Issue date: 9/20/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Jim Liu Audience members watch a preview screening of 'The War,' a WWII documentary by Ken Burns, yesterday evening in College Hall. [Click to enlarge]

"In extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives."

So reads the tagline of noted documentary filmmaker Ken Burns' new production, The War, for which there was a preview screening and panel discussion last night in College Hall.

Modern European History professor Ronald Granieri, Classics professor Peter Struck and Tom Childers, who previously viewed the entire film and interviewed Burns, comprised the panel.

The series features four American towns and investigates the impact of World War II on everyday citizens.

Interviews are spliced with battlefield footage; Burns drenches his scenes with bloodied bodies floating face-down in the water. Graphic displays of brutality are hard to miss, and the panel did not dismiss the violence lightly.

"Ken Burns doesn't shy away from the cruelty of the war," Childers said. "War reduces ordinary people to do horrible things they'd never do at home."

"In this documentary, there seems to be a focus on corpses," Struck said. "And the enemy is some savage-looking person with blood running down his face. … The thing that's generally asked of a documentary is, 'Is it true?'… Okay, assuming it's true, is it a fair representation?"

Panelists recognized that there is a temptation to simplify America's role in the war.

"How do you attempt to share a complicated event with the public?" Granieri said.

Childres agreed, noting that "the strength of what Ken Burns does is [that] he is able to tap into what is universal about the experience."

In speaking of Burns' past work, Struck commented on the common theme of "a small-town kid that gets in over his head but … turns out OK," evident once again in his newest production.

"We're not going to have a Ken Burns documentary that says there's something rotten at the core of American people," he added.

And questions about the lingering effects of the war were also prevalant.

"Who owns history?" Granieri said. "Who is responsible for it? It's a question for those of us who are left behind."

The War also features the "Ken Burns Effect," a zooming and panning technique used to shift the focus from the typical to the unexpected.

The War premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. on PBS.

Penn's College of General Studies is sponsoring the broadcast of the documentary on WHYY, the local PBS station.

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