Support WBUR

Reckoning With History In Burns And Novick's 'The Vietnam War'

18:29

Alison Bruzek
Meghna Chakrabarti

September 28, 2017

In this Jan. 1, 1966 file photo, a Paratrooper of the 173rd U.S. Airborne brigade crouches with women and children in a muddy canal as intense Viet Cong sniper fire temporarily pins down his unit during the Vietnamese War near Bao trai in Vietnam. Filmmaker Ken Burns said he hopes his 10-part documentary about the War, which begins Sept. 17, 2017 on PBS, could serve as sort of a vaccine against some problems that took root during the conflict, such as a lack of civil discourse in America. (Horst Faas/AP)

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's PBS documentary, "The Vietnam War," opens with what may be the one, indisputable truth about the war, uttered by Marine, Karl Marlantes.

"Coming home from Vietnam was close to as traumatic as the war itself," he says. "For years, nobody talked about Vietnam."

The 10-part, 18-hour documentary ends Thursday. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick joined us to talk about reception of the documentary so far and the conversations they hoped to provoke.

Guests

Ken Burns, filmmaker and director of "The Vietnam War." He tweets @kenburns.

Lynn Novick, filmmaker and director of "The Vietnam War." She tweets @lynnnovick.

This segment aired on September 28, 2017.