In Reply to: "The War" revisited posted by rico on October 9, 2007 at 01:00:17:
I shared my original post and the first three responses below with my best friend and he responded thusly (used by permission):
Yeah, OK.
So the narrator mispronounced 2 German names. So they don't like "The Death of Falstaff" as a theme. He didn't go back over the "Why" of Hitler? What? This has never been covered? It needs to be flogged yet again?
For many years we've been hearing about how many WWII vets die each day in the US. Think about how many of their sisters, brothers, friends are dying without telling their stories.
Think about the standard-issue war history that barely mentions the utter incompetence of our generals at Anzio and at other places, bogging down our men and getting them unnecessarily killed. I didn't know about those facts, or if I did, I didn't know any of the details.
Was I interested in the Minnesota newsman's essays? In the reactions of the soldiers and family members in Alabama? Did it pain me to look at Waterbury and what it went through? Absolutely. I found those stories riveting. What about the man who decided, finally, to write a letter describing what it was really like in his war, then never sent it? He held on to it and read it to us, and it was a superb piece of work - or two superb pieces of work, one his, the other the filmmaker's.
I'm sorry, but the "I'm so bored by everything"/"I've seen better"/"I've made better" attitude, so self-referential, so world-weary and so preciously private, is of no value. The attitude of dismissiveness of these people is just silly.
Oh, and by the way, R. Hughes - the words are unconscionable and unthinkable. Un-contionable? What the hell is that?
Ed
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Follow Ups
- RE: "The War" revisited - rico 07:51:57 10/10/07 (4)
- Well, that settles that - DWPC 13:37:00 10/10/07 (0)
- What? - EBerlin 12:34:25 10/10/07 (2)
- Wait a minute - rico 17:20:02 10/10/07 (1)
- Oh, come on... - EBerlin 19:49:50 10/10/07 (0)