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Unpredictable Journey

Series: Shared Weight
From: Center for Emerging Media
Length: 00:59:01

Marc Steiner's personal essay of the trip he organized with three veterans to return to Vietnam 30 years after the fall of Saigon. Read the full description.

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Review of Unpredictable Journey

This is described as a personal essay. Marc Steiner is part of a group that returns to Vietnam. An hour long programme is a long time to keep the listener engrossed. I feel it lies uncomfortably between two stools. There's the predominant studio based essay interspersed sporadically with some sound and an occasional interview from the trip. The two never quite come together leaving a sense of detachment. However personal the story may be somehow it just doesn't give a sense of the atmosphere of what that return journey was really like. It just doesn't come alive and I was never drawn in to their world.
There are of course some interesting moments such as when the culture police become involved and try to prevent an interview. Once it is sorted out the interviewee says to them not to worry - that it's comedy and not tragedy. For me though it can't resurrect the uncomfortable marriage of essay and inadequate sound.

Transcript

Shared Weight: 30 Years after the Fall of Saigon:

Unpredictable Journey
Produced by the Center for Emerging Media

Billboard

I?M MARC STEINER, AND WELCOME TO SHARED WEIGHT, A RADIO DOCUMENTARY SERIES ABOUT THE VIETNAM WAR, 30 YEARS AFTER ITS END. THIS HOUR, WE TAKE A JOURNEY THROUGH VIETNAM WITH A GROUP OF EIGHT PEOPLE WHO WENT THERE TO PRODUCE THESE RADIO DOCUMENTARIES. WE FIND THE UNPREDICTABLE, THE COMPLEXITY OF THE VIETNAMESE WORLD. WE DELVE INTO THE WORLD OF BUDDHISM WE FIND IS THE UNDERPINNING OF THE SOCIETY, AND WE FIND A LAND CAUGHT BETWEEN THE HOPES OF ITS PAST AND THE DREAMS OF ITS FUTURE. WE MEET THE POETS, THE WRITERS, AND THE ARTISTS WHO FOUGHT DURING THE WAR WITH THE AMERICANS, AND WE MEET THE YOUNG PEOPLE WHO HAVE COME AFTER THEM WITH THEIR HOPES AND DREAMS FOR THE FUTURE. FIRST, THE NEWS FROM NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO.

Segment 1

MARC: Welcome to Shared Weigh...
Read the full transcript

Timing and Cues

00:00 ? 00:59 BILLBOARD
01:00 ? 06:00 NEWS HOLE
06:00 ? 20:59 SEGMENT A
21:00 ? 21:59 CUTAWAY
22:00 ? 41:29 SEGMENT B
41:30 ? 42:29 CUTAWAY
42:30 ? 58:59 SEGMENT C [INCLUDES CREDITS]

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