 |
| Originally Aired: September 26, 2007 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Filmmaker Explains Aspects of PBS Documentary 'The War' |
|
|
| World War II took the lives of more than 400,000 American soldiers and affected nearly everyone living in the United States at the time. In a seven-part documentary, co-directors/producers Lynn Novick and Ken Burns got first-hand accounts from survivors around the country. Novick answered your questions. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
    |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
JEFFREY BROWN: Welcome to our latest Insider Forum. This is Jeffrey Brown, from the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Now airing on PBS is the new series on World War II, called "The War," a 15-hour series. Last week, I had a chance to talk with Ken Burns on the NewsHour. Many of you sent in questions, and here to answer some of those is Lynn Novick, the co-producer and co-director of "The War." And, Lynn, welcome. LYNN NOVICK: Thank you so much for having me. JEFFREY BROWN: Well, why don't I start with -- let you, sort of, introduce yourself, because there were questions to that -- to that effect that are -- here's one from Jodie Reichel -- I'm sorry if I'm not pronouncing it right -- from Culver City, California, "How and when did you first become interested in making films? Was your interest always in creating documentaries? And how many people does it take to create a multipart work like "The Civil War" or "The War?" LYNN NOVICK: Gee. Well, I have been working with Ken since 1989, and been involved in the production of programs for Public Television since the mid-1980s, so I have been at this for quite a while. I was interested in history in college, and American studies, and I didn't really have a plan of what to do with that. And sometime in my early 20s, I just, sort of, had a -- basically, a realization that perhaps I could put all my interests together and get involved in the creation of historical documentaries about American history. And so, who better to work with, if you're going do that, than Ken Burns. And I -- even before "The Civil War" had come out, he had made many other wonderful films that weren't as well known as "The Civil War," but I was -- he was on my radar. And so, I apprenticed myself to various other people and production companies in Public Television, and eventually found my way to -- JEFFREY BROWN: You're a Public Television baby. LYNN NOVICK: I am. JEFFREY BROWN: Good. LYNN NOVICK: I am. Exactly. I -- JEFFREY BROWN: And you found your way to Ken Burns. LYNN NOVICK: I did, very fortunately for me, before "The Civil War" had aired. And so, he was well known, as I said, but not the incredibly well-known figure that he is now. And so, I was lucky enough to get a job working with him, finishing that up, and then went on to do a number of other -- a number of other projects together. JEFFREY BROWN: Now, give people some sense of what it takes to create a multipart work like "The War." LYNN NOVICK: You know, when a film comes out, and it says "Directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick," it tends to seem that we've -- we -- all the work was done by us. But, actually, there is a team of people who worked so hard and don't get the recognition that they should. We have a team of producers. And, rather than each producer being assigned to a particular episode, we all work on it together as if it's one big film, one big episode, one big project. So, we have a producer, who works with still photographs, two producers who worked on the footage, a researcher, and then Ken and me, our writer, Jeffrey Seaboard, who does a magnificent, magnificent job of putting everything together into a great script, and then we had editors. We have six editors working on this project, and each of them did amazing things with the material that we gave to them. So, it's a team of about 20 people. JEFFREY BROWN: I asked Ken Burns, the other day, off camera actually, about who does the -- whether he does most of the interviews with the veterans in this case. And he said, in this case, you did most of them. LYNN NOVICK: Yes. In this case, I was the one who really went out into the field and figured out which kinds of people would work for the kind of stories we were going to tell, met lots and lots of people, to try to pick who would be good on camera, who would have interesting things to say, and then won their trust enough to convince them to do it, which was not always easy, because they're very humble and don't want attention, most of them, and then actually did the interviews with them. JEFFREY BROWN: Well, let's talk about that, because we had a -- we had a number of questions along those lines from people who had, for example, family members who had served. Let me read you one from Lynn Szakacs -- these are hard names; I'm sorry, I apologize to people -- from Cleveland Heights, Ohio, "Hello, and thank you in advance for this work. Dad was on Omaha Beach" -- LYNN NOVICK: Oh, my. JEFFREY BROWN: -- "day two, and the Rhine River" LYNN NOVICK: Right. JEFFREY BROWN: -- "Crossing. In for 6 years, he served as an engineer, did" -- LYNN NOVICK: Wow. JEFFREY BROWN: -- "intelligence and translating, ran a train station in the occupation in Germany, et cetera. He doesn't want to talk about his experiences, so I'm reading a D-Day history. Still cries about it at a drop" -- LYNN NOVICK: Ugh. JEFFREY BROWN: -- "at the drop of a hat, and said, recently, that he's glad that he's now forgetting about it." LYNN NOVICK: Ugh. JEFFREY BROWN: "And I think that this needs documentation for future understanding, and you and Ken are the people to do it." So, you know, we had a number of questions like that. LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: And here you are -- talking to people that, in some cases, don't want to talk about it or may have forgotten parts of it. How did you -- how did you do that? How do you decide which ones end up on the air? LYNN NOVICK: A biggest part of our -- a huge part of our whole project was just figuring out -- finding people who would be willing to talk about it. There's no way you can put a camera in someone's face who's been through a trauma, even if it's 60 years ago -- if they don't want to talk about it, they're not going to talk about it. It's a question of, I think, making them feel safe, that it's okay, you're not going to judge, and that if they're emotional, if they are in pain, it's actually healthy to talk about it, and that you will understand, and that there's space within which they can tell those stories and feel like it's okay. But some people, no matter what you say, are just not going to be able to do it, and that is -- that's -- we have to accept that. And we certainly did have to accept that in our process, because we met, probably, 600 people to choose the about-45 that are in the film. JEFFREY BROWN: Six hundred people. And how did you -- LYNN NOVICK: Uh-huh. JEFFREY BROWN: -- how did you find these 600? LYNN NOVICK: We found them a variety of ways. We had articles printed in the papers of the four towns that we chose. The local papers ran articles about our project, and that we -- you know, people should contact us if they had war stories. And we also did outreach through veterans groups and other various organizations within each community to identify potential subjects. And, you know, the vast majority of people either didn't want to talk, weren't in combat, or were -- didn't remember, or couldn't really muster the energy, at their advanced age, to really, sort of, tell their story in a compelling and coherent way. So, there were a variety of factors that led to our selection process. JEFFREY BROWN: The -- were there cases where there was a story that you were -- boy, you just so wanted to hear, but you just weren't able to get it to -- LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: -- to get the person to talk? LYNN NOVICK: -- there were many situations like that. We would get calls, oftentimes, from a child of a veteran, who would say, "You've got to come to my house. My dad was in Omaha Beach," for example, "and I know he wants to tell his story. He's never told it to me, but I know he'll tell it to you." And so, we would come, and we'd sit down, and we'd know enough about this person's experience to know that we were very interested in what they might have to say, and, oftentimes, the child would be prompting their parent to say, "Tell them about what happened to you here or there," and sometimes the father would just say, "No, I can't. I don't want to," or he'd make a joke or whatever. So, we found that we actually had to figure out which people wanted to participate. And one of my most vivid memories of this whole process was, I had been told about a veteran who was on Omaha Beach, and we were looking specifically for somebody who was on Omaha Beach, and we hadn't found anybody yet. And so, I went to this person's house, and we sat down to talk. And he was in the engineers, as well, just like the person who wrote the letter. And I said something to him about -- because, for me, whenever I think about D-Day, and I see this footage of the guys in the boats, and I know what's going to be awaiting them when the ramp goes down, and they're getting the machine guns, they're coming off -- you know, bullets are ricocheting off the landing craft, and things are exploding, and it's definitely not going to be good when you get out of that boat. And I asked, I said, "I -- if it were me, I would have asked myself, What" -- how is it possible that you get out of the boat at that moment when the ramp goes down? If it were me, I'd probably hide in the back and just fall apart. I wouldn't be able to get out of the boat. And he said, "No, everyone gets out, because your friends are going, and because you don't know how bad it's going to be, and you just -- you get out, because it's what you've been trained to do, and you just do it. You don't think about it." So, I thought, "Okay, this is going to be a good interview, he's going to really put us in that moment." And then he said, "So, when the ramp went down, I got out with my buddies, we ran up onto the beach. A shell came in, and my best friends got blown to pieces right in front of me." And he started to cry, and that was the end of the interview. He never recovered enough to tell me anything more of what happened. I mean, this was not on camera, this was just a meeting to see if he would be someone to be -- you know -- JEFFREY BROWN: Right. LYNN NOVICK: -- be in the film. JEFFREY BROWN: Right. LYNN NOVICK: And he had -- he had never discussed this, and he couldn't talk about it, and it -- we -- you know, we always wonder -- well, that would have been so interesting, to hear more about what he went through, but it wasn't something he felt comfortable doing. And, of course, we had all the respect for that, but it wasn't something that we could really work with. And I have sympathy for the person who wrote the letter, because it may prove to be frustrating. But you never know what can unlock -- what I have found, from many of the veterans we interviewed -- many of whom had been through extremely traumatic experiences -- the thing that unlocked it for them was having a grandchild ask. JEFFREY BROWN: A grandchild. LYNN NOVICK: Yes. Over and over again, they would -- JEFFREY BROWN: As opposed to -- LYNN NOVICK: -- a child. JEFFREY BROWN: -- a daughter or something. LYNN NOVICK: Uh-huh, yup. They would say, "I hadn't talked about this for years, I couldn't talk about it." We have a gentleman who was on the USS Indianapolis, which was a ship that was -- without giving away too much -- something bad happened in episode seven, which our -- your viewers will see -- our viewers will see, too -- and it was a very, very extreme situation that happened, and he couldn't talk about it for 50 years, and then his grandson started asking him. And his children had asked before, and he couldn't talk to them about it. And there was something about the grandson; he really wanted his grandson to know him -- JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh. LYNN NOVICK: -- and to know who he was and what he had been through. And so, that unlocked it. And once he had told his grandson, he now goes to schools, and he talks about this all the time, in a very -- sort of matter of fact and somewhat chilling way -- chilling, not that he's chilling, but that -- JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh. LYNN NOVICK: -- you hear what happened, and it is very disturbing, kind of horrifying. But he's able to talk about it without losing control, because he's, sort of -- he's worked through it, kind of. JEFFREY BROWN: I've got a -- LYNN NOVICK: -- a lot.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Lynn Novick
Co-producer/director of 'The War' |
|
|
 Someone might be telling you about an experience that happened to them and they may not remember the exact date of when it happened, but they can give you the feeling of what it felt like to be, say, under fire repeatedly in a battle. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Unique histories
JEFFREY BROWN: Very interesting. I've got another interesting follow-up on that, on the subject of memory and people's willingness to talk. This is from Alan, in York, Pennsylvania, "One aspect of a documentary project such as this, which draws heavily on the memories of participants, is the likelihood of memories to be reshaped over the" --LYNN NOVICK: Uh-huh. JEFFREY BROWN: -- "passage of time, or to be outright false, though not necessarily intentionally false. Memory researchers know a lot more about the general unreliability of human memory now than they did even 10 years ago. What does a producer do to mitigate these inevitable lapses in interview subjects?" LYNN NOVICK: That's a great, great question, and a terrifying one, obviously, for anyone who's engaged in the kind of things that we do. We were very well aware of that, and we did our best to verify the stories as well as we could by looking at the people's service records, if we could get them; many of them were burned in a fire in the Army storage facility. So, if it was possible, we would get hold of the service records or any kind of documentation that would at least show they were where -- in the unit that they said they were in. And then we could figure out where that unit was. But if they're telling me a specific story of something that happened to a friend, or whatever, those stories are very hard to verify. So, we just -- we did our best with the resources that were available to us. But it is -- it is a risk, certainly. There's no getting around that. I think we also have to recognize that someone might be telling you about a -- an experience that happened to them -- they may not remember the exact date of, you know, when it happened, but they can give you the feeling of what it felt like to be, say, under fire repeatedly in a battle. And they may not be giving you specific time and place, but they're giving you a feeling for what the whole experience was like. And so, we tended to use those, probably, just as much as a specific story. JEFFREY BROWN: Okay. Let's move to some other subjects. LYNN NOVICK: Okay. JEFFREY BROWN: You certainly stirred up a lot of controversy -- or it was stirred up, I guess -- LYNN NOVICK: Right JEFFREY BROWN: -- beforehand -- over the representation, or the lack of representation, by Hispanics and Native Americans. And we certainly got a lot of -- we had a debate on our show -- LYNN NOVICK: Right. I remember. JEFFREY BROWN: -- a month or two ago, about it, and very interesting, from both sides, that people -- different ways of looking at it. We got a number of questions on this. LYNN NOVICK: Uh-huh. JEFFREY BROWN: From R. Ortega, in New York, New York, "As I watched the documentary, I was truly disappointed to have seen only two Hispanics interviewed for such a monumental time in our country. Why did you exclude them from your research in the beginning?" And I have Joseph Anderson, Berkeley, California, "Ken Burns said, on the NewsHour today, September 21st that" -- quote, "'I tell the stories that don't get told,'" -- end quote -- "So, then," Joseph Anderson asks, "why did he originally ignore the Chicano Latin -- Latino story and contribution in World War II?" LYNN NOVICK: Right. Well, we have been asked that question a lot, and Ken has certainly answered it many times, and I will -- I can try to add my two cents on this. I think there has been somewhat of a misunderstanding of what we set out to do, which was to -- really, our purpose in starting the idea of this film was to try to get out what combat is like. We weren't trying -- and try -- and, through that, to try to honor, in a general way, the experience of many people who went through it, rather than trying to be comprehensive, in terms of telling a definitive story of the totality of the American experience of the war. And that's what we set out to do. So, we didn't set out to exclude or include, really, any particular groups. We really set out with a -- sort of, a whole different approach. On the other hand, we -- when we heard these concerns, we really wanted to listen to them, we didn't want to just dismiss it out of hand and say, "Look, we made our film, and someone else can make a different film on a different subject." We really were concerned when we heard the concerns of the Latino community. Our film was already finished when this all came up, and so, we wanted to do something that we thought would be meaningful and would honor the Latino contribution to the war, and we did it in the same way that we honor other people's -- other veterans' contributions to the war, in that we could tell personal stories of individuals. And so, we found two remarkable veterans, who I am so happy that I had the chance to get to know. It was just such a treat, actually. And the film was done, and we got to go out and film more interviews, and these two men, Pete Arias and Bill Lansberg, are amazing and added to my understanding of what it means to be a human being and what it meant to fight in World War II. They had stories that we hadn't heard in any of the other people we talked to, just in terms of the combat that they were in and the way that they dealt with it. And we think they really enhanced the entire series. It was really too late for us to do anything more than what we did. We wanted to maintain the integrity of the film. For a lot of reasons, we didn't feel we could open it up and change the whole approach. So, the best that we could come up with was to add new material to the end of several episodes. JEFFREY BROWN: But did you think, in terms of groups or identity, at the outset -- certainly, you went out of your way to make sure you showed the Japanese- -- LYNN NOVICK: Yes, we did. JEFFREY BROWN: -- -American experience. LYNN NOVICK: We did. JEFFREY BROWN: And there was certainly some focus on the African-American experience. LYNN NOVICK: There was. And, as we have said before, the reason for that was really that those -- their experiences are totally unique. There are no other groups that had the experiences that they had in the war, and their experiences are important for us to understand, in terms of the hypocrisy of our country fighting against tyranny and fascism and then turning 100,000 people, solely for the basis of their ancestry, and then expecting them to fight in the segregated infantry units. That -- there's nothing else like that. That's unique in the history of the United States, I believe, and a very important and shameful episode that really felt we would be remiss if we didn't include. And African Americans, in a slightly different way, being asked to fight for freedom in a segregated army, in a segregated country, as well -- those are unique experiences. And that is why we did go out of our way, to some degree. We went out of our way, to a large degree, to make sure we included the Japanese-American experience, and, to a lesser degree, the African-American experience. And that was our thought there. JEFFREY BROWN: Where does it -- LYNN NOVICK: But we didn't set out to not include Latinos, it just -- that's the way -- JEFFREY BROWN: Right. LYNN NOVICK: -- it, kind of, worked out, with the towns we chose and the people that we found and the kind of combat experiences we were looking for. JEFFREY BROWN: But where does it leave you now, in terms of thinking about how you tell history? To the extent that you have this -- you have this role, you have this place, certainly on Public Television -- LYNN NOVICK: Right. JEFFREY BROWN: -- to present histories, and you have a lot of people yearning for their stories to be told -- LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: -- and then Ken Burns is saying, as our -- your quote, "I tell the stories that don't get told." LYNN NOVICK: I think -- JEFFREY BROWN: Now, there's going to -- LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: -- there's always going to be more than can be told, I suppose -- LYNN NOVICK: Yeah, exactly. JEFFREY BROWN: -- but -- LYNN NOVICK: I mean, I think he -- what he meant to say is, "I try to tell as many of the stories as I can -- that haven't been told as I can." We could never claim to tell all the stories that haven't been told. And, as we all know, there are many, many different stories that haven't been told, and hope -- you know, someday may get told, and we won't be able to tell them all. I think we will try to be more inclusive and more aware of these issues, going forward, as anyone would. I mean, I think it -- it has helped us to gain a better understanding of how different groups will have these concerns, and how much they'll be scrutinizing what we do, and how -- we don't want people to feel like they've been left out. That's a terrible feeling. JEFFREY BROWN: There was a few letters on the -- I guess I'll call it "the other side." Let me read one from -- LYNN NOVICK: Right. JEFFREY BROWN: -- Susana Weissman, of Nyack, New York, "I greatly admire the work Mr. Burns does. I get -- I got concerned when I heard that he gave in to the pressures of a group, and decided to add material after the film was finished. I'm not against the content of that material, I'm against any meddling with any kind of artistic work." LYNN NOVICK: Right. JEFFREY BROWN: "One can review it, criticize it, dislike it, et cetera, but not meddle with it. I regret that he gave in. And, mind you, I come from a mixed background, which is half Hispanic, but I don't believe anyone should place demands on artistic expression." LYNN NOVICK: Right. Well, I will say I think that the idea of placing demands is not great, and I think we would all prefer that that was not the case. We didn't decide to do what we did because demands were placed. I think that's, sort of, a misunderstanding, perhaps, if there is one. JEFFREY BROWN: You did not. LYNN NOVICK: We did what we did because we felt we wanted to do something that would respond in some way, that we could do something to honor those contributions. And once the issue was raised, we took it seriously. So, on the other hand, this -- you know, we ought to be mindful that there is a line, here. So, it's not all cut-and-dried and black-and-white, it is a little bit complicated. We do -- we really feel like we did not -- our -- we did not "meddle," so to speak, in our film. We left our film just the way it was. It has not changed. Not one word, not one frame has changed of what -- the film that we made. But we were able to enhance it by adding new material, and that is a distinction that we feel is important to be recognized here. JEFFREY BROWN: The word "art" or "artistic" is interesting, to me at least. Do you see yourselves as historians here, or do you see this as works of art? And then, this question of meddling with one or the other -- LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: -- comes into play. LYNN NOVICK: You know, it's -- I guess it's all semantics. I mean, I don't think we are historians. We're really amateur historians, if at all. And we hope we're artists. If people think so, that's great. We think of ourselves as filmmakers, certainly. And I -- we know that our films sometimes get viewed as history, and I think that is a compliment, but it's just our best interpretation, from what we can figure out; we're not experts in these subjects at all. We never claim to be. What we hope we are is good storytellers. And we hope we know how to tell stories on film. And that is what we try to do. But we're not historians. And, you know -- so, I guess, in that regard, we like to hope that are artists. But that would be for other people to decide. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lynn Novick
Co-producer/director of 'The War' |
|
|
| What we're really getting at, hopefully, beyond the history lesson of what happened during World War II, is the essential question, 'What do men do in war, and what does war do to men?' And that's what we were after.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Why focus on the U.S.?
JEFFREY BROWN: Now, there was another set of questions that came in, asking, Why the focus on the U.S. --LYNN NOVICK: Right. JEFFREY BROWN: -- and why the U.S., alone? And I've seen this -- LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: -- critique -- LYNN NOVICK: It's a good question. JEFFREY BROWN: -- elsewhere. LYNN NOVICK: Yeah, it's a good -- JEFFREY BROWN: Let me read you -- LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: -- Dennis Noble, from Washington State, "Your focusing on the way the war affected various towns in the U.S. is very good. Perhaps it would have been good to also focus on a few German, Italian, Japanese people and/or towns. In the case of Germany, for example, as you know, not everyone was a Nazi" -- LYNN NOVICK: Right. JEFFREY BROWN: -- "nor did every German work in a concentration camp." We have Roy Crookshanks, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, "I enjoy all of Ken Burns' documentaries, yet the black-and-white representation, that Germans equal bad and Soviets equal good, is not accurate. The Baltic states feared the Soviets far more than the Germans, and rightfully so." Another question from Don Wells about -- from Wisconsin -- about, "Why not show more of the Japanese atrocity?" So -- LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: -- you know, there are these questions out there -- LYNN NOVICK: Absolutely. JEFFREY BROWN: -- about, "Why the focus only on the U.S.?" LYNN NOVICK: Yes. I mean, I think we had -- we felt that we would -- we weren't quite sure, when we set out, what we wanted to do. We wanted to do something about the war. And, as we narrowed our focus and, kind of, hones our -- JEFFREY BROWN: Well, wait a minute, let me stop you there. You "weren't" -- LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: -- "quite sure." LYNN NOVICK: We weren't. JEFFREY BROWN: At what -- LYNN NOVICK: I mean, we really sat down to say we wanted to do something about the second World War, we want to figure out what we can learn about and add to what's already been done. JEFFREY BROWN: And that's really how it starts, is -- LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: -- you sit down and just say -- LYNN NOVICK: Uh-huh. JEFFREY BROWN: -- "Okay, World War II"? LYNN NOVICK: Yup. JEFFREY BROWN: That broad. LYNN NOVICK: That broad. JEFFREY BROWN: Okay. And then what happens? LYNN NOVICK: Then we, sort of, narrow and focus and think about it and talk about it. And what we really focused in on very quickly was the sense of this idea that we could honor the people who fought in the war, and who were at home, by hearing from them what their experiences were like, unmediated by experts and historians, but hearing direct testimony, because this generation, actuarially, will not be around forever. And so, that was the kind of film we wanted to make, and we knew that we had a very limited window within which to do it. And so, that was our starting point, that we really wanted to, as much as possible, honor the sacrifice by really bearing witness to it and by being as honest about it as possible, what really was involved in this war. And we really felt that, you know, we are Americans, we don't know enough about our own country, and that we could just tell this one side of it, this one part, as well as we could. And that's what we set out to do. We know that -- we never claimed to be "The World at War." There have been so many great films made all over the world about so many aspects of this -- of this war, and we didn't want to duplicate what's already been done and sort of feel like we just made "The World at War" again, which is a great BBC series that is definitive and comprehensive. And so, that's really -- we set out with a very small and somewhat parochial point of view, but what we've been very gratified by is that we've been showing the film overseas, particularly in France -- it was at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was shown in its entirety, and I just came from the Deauville Film Festival, in September, and, in both cases, international audiences -- and people come to those festivals from all over Europe -- came to us and said, "This is incredible. We thought it was going to be, sort of, this American patriotic flag-waving kind of thing, and we weren't going to be interested; and, instead, it's this human experience of war, the nature of war itself, and what that says about human beings. Why don't we have this for our country? We need this for France, or for Poland or Czechoslovakia." And perhaps that will happen. I mean, I think what we're really getting at, hopefully, beyond the history lesson of what happened during World War II, is what -- basically, the essential question is, you know, "What do men do in war, and what does war do to men?" And that's what we were after. JEFFREY BROWN: I mentioned, in our story on the NewsHour, but wasn't able -- didn't have time to ask Ken Burns about this, but the fact that PBS is sending out two feeds of the film, one without some of the profanity. LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: We had a question from Ken Kurtz, of Lexington, Kentucky, "Why is PBS censoring profanity from this series? Did our GIs really fight for the FCC's freedom to censor our TV?" LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: What was your -- LYNN NOVICK: Right. JEFFREY BROWN: -- sense of that? LYNN NOVICK: Well, you know -- I mean, I felt it was an extremely important -- if we were going to be honest about the war, which -- and war is inherently a profane activity, an obscene activity -- that we -- and you have 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds involved in things that are inherently largely uncivilized -- of course they curse, of course they swear, that's part of the whole, sort of, authentic fabric of what their experience is. And so, we really tried to see if we could get veterans to really, you know, tell us, "How did you guys talk among yourselves? What was it like? What were you hearing in that airplane when the bombers were coming in, the German fighters were coming in?" And very, very few -- in fact, only one was even willing to say some of the things that were just what they said every day, all the time, in the war. And it's -- you know, it's part of who they were, and it's part of the experience. So, for the sake of authenticity, we really wanted to try to include a little bit, nothing like what you'd see in "Saving Private Ryan," where every other word is something that wouldn't really normally be allowed on the airwaves. JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh. LYNN NOVICK: So, we were able to coax, out of a few, a few examples. And then, we -- because we needed to do this, as well, so that people could understand, we wanted to explain some acronyms that GIs used a lot, which includes profanity. And so, we had to have our narrator do that. And we feel that this is a bit of a tempest in the teapot. We -- you know, we hope the FCC will understand why we did it. And, on the other hand, PBS always produces a beeped version and an unbeeped version of anything that has profanity, and that's because shows could be -- programs could be shown in the morning, if it's a rebroadcast, at times when kids could be walking through the house. You know, there's -- they have to have that option, basically. But most of the stations, I believe, are broadcasting the unbeeped version. JEFFREY BROWN: Well, speaking of kids, I wanted to ask you about the -- how you decide about some of the graphic images, as well as the language. LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: I have a question from Annie Watts, of Cambridge, Maryland, "We have two young pacifists in the house who are 7 and 9. Will the series be too hardhitting for them?" She wrote this, obviously, before it began -- LYNN NOVICK: It's a good question. JEFFREY BROWN: -- so, she's had a chance to look. But how do you -- LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: -- how do you folks think about the -- about -- there are -- there are many, many, many dead bodies -- LYNN NOVICK: Yes. JEFFREY BROWN: -- to be seen in the film. LYNN NOVICK: And not only that -- JEFFREY BROWN: How do you think about this? LYNN NOVICK: -- not only the dead bodies -- I mean, there are many dead bodies, and bodies that have been cut up in horrible ways -- JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh. LYNN NOVICK: -- and then there's also people, some -- telling some stories that are really not easy to understand, especially for kids. I don't -- we did not make the film for elementary-school children. I think it is complicated. And I think that probably most kids at that age could see part of it -- their parents could watch it ahead, and pick sections, I think, that kids could understand and could see, and that would be great. But to sit down in front of a TV with episode four, not knowing what's coming, I think, would probably be -- might not be a good idea for a lot of families. I would watch it first, and then decide if it's okay for your kids to see it, and which parts you might not want them to see. Or you might want to discuss with them ahead of time what they're going to see, so they can understand it. I have children who are now 12 and 15, and they have seen most of it. But my 12-year-old has only seen, recently, some of the things that I -- and even now, I'm not sure I want them to see everything. JEFFREY BROWN: Are they in your mind when you're -- when you're making this? LYNN NOVICK: Somewhat. Somewhat. More in the sense of hoping we can keep the attention of, say, a teenager. We're -- I mean, we definitely would make -- we made the film hoping that younger people would watch -- not little kids, but teenagers and above -- and hoping that we would have a story that would be compelling and interesting, and that, even though they're used to YouTube and two minutes here and there, and, you know, supposedly don't have the attention span, that a story well told would appeal to them, and we have found that to be the case. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lynn Novick
Co-producer/director of 'The War' |
|
|
| Even when, in World War II, you're fighting for an unambiguously important and just cause, in order to win, sometimes things happen that you wish didn't have to happen. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lasting trauma
JEFFREY BROWN: All right, one more area. It's -- we had a number of people write in to ask about -- well, I guess we'd call it contrasting wars --LYNN NOVICK: Uh-huh. JEFFREY BROWN: -- and thinking about different times. One, for example, from Jeff Fails, of Sulphur, Louisiana, "Since you were involved in both 'The Civil War' and 'The War,' what similarities and/or differences most struck you between the two wars?" And then, we had questions from people obviously thinking about what's going on today in Iraq, and asking about your -- whether you think what you were looking at in World War II speaks to our time in some way. LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. I'd probably rather focus on the second question, because -- JEFFREY BROWN: Okay. LYNN NOVICK: -- I did help on "The Civil War," but Ken made that film with his brother, Rick, and Jeff Ward, and I don't feel I can, probably, comment on that as -- JEFFREY BROWN: Okay. LYNN NOVICK: -- with as much authority. So, in terms of the situation we're in today, we started the film before September 11th, and were well underway before the war in Iraq began, and so, we were never thinking about it, in terms of the fact that America would be at war and that it would be somehow echoing and responding to that. We just kept our blinders on and focused on World War II. That being said, it's impossible not to notice, as we're going along, both the similarities and differences, and to be mindful of, just, some of the ironies that I think the experience of World War II reflects back to the situation we're in. And I'm very, very anxious to see how this will play out. I don't know what people viewing the film will take from it, in terms of this. But one of the things that we tried to do in the film is to, as I have said, sort of, present the reality of combat, what it means, what people do, what's done to them, how it affects them, and to really be honest about it by finding veterans who were there, and having them really tell us. And it's -- now that we're in a war, it's all the more, sort of, urgent to me that we, as Americans in a democracy, if we're going to be going to war, we need to know, What does that mean? What are we asking our young men to do? What are the potential costs involved in that, not just to them, but to all of us, as a -- in the society? And so, it just brings that up, because you get to see what war is really like, I think, in the film. And so, it makes you wonder, "I wonder what the boys in Iraq -- the guys in Iraq -- if this is what they're experiencing." And some of the things are very similar. I think some of the experiences that soldiers have in war are not unique to any particular war. And one of the things that came out for us, just emerged over the process of reading and talking to people, and learning their stories, and seeing the material, is that it gets very murky. Even when, in World War II, you're fighting for an unambiguously important and just cause, in order to win, sometimes things happen that you wish didn't have to happen, and also that, even when you're killing the enemy and it's very clear that that's what you need to do, that takes a huge toll on many human beings, and a lot of the veterans we talked to, the reason they don't like to talk about the war is not only because of the loss of friends and some of the carnage that they saw, but because of the killing that they did, themselves, and that just the damage inflicted by what they were asked to do, and how that weighs on them, and that they think about people that they killed, and they probably had mothers and, you know, sisters and people who cared about them, and that the never forget that. One of the veterans I interviewed, he said, "You know, I was a captain in the infantry. And, you know, how do you get to be a captain in the infantry? Well, you have to be really good at killing people. And you know how, when you run over a cat in your car, you feel really bad, and you just can't believe that happened? Imagine if you've killed a human being." He said, "Some people go to bed at night, and they count sheep. I count men." Sixty years later. So, it's hard not to think about that when we're having young men that are -- Americans overseas -- who are asked to do this. JEFFREY BROWN: Well, let me end with one -- sort of, where we began, with just one personal note for you about filmmaking of this kind. You just reminded me, when you said that this started before September 11th. LYNN NOVICK: Uh-huh. JEFFREY BROWN: So, a project like this is 6 or 7 years. We had a number of questions -- for example, Erica Bentley, from Riverside, California, "I read that 'The War' was 6 years in the making." I mean, this is the sort of thing that hits people a lot -- LYNN NOVICK: Right. JEFFREY BROWN: -- that it takes a long time. LYNN NOVICK: Yeah. JEFFREY BROWN: And she says, "And I actually had a question in regards to how one would go about producing such an involved project." A lot of questions like that, which you talked about, but also questions about, "What happens when it's over?" I mean, how do -- how do you feel now? And -- LYNN NOVICK: Yeah JEFFREY BROWN: -- are you already on to the next one? How does this work? LYNN NOVICK: I -- well, it is -- I mean, it's a little bit terrifying to start at the beginning, and you don't know where you're going to end up. I -- it's exciting, but it's also truly, truly terrifying, because we didn't have a roadmap for this project. I mean, when we did a biography of Frank Lloyd Wright -- you know, this is a man who was born, he lived, and he died, he built these buildings, and he had these things happen -- and you, kind of, could map it out before day one of anything. In this project, we knew that Pearl Harbor happened, and V-J Day. But how were we going to get from one to the other? We did not know. And so, it was truly terrifying, every day, to think, Do we have a film? Is this going to work? Have we found enough people? Do -- is this town a good idea? I mean, from day one -- it all, hopefully, feels like it works logically and coherently in the finished film, but, believe me, it took a long time to get there. And that's one of the reasons why it did take us quite a while to make this happen, and why we're so grateful to PBS, because we were allowed to take the time -- able to take the time to really, sort of, live with the material and figure it out as we went along. And I don't know whether that would have been possible on -- in any other network or any other situation. But, when it's over, it's sort of devastating, actually. We loved doing it, all of us -- Ken, myself, Jeff Ward, our writer, Sarah Botstein, who produced the film with us. We became so immersed. It was just all-consuming in a way that no other project I've been involved in has been. And so, we don't quite want to let go of it. And part of it has to do with the relationships that at least I developed with the people in the film. In all the films I've worked on before, we would do a great interview with somebody, and then you probably wouldn't see them again. You know, you -- they've given you what you needed, and you go on, and you do your thing. But, in this case, we often had to call them back to say, "Now, wait a minute, how old were you in this," or -- JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh. LYNN NOVICK: -- "Where was your mother?" or, "Do you have any more pictures," or -- over the course of the process, we've been in touch with them a lot, we've gone back and seen them, we've shown them the film. It's been a great relationship. And they feel like family members. So, it's partly that, it's sort of this very intense family experience. We had a screening for everyone who worked on the film, and it felt like a family reunion, except that they were all people who have worked on the film, and -- or who were in it -- and it's -- I don't know, it's hard to let go, but we are going to have to. It is inevitable. It is done. I've been working on the Web site and educational outreach and some other things, so I still have a few irons in the fire with the film. I can't quite say it's all done. JEFFREY BROWN: Okay. Lynn Novick is the co-producer and co-director of "The War." Thanks so much for talking to us. LYNN NOVICK: Thank you so much. It was my pleasure.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
