Billed simply as a look at a soldier's experience in battle, but it goes much further. The music is depressing, but the content is not always, even though we are talking serious and emotional issues.
This piece alternates between World War II veterans Robert Taylor and John Jones, and historian Steven Bromwell. The historian is there for perspective, but not simply World War II (he comments on the uniqueness of the way Arnhem -- part of the unsuccessful Operation Market-Garden -- fell into small unit battles, battles within battles), he puts us into the minds of a soldier through Waterloo, Wellington and Napoleon. Not just Wellington, but of the men on the field, the men who couldn't see beyond the effective firing distance of their muskets.
I can't underscore how effective this is. They are not building parallels between battles, but of emotions of battles, of the state of mind of the soldier, of having five bullet holes in your parachute canopy, but none in you. Of seeing rows of beautiful French homes dropped to piles of rubble and licked with flames.
This all alternates with a dry historian talking about what motivates a soldier... patriotism can only take you so far. Boom, back to World War II and one of the veterans. Boom, back to Bromwell.
Probably this isn't a new technique, and while I'm not as well-listened as I'd like, I don't think I've heard this type of thing done this well before.
I had to listen hard, and to the beginning twice, because I didn't pick up the accents that well, and the dynamics are all over the place. This could be a problem on the one-shot-is-all-you-got radio, but it is so intimate that you can hear the kinks in the voice, the sighs "I'm not going to make it." "Who is gonna next? Am I gonna get it, or is he gonna get it?" No emotion is edited out. The sound effects of battle, used sparingly, are used effectively, and mostly (maybe always) when the historian is speaking, or in bridges between the vets and the historian.
The sfx do not impede the piece, just adding the sounds to help the brain along, nudging it toward the realizations that the voices were pointing to.
Piece goes well beyond war, to questioning why, and what did it accomplish, why should I kill a fellow man?
The war went on. The buildup in Europe took longer than the fighting, but the fighting took long enough, and in brutal conditions, cold, hunger, pain, doubt, fear. These two veterans, Taylor and Jones, bring us close into the fold. I'm not going to pretend I know the fear of battle, but I know what veterans feel.
There is nothing to date this to one year... mark a spot for timely pieces for the final Monday in May and look for this piece again.
Review of RN Documentary: Soldiering On
Hans Anderson
Posted on June 10, 2004 at 08:08 AM
This piece alternates between World War II veterans Robert Taylor and John Jones, and historian Steven Bromwell. The historian is there for perspective, but not simply World War II (he comments on the uniqueness of the way Arnhem -- part of the unsuccessful Operation Market-Garden -- fell into small unit battles, battles within battles), he puts us into the minds of a soldier through Waterloo, Wellington and Napoleon. Not just Wellington, but of the men on the field, the men who couldn't see beyond the effective firing distance of their muskets.
I can't underscore how effective this is. They are not building parallels between battles, but of emotions of battles, of the state of mind of the soldier, of having five bullet holes in your parachute canopy, but none in you. Of seeing rows of beautiful French homes dropped to piles of rubble and licked with flames.
This all alternates with a dry historian talking about what motivates a soldier... patriotism can only take you so far. Boom, back to World War II and one of the veterans. Boom, back to Bromwell.
Probably this isn't a new technique, and while I'm not as well-listened as I'd like, I don't think I've heard this type of thing done this well before.
I had to listen hard, and to the beginning twice, because I didn't pick up the accents that well, and the dynamics are all over the place. This could be a problem on the one-shot-is-all-you-got radio, but it is so intimate that you can hear the kinks in the voice, the sighs "I'm not going to make it." "Who is gonna next? Am I gonna get it, or is he gonna get it?" No emotion is edited out. The sound effects of battle, used sparingly, are used effectively, and mostly (maybe always) when the historian is speaking, or in bridges between the vets and the historian.
The sfx do not impede the piece, just adding the sounds to help the brain along, nudging it toward the realizations that the voices were pointing to.
Piece goes well beyond war, to questioning why, and what did it accomplish, why should I kill a fellow man?
The war went on. The buildup in Europe took longer than the fighting, but the fighting took long enough, and in brutal conditions, cold, hunger, pain, doubt, fear. These two veterans, Taylor and Jones, bring us close into the fold. I'm not going to pretend I know the fear of battle, but I know what veterans feel.
There is nothing to date this to one year... mark a spot for timely pieces for the final Monday in May and look for this piece again.