “The Emmy Award is a powerful recognition of truth in art,” Emmy judges are asked to consider whether, “In this war-torn world, what is desperately needed – but what Burns and Novick fail to convey – is an honest rendering of that war to help the American people avoid yet more catastrophic wars.”
Emmy nominations are ongoing. Veterans For Peace recently announced it will place this full-page ad in Variety urging an Emmy not be awarded to the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick documentary, The Vietnam War. The Hollywood Reporter has refused to run the ad. Here, Vietnam veteran, Doug Rawlings, adds his voice to why the filmmakers should not get a Best Documentary award.