Vietnam - A Television History

Vietnam - A Television History
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Vietnam - A Television History
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Everett Alvarez; Herbert Bluechel; George Ball (II); J. Lawton Collins; William Colby (II); Ted Danielsen; Bill Erhart; Vernon Gillespie; Leslie Gelb; John Keegan (II); Henry Kissinger; Abbot Low Moffat; Frederick Nolting; Archimedes Patti; Robinson Risner; Maxwell Taylor; Paul Warnke; William C. Westmoreland; Earl J. Young; Xuan Teo Dang
Director: -
Brand: AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Unknown
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 660 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-07-27
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: WGBH BOSTON

Movie Reviews of Vietnam - A Television History

Movie Review: Comprehensive, unbiased and precise
Summary: 4 Stars

This is what a war documentary should be. It is long enough to span from the roots of the war in French colonialism to the evacuation of the US embassy in Saigon. Sadly, it does not include much purely Vietnamese history i.e. pre-colonial or post-1975.

This gives a very human perspective of the wars, preferring to explain the battles with footage or interviews with vets rather than top-down maps with arrows and narration.

As for the bias or lack thereof, I would argue that this film is relatively unbiased. It does give perhaps more time to vets who come back thinking "what were we doing?" including a very young John Kerry. However, the perspective that America's involvement was needed is represented from both Vietnamese and US sources. Also, the atrocities on both sides of the conflict are covered equally well.

Summary of Vietnam - A Television History

NOTE: The American Experience producers responsible for the Vietnam series recently re-edited the original 13-part Vietnam series. The editing was undertaken to remove outdated information and to create a more cohesive story for viewers. WGBH Boston Video has reduced the purchase price for the Vietnam series to $79.95 to reflect the shorter running time.

A six-year project from conception to completion, this eleven-hour DVD collection carefully analyzes the costs and consequences of this controversial but intriguing war. From the first episode to the last, it provides a detailed visual and oral account of the war that changed a generation and continues to color American thinking on many military and foreign policy issues.

Special DVD features include: link to the American ExperienceWeb site; scene selections; and closed captions.

On four DVD9 discs. Region coding: All regions. Audio: Dolby stereo. Screen format: 4 x 3 full frame.


Exactly why was America in Vietnam? This remarkable and essential seven-volume series--six years in the making and originally broadcast on public television in 1983--tells the agonizing history of Vietnam's lengthy conflicts with some of the largest powers on Earth. While the primary focus is on the United States' miserable efforts to prop up a porous, anti-Communist government in South Vietnam as a bulwark against Chinese and Soviet expansionism, the series' makers expend no less energy detailing important antecedents to America's intervention. Of vital interest are the first two hours, which tell the compelling story of France's 80-year colonial rule in Southeast Asia and the rise of a European-educated generation of Vietnamese intellectuals turned warriors, chief among them the architect of Vietnam's prolonged revolt against the West, Ho Chi Minh. By the time a viewer comes to understand how and why America shrugged off Vietnamese independence after World War II, it is easier to grasp the tragic context for the disastrous military campaign of the 1960s and '70s. The rest of the series covers the various expansions of America's war in Vietnam through a succession of presidents from Eisenhower to Nixon, carefully explaining the sundry issues that drove each commander-in-chief to send more money, more troops, and more weapons into a seemingly unwinnable and dubious battle. The later volumes take the story into Laos and the horrible siege of Cambodia by a U.S.-supported Khmer Rouge, and examine the history of the antiwar movement in America. No stone is left unturned in this important project, which runs some 13 hours and should be considered one of the most important television series in history. --Tom Keogh

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