Burns aims to give voice to all sides in complex ‘Vietnam War’
A documentary with a body count near 2 million doesn’t really have “stars,” per se. But if “The Vietnam War” were a feature film rather than an 18-hour account of an intercontinental conflict that continues to haunt multiple cultures decades later, Tran Ngoc Toan would certainly qualify as a star.
The lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps of the Republic of Vietnam received a standing ovation Wednesday night at the University of Houston’s Cullen Performance Hall, moments after he appeared in a 45-minute preview of the film. Tran and American Marine 1st Lt. Phil Brady both describe an ambush at Binh Gia that left the former riddled with bullets. But Tran survived the ambush and the war. And today he lives in Houston.
Filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick hosted a preview event of “The Vietnam War” in Houston this past week in part because of the large Vietnamese population here, second in the nation only to California. The film will air on PBS in September in 10 parts. Burns joked that Houston Public Media would be barring the doors for a viewing session that would run nearly a full day. Instead, they presented excerpts that included the film’s introduction, a segment on the Tet Offensive and conflicting perspectives on the development of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Over the course of six years, Burns and Novick poured through hours of film footage, historical accounts and subsequent scholarship. They listened to hours of tapes made by Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, documentation that no subsequent president would ever consider letting occur. And they conducted interviews with more than 100 people who were involved in or witnessed the war. Their goal was to offer a more panoramic view of the conflict, with commentary from combatants and civilians from both North and South Vietnam, as well as American soldiers and war protesters back home.
One of Burns’ key points Wednesday was to suggest that our belief that history is concrete and the future is unwritten is somewhat misguided. Their approach was to “shed all biases,” Burns said, and try to find information that hasn’t been shaped by opinion and mythology. The process of picking at a facade of codified myth, opinion and misinformation led to a revelation of sorts.
“History,” he said, “is malleable.”
By giving voice to all sides in a complicated conflict, Burns’ ambitions were grand: to promote civil discourse.
“Everybody has their opinions,” he said before the program. “The South doesn’t like the North. The North doesn’t like the South. The soldiers don’t like the protesters. Everybody stays in their camp. What if it was possible to create a space where all views could coexist and be tolerated? To have a conversation about war. When I made a film on the history of jazz, Wynton Marsalis said, ‘Sometimes a thing and the opposite of a thing can be true at the same time.’ War is one of those places where there are multiple truths. All these stories can be true.
“And it’s not ‘Rashomon,’ where there’s a distortion of the real truth. We’re hoping to pull the fuel rods of animosity and get beyond it. We haven’t reconciled this war, nor have the Vietnamese. It’s important for us to come to terms with it because it was the most important event in the second half of the 20th century for Americans.”
Houston Public Media has created additional programming to accompany “The Vietnam War.”
“Saigon Stories” will follow Lily Jang, a Houston resident who journeys to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, which her family fled at the end of the Vietnam War. “Peace Meals” brings together a Vietnam veteran and a Vietnamese refugee for a meal and conversation. “Vietnamese Americans in Houston” charts the growth of the Vietnamese community in Houston from fewer than 100 in the 1970s to an estimated 200,000-plus today. All of these programs will air in August or September, dates and times to be determined.
Then, on Sept. 29, Houston Public Media will host a one-hour live broadcast “Town Hall: The Vietnam War,” which will follow “The Vietnam War.” The event is designed to be a conversation between veterans, historians, immigrants and a live studio audience.