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The Vietnam Veteran Memorial Fund (VVMF) had a Q&A Burns and Novick on their official WordPress page talking all about their new documentary series. Here are some highlights about the making of The Vietnam War:
Q: How do you tell the story of the most divisive period within our nation during the 20th century?
- Ken: I think you want to tell a complete story so we’ve taken 10 episodes and 18 hours to do it. We’ve worked on this story for 10 years. The film represents 45 years of scholarship that adds on to the experiences of the service members. Obviously, war is human beings at its worst but it also paradoxically brings out the best and we’ve not neglected to point out those positive aspects, those heroic aspects, at the same time we delve into a war that many Americans would rather ignore.
- Lynn: We set out to take a fresh look at this very complicated and divisive story through the eyes of the people who lived through it and to hear from as many different people with as many different experiences and perspectives that we could practically embrace. We interviewed close to 100 people. One of the tragedies of the Vietnam War is that America got involved in a conflict in a country far away that we didn’t really understand. We didn’t understand our allies or our enemies. We as filmmakers did not want to make that same mistake. I spent a lot of time in Vietnam getting to know people who lived through the war there and hearing from civilians and soldiers. And also speaking to Vietnamese-Americans who fled Vietnam after the war. What we found was that the war is as complicated and unresolved and as difficult to talk about for them on all sides as it is for us.
Q: What did you learn from making this film?
- Ken: I grew up in the war. I had a high draft number, I didn’t go. I was completely aware that I came of age watching it. I felt like I knew something about it. I knew nothing about it – nothing. And so to me – It was this shear positive humiliation of suddenly just realizing I know nothing and that I had to really build back from the beginning. The film is this deep, deep dive into the things that I thought I knew and in some case I came to the understanding that not only I, but most of us, have just a conventional wisdom about it, kind of a superficial knowledge.
- Lynn: One thing that I learned that I will carry with me is that history is a lot more complicated than we give it credit for. There is no story that I’ve tried to tell that is more complicated than this. With any one aspect that we tried to tell – there were at least three points of view or more. It was a constant exercise in compassion. To try to understand how you could look at this particular battle from this point of view vs. this point of view. It’s important to be open to considering that things are not as simple as they seem.
If you want to learn more about The Vietnam War, read the article Ken Burns and Lynn Novick wrote for the New York Times.
About the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Fund:
Based in Arlington, Virginia, VVMF (the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund) is the nonprofit organization authorized by the U.S. Congress in 1980 to build a national memorial dedicated to all who served with the U.S. armed forces in the Vietnam War. Incorporated on April 27, 1979 by a group of veterans led by Jan C. Scruggs, the organization sought a tangible symbol of recognition from the American people for those who served in the war.
