criterionforum.org

It will premiere on PBS this September, but there are already some clips of it available to watch online. One can be seen in this NYT article about Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' involvement with the soundtrack.

With both Heston and Reed Irvine having departed this vale of tears, who will helm the inevitable rebuttal program?

Absolutely ecstatic about this and the Reznor/Ross score. This couldn't be more perfect for me.

I'm sure if someone told a lot of us in the 90's that the Nine Inch Nails guy would work with the director of The Civil War and Baseball, we'd probably look at them real funny.

USA Today piece

Does anyone know if PBS will be putting up the episodes on their website?

Yes it will as per the site:

PBS wrote:Watch The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick anywhere! Beginning on September 17, the series will broadcast on your local PBS station, and will be available for streaming on the web (desktop or mobile) and PBS apps for smartphones, tablets, Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV. Choose from English, Spanish-language, and Vietnamese-language.

Wonderful and thanks.

Burns and Novick are on today's WTF With Marc Maron

The interview with Burns on Sam Harris' podcast is interesting. You can find it here

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' contribution to the soundtrack is available today to purchase and stream.

Anyone else actually watching the show?

Michael Kerpan wrote:Anyone else actually watching the show?

Yes, at this very moment.

EDIT: Now that tonight’s episode has ended, I’ll say in addition to it being engrossing thus far, I’m also finding it to be a bit uncomfortably intense.

The first episode uses a very effective parallel structure that ties the mistakes, misunderstandings, and failures of the French to the subsequent challenges associated with American involvement in the region. The second episode covers the deepening American involvement in South Vietnam, bridging the gap between the US’s “hands off” involvement and the full-fledged direct warfare covered in the third episode.

The detailed context provdided through the writing and talking heads is absorbing; the intensity stems not only from the descriptions and dissections of costly battles, but also from the way many of the situations—such as the seemingly inescapable creep toward war and looming consequences of the United States’ misunderstanding of the region’s culture and history—resonate with other recent conflicts as well as the anxieties of the current geopolitical climate.

For UK viewers, it appears the BBC has picked this up an it starts on BBC4 next Monday night.

I hope that, unlike the initial screenings of The Civil War and Jazz, it's not "abridged".

I have. Something of interest possible, but on PBS' website they list several soundtrack options including an unedited one.

What I'm liking so far (have only had the time to see one episode) is how thoroughly Burns is providing the Vietnamese perspective on the war making sure it is not just, as one interviewee alludes to, baby boomer neurosis.

They show men dropping fire on people, but the censors won't allow them to say "shit" in the interviews because it's obscene.

Roscoe wrote:They show men dropping fire on people, but the censors won't allow them to say "shit" in the interviews because it's obscene.

An LBJ quote featuring an uncensored “shit” was broadcast in the third episode, consistent with the show’s TV-MA rating. With the uncensored soundtracks available online, I think a clear effort is being made to serve everybody’s interests.

American decision-making seems even more insane in this series (given some bits of additional information) now than it did at the time....

Feiereisel wrote:

Roscoe wrote:They show men dropping fire on people, but the censors won't allow them to say "shit" in the interviews because it's obscene.

An LBJ quote featuring an uncensored “shit” was broadcast in the third episode, consistent with the show’s TV-MA rating. With the uncensored soundtracks available online, I think a clear effort is being made to serve everybody’s interests.

I'm almost certain Roscoe is quoting Kurtz in Apocalypse Now there.

Altair wrote:

Feiereisel wrote:

Roscoe wrote:They show men dropping fire on people, but the censors won't allow them to say "shit" in the interviews because it's obscene.

An LBJ quote featuring an uncensored “shit” was broadcast in the third episode, consistent with the show’s TV-MA rating. With the uncensored soundtracks available online, I think a clear effort is being made to serve everybody’s interests.

I'm almost certain Roscoe is quoting Kurtz in Apocalypse Now there.

Oh, of course! Apologies all around. I'm ashamed of myself for missing that. I feel like such an errand boy.

An LBJ quote featuring an uncensored “shit” was broadcast in the third episode, consistent with the show’s TV-MA rating. With the uncensored soundtracks available online, I think a clear effort is being made to serve everybody’s interests.

Yeah, I was paraphrasing Kurtz's radio broadcast to parody the stupidity of two instances of the word "shit" in the first episode being bleeped because naughty language is so naughty. Glad to hear other episodes are less ridiculous.

I had almost forgotten just how much I hated Johnson and Westmoreland (among others). Now I remember again.