it was interesting
Very interesting mini series. I didn't know about the suicides and the dust illness that killed people. I always thought it started and people just left. It is so scarry lets hope it doesn't happen again.
have a great day
I used to live in Texhoma,my dad lived there for 30 years,and I knew it was in the middle of the dust bowl but had never seen the photos and so much info about it.Its such a shame because there,s a huge auquifer under so much of that land and all they had to do was drill water wells for irrigation,then the dust bowl would never have happened.That whole area is agricultural land and ranches,fields that go on clear to the horizon,theres plenty of water there,they just didnt know it.Such a shame.
Illigitimi non Carborundum
Yes, but according to part2. that underground water will be used up in 20 years.
shareMeh, I was a little unimpressed with this Ken Burns outing. Not nearly as good as Baseball, Prohibition, or Horatio's Drive. I think it could have been condensed to a single 2-hour installment. But my biggest gripe with The Dust Bowl was the interview subjects. There were very few historians, professors, authors, etc. who are authorities on the subject (and the few included bored me to tears). I think he relied far too heavily on accounts from "survivors," now geriatric, 70+ years after it happened and probably poorly educated to begin with. He usually strikes the perfect balance between the factual side and the human story but there was too much disparity here.
shareLoudmouth,you just proved beyond a doubt,you,re a retard and an *beep* people are real people that went through something you never will and you owe them a real apology!!Including the people who made the film!geriatric??You,re gonna age too dipstick!Ken Burns and all the crew did a fantastic job of finding people who actually LIVED through it and did an awesome job.Remember loudmouth that most of those people who witnessed it are not alive now!Grow up,pull your head out and STFU! You disgust me.
Illigitimi non Carborundum
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Everyone take a chill pill. I don't mean to knock these people at all. In fact I found a couple of them very delightful. I merely meant geriatric in the medical sense - as in it's been 70-80 years and when a person reaches that stage of their life some details in their memory start to meld together particularly from the earliest part of their life. While they make very nice anecdotes, when Ken Burns relies so heavily on firsthand accounts as such it's more than likely that some details have been botched and there is no way anyone could ever know.
Yes, I'd like both the academic and the human interest side in the interviews - and the academic side was largely unrepresented here. He made The War in the same fashion but in that case it was understandable because there are umpteen million docs about the military side of WWII and he purposely wanted to convey the human drama going on stateside.
And refering to them as "poorly educated" I should have clarified that I meant poorly educated on the full story of the Dust Bowl and it's historical context, not simply they are dumb people in general. These people clearly lived through it then went on with their lives doing a variety of other things. What they didn't do was make a career out of studying the topic. Re-reading my post just now I can see how it would appear insulting to them but the target of my criticism is really Burns and the choices he made on this.
So to reiterate my original opinion more clearly, I feel Ken Burns really dropped the ball this time around. He had a golden opportunity to make a film about an intriguing subject that's been largely ignored by documentary filmmakers over the years. Instead he was short on facts and long on episodic anecdotes. Oh well, he's got a ton of projects in the pipeline to look forward to. The guy can't be brilliant with every single film he makes.
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Nice attempt to backpedal, but short of deleting or heavily editing your original reply, it's clear as day that you equate the lives and memories of actual people who lived through this historical period to be the opposite of "factual", and disrespect them for not being terrifically educated despite growing up in the worst financial and environmental disaster of their time.
Very classy.
"I like to watch" Chauncey Gardiner, 'Being There'
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Yes, but according to part2. that underground water will be used up in 20 years.
It's very scary to think that the problem people created could happen again in our lifetimes. share