Since its airing last month, over three nights on PBS, I have continued to think about the very fine Ken Burns documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust.
The film (co-directed by Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein) was wrenching, deeply moving, illuminating.
The documentary is, most certainly, a significant addition to the body of works about the Holocaust.
From a Sept. 24th piece by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd:
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, long entwined, continue on vile
parallel paths: They would rather destroy their countries than admit
they have lost.
I always admired, and enjoyed, the reporting of Bill Plante, of CBS News. Mr. Plante died on Wednesday at age 84.
He joined CBS in 1964, and retired from the network in 2016.
In the 1960s he covered the civil rights movement in the American South, reported from Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, and served for three decades, beginning in the 1980s, as Senior White House correspondent. He was also, from 1988 to 1995, the anchor of CBS's Sunday Night News.
From The Post's
obituary:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/28/cbs-correspondent-bill-plante-dead/
(CBS photo of Bill Plante, 1989)
Modern life moves increasingly fast. The work of the outstanding documentarian Ken Burns offers a counterpoint to such acceleration.
His films--his America-centered histories--move slowly, in the best sense of the word. Their unhurried pace allows for depth, nuance, and rounded portraits--from 1990's The Civil War, to the recent films Benjamin Franklin (2022), Hemingway (2021, co-directed by Lynn Novick), and Muhammad Ali (also from 2021, co-directed by Sarah Burns and David McMahon).
I find that Mr. Burns's films routinely stay with me--images from them, words, stories, emotions. One continues to admire the (signature) sense of orchestration: the use of still pictures; the rare, often startling, archival films his production company manages to locate; the superb interviews, commentaries, narrations.
Tonight, from 8 until 10:15 (Eastern time), the first installment of Mr. Burns's new documentary (co-directed by Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein) appears on PBS. The film is The U.S. and the Holocaust. Its subsequent two episodes air later in the week. (Broadcast times may vary, depending upon location; one should check one's local PBS listings.) I'm very much looking forward to watching the program.
Please see these links, from PBS:
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/about-the-film
One continues to think, often, of September 11th.
One of the (many) ways to remember the catastrophe--to focus upon, reflect upon, the magnitude of the terror, the loss, and the heroism--is to read.
As such, a few days ago, I began reading the 2019 oral history of September 11th, and its aftermath, The Only Plane in the Sky, by Garrett M. Graff (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster).
Historian Jon Meacham said, of the book, in 2019: “This is history at its most immediate and moving. In The Only Plane in the Sky, Garrett Graff has crafted an enduring portrait of a deadly and consequential day, a day that has shaped all other subsequent days in America..."
https://www.amazon.com/Only-Plane-Sky-Oral-History/dp/1501182218/ref
Will be watching CNN this evening, from 9-10 p.m. (Eastern time). The network is airing one of its "special report" broadcasts; tonight's is titled "Rising Hate: Antisemitism in America."
The program's
host is the excellent reporter and political analyst Dana Bash. She is
CNN's chief political correspondent; she is also the co-anchor, with
Jake Tapper, of the Sunday morning program State of the Union.