Fans and followers of previous Ken Burns documentaries like THE CIVIL WAR may find viewing his latest film THE WAR a jarring experience by comparison, but mostly for all the right reasons. Portrayed with more frank and disturbing violence than before, this 15-hour journey through the chronology of World War II — told largely by a handful of surviving veterans and their families — is a sober, unglamorous examination of this global conflict that relies on and celebrates highly personal experiences of an epic era in history. Choosing to tell this massive story through the lives it touched in four towns across America, THE WAR never claims to capture an impossibly complete history of the event, and so the result is much less a detached historical documentary on World War II, and more a tapestry of interwoven personal essays on life, death, fear and courage retold by those who experience all such moments from 1941 to 1945, here in the American heartland and afar on the bloody battlefields of foreign shores.

The 7-disc DVD box set of THE WAR which accompanies the PBS broadcast series mirrors the televised chapters, opening with a view of 1941 pre-war America still reeling from the after-effects of the Great Depression, dangerously unaware in its isolationist mode of the oncoming threat poised over the horizon. The homefront stage is set by casting real Americans from a simplified cross-section of the nation: the southern port of Mobile, Alabama; the upper midwest plains of Luverne, Minnesota; the New England factory town of Waterbury, Connecticut; and the western capital of Sacramento, California. From each community arise personal remembrances, family photos, saved letters, all time capsules preserving the quiet calm before the chaotic storm of war.

Some critics have complained that this approach of personal reportage limits the documentary's scope, representation and relevance portraying World War II. Yet defining THE WAR's boundaries so tightly, so personally is the project's greatest strength. Ken Burns and co-director Lynn Novick couldn't possibly examine the second world war's broadest aspects and most intimate emotions in fifteen weeks, let alone fifteen hours. Such a sweeping attempt would be a thankless, impractical task and the result would be a uselessly shallow skimming of modern history's most significant crisis.

More than anything else, THE WAR is a race against time to record for perpetuity the lives of a generation of veterans, which we are losing at the rate of 1,000 per day. These once youthful soldiers, their tender brides, their junior siblings are dying off at a regrettably increasing rate. The world shall never run out of historians and scholars to define and debate the context or meaning of World War II, but it can never manufacture more of the souls who lived through it and participated in it. Our digital era can perform media miracles to preserve riveting vintage film shot on battlefields and in backyards during the 1940s, yet more lives glimpsed in those images fade away with mortality as each year passes in our 21st century.

THE WAR attempts to share with us all such living, breathing witnesses of human history in these typically warmly-lit and frankly-spoken interviews while we and the filmmakers still have such a luxury.   Viewers will meet ordinary Americans who lived, by chance, extraordinary lives during the war: from Minnesotan combat pilot Quentin Aanenson who flew the flak-shattered skies over Europe, to young Sascha Weinzheimer who languished in cruel conditions with her family as captives in a Manila prison ward.   Daniel Inouye, who after Japanese-Americans were shunned and incarcerated in internment camps after Pearl Harbor, volunteered to join what became one of the most elite combat units in the European theater.   Katharine Phillips of Mobile relates through laughter and sadness her hometown experiences, supporting the war cause and awaiting the return of her brother, Sidney.  Glenn Frazier relates his harrowing tale as survivor of the Bataan death march and years of seemingly hopeless bondage as a POW on the Japanese mainland.  These are just a few of the faces and voices who speak their minds and their hearts, often in detail not even shared with their families for decades, about how they faced and faught World War II on their own personal fronts, as individiuals and together as Americans.

Weaving together this tapestry of disparate lives, distant war zones and first-hand recollections of experience is the somber script by Geoffrey C. Ward and narrated well by actor Keith David.  Letters, observations and newspaper reports are voiced by a small cast of well known performers including Tom Hanks, Samuel L. Jackson, Adam Arkin, Kevin Conway, Carolyn McCormick and Robert Wahlberg.  Among the stand-out vocal performances arise Bobby Canavale as Babe Ciarlo, Rebecca Holtz as young Sascha Weinzheimer and Josh Lucas reading from the book authored by veteran Eugene Sledge.  Combined, these narratives follow the same voice-over function as those so notably heard in Burns' THE CIVIL WAR, but with much more modern sensibilities and touchstones referenced which make the words and feelings perhaps easier to identify with for contemporary viewers.  This recent style also places less distance between subjects and audience in a way that no recounting of the Civil War could ever accomplish, drawing the audience in closer to these lives and deaths.

Enough credit can't be awarded to the editorial team of Paul Barnes, Erik Ewers and Tricia Reidy along with the sound designers who matched silent archival war footage, gathered from the National Archives and private collections around the world, to an original and authentic effects soundtrack which depict these monumental battles in image and sound likely never before experienced by audiences.

The somewhat brief but equally educational Making THE WAR documentary on Disc One only hints and roughly five years of research, travel and toil that director/producers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, along with producer Sarah Botstein endured to bring this project into homes through PBS stations.  This comprehensive DVD set also encourages educators to bring this generationally imperative film into classrooms, accompanied by teaching resources and links to expand and enhance the disc collection for instruction with students. 

Whether in the classroom or at home, parents should take caution showing film to impressionable children, yet they should not let the occasionally graphic scenes of violence dissuade viewing of THE WAR either.  For this documentary could not be more timely, nor more appropriate to a generation growing up in the social and political context of their own war, albeit a conflict of a very different nature.  The tragic and triumphant lessons of World War II cannot be taught too often, nor should they ever be ignored at the peril of repeating mistakes and experiencing losses on a magnitude Americans cannot imagine today.

The first disc of this collection is entitled "A Necessary War" and it is a highly relevant concept for discussion in both recollections of America's entry into World War II and the harsh realities faced by our soldiers and citizens today.  Listen to the wisdom imparted by the war generation from Luverne and Mobile, Waterbury and Sacramento, to learn that THE WAR is an ongoing struggle for freedom still today, and we each must fight our own personal battles to defeat the forces of tyranny and injustice in whatever guise they assume.  It is a lesson which cannot be forgotten when the Greatest Generation at last leaves us behind to continue this same struggle on our own and forge the future of our world.  Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's THE WAR is an excellent starting point to bring this lesson home and should not be missed.