7 /10 1 Votes
5.3/10 TV Original language(s) English Final episode date 20 December 1983 Awards Peabody Award | 8.7/10 IMDb Country of origin United States First episode date 4 October 1983 Narrated by Will Lyman Networks PBS, WGBH | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Written by Martin Smith
Elizabeth Deane
Richard Ellison
Marilyn Mellowes
Bruce Palling
Judith Vecchione
Austin Hoyt
Andrew Pearson Directed by Judith Vecchione
Austin Hoyt
Martin Smith
Bruce Palling No. of episodes 13 (original)
11 (1997 version)
11 (DVD version) Running time 780 min (original)
660 min (1997 version)
660 min (DVD version) Cast Stanley Karnow, Will Lyman Similar Vietnam in HD, American Experience, Eyes on the Prize, Vietnam: The Ten Thousan, Coney Island | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Vietnam: A Television History (1983) is a 13-part American documentary and television mini-series about the Vietnam War (1955-1975) from the perspective of the United States. It was produced for public television by WGBH-TV in Boston and was originally broadcast on PBS between October 4 and December 20, 1983. Eleven of the 13 episodes were rebroadcast (2 and 13 were dropped) as part of the series American Experience from May 26 to July 28, 1997.
Contents
Vietnam: A Television History was the most successful documentary produced by PBS up to the time of initial broadcast. Nearly 9% of American households tuned in to watch the initial episode, and an average of 9.7 million viewers watched each of the 13 episodes. A rebroadcast in the summer of 1984 garnered roughly a 4% share in the five largest U.S. television markets.
Production
The origins of the series reach back to 1977 when filmmaker Richard Ellison and foreign correspondent Stanley Karnow initially discussed the project. The latter had been a journalist in Paris during the 1950s and a reporter in French Indochina since 1959. Karnow's tie-in book, Vietnam: A History (1983), became a best-seller.
Edited 1997 version
When PBS elected to rebroadcast Vietnam: A Television History as part of its American Experience series in 1997, a re-edited version some 120 minutes shorter (a total of 660 minutes, as opposed to 780 minutes) was used, including the exclusion of Episodes 2 ("The First Vietnam War") and 13 ("Legacies") in their entirety. The editing was reportedly undertaken to remove outdated information and to create a more cohesive story for viewers. However, some viewers, who remembered the original 13-episode version, derogated the changes as "censorship" and believed that they could detect a "corrective" treatment of the material that involved cutting out politically objectionable scenes. In particular, an interview of a French colonel discussing the end of the siege at Dien Bien Phu and referring to the Viet Minh as "Red Termites" was missed. Another interview of a man recalling a popular expression of that time and place in which the native plantation workers were termed "fertilizer" because so many died and were buried beneath the trees among which they toiled, was gone. Material depicting the British decision to rearm the defeated Japanese soldiers at the end of World War II, so as to use them against the Vietnamese, was also removed. There is no evidence that PBS executives edited the series for political purposes, but the release of the same shortened version on DVD in 2004, when presumably the full version could have been made available, has not been explained.
Reviews
The New York Times described the series as "determinedly even-handed" and "delicately balanced"; it concluded that the production was "a landmark in television journalism". It observed that "the documentary implies that the peace movement, unsupported by most Americans, had little effect on the conduct of the war. Indeed, by attacking Hubert H. Humphrey, it probably elected Richard M. Nixon. This seems to have been its most significant contribution to American history... In a curious way, the documentary also suggests that American hawks and doves were right and wrong in equal measure." The critic, however, took the filmmakers to task for some "weaknesses in the reportorial technique." The film also received very positive reviews from The Washington Post, Variety, Time, and Newsweek. The latter two hailed the series as fair, brilliant, and objective.
The series aired in the U.K. to good reviews, but did not receive the high ratings achieved in the U.S.
Criticism
The film, Television's Vietnam: The Real Story (1985), aired on the PBS network as a rebuttal to the documentary. It was narrated by Charlton Heston and produced by Accuracy in Media.