Documentary Review: 'American Experience: The Great War'

(C) 2017 Public Broadcasting Service & WGBH Boston

On November 11, not too long ago, many countries around the world, including the major European powers and the United States of America, observed the Centennial of the end of the First World War, the bloody conflict that began in the summer of 1914 and ended on "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918. Fought primarily in Europe but also in other theaters around the world, this calamitous conflict claimed more than 30 million lives and sowed the seeds of other wars and global rivalries that continue to affect our lives in the 21st Century.

At the time, the clash of arms that began with the assassination of an Austrian nobleman in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 went by many names. Optimists dubbed it "The war to end all wars" Some German writers called it Der Weltkrieg (the World War). Most people of the time, including Americans, simply called it "The Great War." In the 1920s, most historians used the term "World War" (echoing the Germans' original use); after 1939, however, it became known as either the First World War or, in the U.S., World War I.

Though not many people who are now alive are aware of it, November 11 was called Armistice Day in the United States until 1954. That year, at the behest of the American Legion and other veterans' associations, President Dwight D. Eisenhower (himself a World War II veteran who was a young Army officer during the Great War but served as a training officer in the States) signed the bill that changed the name of "Armistice Day" to Veterans' Day, which honors all veterans from every conflict America has fought.

Long overshadowed by World War II and the Vietnam War, World War I is not as much in the public eye as it once was. Not many popular works of art or entertainment focus on it in the 21st Century, although some references to World War I pop up from time to time. The 1990s TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles featured the titular hero's coming of age during the war and the years that followed, and a few films, including 2006's Flyboys, have depicted some of the more dramatic episodes of the war.

On television, World War I has been examined in a few documentaries, the best-known of which is CBS's 1964-1965 documentary series World War One, which aired fifty years after the beginning of the war. 30 years later, the Public Broadcasting Service revisited the conflict in The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century, an ambitious eight-part series that examined the war and its aftermath, including the ripple effect it had on subsequent world history.

The most recent effort to chronicle World War I - and more specifically, the comparatively short but immensely critical phase of U.S. participation in it - is PBS' American Experience: The Great War. 

Produced by Boston's public television station, WGBH as part of the long-running series American Experience,  The Great War aired over three nights (April 10-12) to commemorate the 100th anniversary of President Woodrow Wilson's decision to ask Congress for a declaration of war on Kaiser Wilhelm II's Imperial Germany and her Central Powers allies. Produced by Stephen Ives (a frequent collaborator with Ken Burns and director of 1996's The West) and Amanda Pollak, The Great War examines the 20th Century's first brutal taste of all-out war from the perspective of a country that strove mightily to remain staunchly neutral but gradually became a belligerent - and emerged as a mighty - if rather reluctant - world power.

The Great War tells the rich and complex story of World War I through the voices of nurses, journalists, aviators, and the American troops that came to be known as "doughboys." The series explores the experiences of African-American and Latino soldiers, suffragists, Native American "code talkers," and others whose participation in the war "to make the world safe for democracy" has been largely forgotten. The Great War explores how a brilliant PR man bolstered support for the war; how President Woodrow Wilson steered the nation through years of neutrality, only to reluctantly lead America into the bloodiest conflict the world had ever seen, transforming the United States into a dominant player on the international stage; and how the ardent patriotism and determination to support America's crusade for liberty abroad led to one of the most oppressive crackdowns on civil liberties at home in U.S. history. It is a story of heroism and sacrifice that would ultimately claim 15 million lives and profoundly change the world forever. - Producers' DVD back cover blurb, THE GREAT WAR. 

Narrated by actor Oliver Platt and supplemented by evocative readings from letters, journals, memoirs, and publications of the period, performed by actors such as Blythe Danner, Campbell Scott, Jennifer Lee Andrews, and Brandon J Lindner, The Great War is an exceptionally well-done documentary that covers an event in world history that is not well-remembered but is still relevant to its 21st Century audience.

Aesthetically, The Great War has the sensibilities of a Ken Burns documentary despite the fact that neither Burns or Florentine Films were involved in its making. However, writer-director-producer Stephen Ives has collaborated with Burns on several major works for PBS, including contributions to The Civil War and Baseball, as well as directing Ken Burns Presents The West: A Film by Stephen Ives. The stylistic influences of Ives' longstanding relationship with America's premier documentarian are evident to any watcher of The Great War. The structure of The Great War is similar to that of The Civil War,  as is the narrative form, which mixes stills, clips from period footage, and interviews with present-day historians and writers.

The production staff also includes director of photography Buddy Squires, ASC, one of the original founders of Florentine Films. Squires gives the three directors (Stephen Ives, Amanda Pollak, and Rob Rapley) the same expertise as a cinematographer as he does to the films of Ken Burns. Squires and his team of six use their cameras and other equipment adroitly as they capture imagery that conveys the horrors and compelling vistas of World War I and its aftermath both at home and abroad.
They are aided in this challenging endeavor by editor Seth Bowse and composers Peter Rundquist and Tom Phillips, as well as a crew of other artists and technicians.

As a military history buff, I have to admit that the only other documentaries I have that cover World War I are the ones that are included in the 2007-2008 The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones DVD sets. Those are good and have much to offer, but they don't tell the entire story of America's entry into the war, the experiences of the home front, and the bittersweet aftermath of the Great War. The Great War can't, in its six hours of running time, cover everything either (and it does not try to), but it is more detailed and covers more ground than the short films produced 10 years ago by George Lucas and Rick McCallum for the Young Indy sets.

If we are to understand what led up to World War II - the 20th Century's defining event - we must understand the events of its prequel, World War I. The roots of humanity's worst war can be traced directly to the 1914-1918 conflict and its tragic ending. World War I, after all, marked the end of the old imperial order in Europe and set in motion the struggle between the extreme left (Communism) and the extreme right (Fascism and National Socialism) that convulsed the world between 1917 and 1945. It ushered in a new and hostile world in which rampant nationalism, the struggle of millions of people against European colonial rule, and the tug of war between authoritarianism and democracies caused a tsunami of changes all over the world, many of which are still affecting those of us who were born decades after the end of "the war to end all wars."