- Reaction score
- 146
- Points
- 710
Airs April 27 - May 1 at 9-11 p.m. ET.
http://www.pbs.org/weta/carrier/
PBS' 'Carrier': This message approved
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/reviews/tv/la-et-carrier26apr26,1,1670962.story
This actual review of the series by an LA Times critic is rather caustic:
'Carrier' on PBS
Even in 10 hours, this PBS documentary series aboard the Nimitz delivers a cursory study of its men, women and mission.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/reviews/tv/la-et-carrierreview26apr26,1,3095460.story
Mark
Ottawa
http://www.pbs.org/weta/carrier/
PBS' 'Carrier': This message approved
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/reviews/tv/la-et-carrier26apr26,1,1670962.story
ONE SAILOR calmly tells the camera that America went to war for oil. Another, while slurring drunk and again when stone sober, is shown making racist comments. Yet another naval serviceman, who counsels crew members about sexually appropriate behavior, is caught having sex with a shipmate of a lower rank.
Later, a fighter pilot openly questions the rationale for the Iraq war and mulls over the morality of bombing the war-torn country. And finally, a range of enlisted personnel and officers plainly voice disappointment over not dropping bombs during their mission.
While by themselves these incidents may sound like the stuff of enemy propaganda, they are in fact part of a much larger message entirely approved by the United States Navy -- which is somewhat nervously hoping that by allowing itself to look bad in places, it can look good overall.
The American public can watch what may be one of the riskier and more unconventional public relations strategies in U.S. naval history unfold on PBS' "Carrier," a 10-hour documentary series about life aboard an aircraft carrier during wartime. The program, which clearly bears the stamp of reality television, premieres Sunday night on KCET-TV and most PBS stations across the nation and runs throughout the week...
Unlike with its one-dimensional recruitment ads that invite young Americans to "Accelerate Your Life," the Navy did not pay for a camera crew to chronicle the warship's six-month deployment that began and ended in Coronado, and covered 57,000 ocean miles including a combat mission into the Persian Gulf. The Navy paid instead by surrendering almost total editorial control to the filmmakers, who promised military officials they were out to capture the human stories inside the nuclear-powered ship's massive steel hulls.
"The Navy participated in and supported movies like 'Top Gun' and 'Pearl Harbor,' " said Maro Chermayeff, who directed, co-executive produced and co-created the series, which was bankrolled by Mel Gibson's Icon Productions. "But they were always about the hotshot pilots; they were never about the ordinary 19-year-old sailor on the ship."
The unusually candid and personal portrait of life aboard the Nimitz prompted Adm. Gary Roughead, the United States Navy's chief of naval operations, to e-mail approximately 1,000 senior active, reserve and retired officers, and civilian executives, earlier this month to explain why the Navy agreed to the series, and to allay fears about the program's potential negative impact.
"We did not get a Navy 'commercial' in the traditional sense," wrote Roughead, a member of the Joints Chiefs of Staff and the senior military officer in the Department of the Navy. " 'Carrier' is very different from the hardware documentaries we have supported in the past. This program focuses on our people and the reality-TV approach gives it a sense of authenticity and credibility. Since we did not monitor the individual interviews and ongoing production, the program contains material that does not always and fully represent the discipline, values and mission of the U.S. Navy."..
This actual review of the series by an LA Times critic is rather caustic:
'Carrier' on PBS
Even in 10 hours, this PBS documentary series aboard the Nimitz delivers a cursory study of its men, women and mission.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/reviews/tv/la-et-carrierreview26apr26,1,3095460.story
As documentaries go, it's a real commitment signing on for the tour that is "Carrier," a 10-hour PBS series about life aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Nimitz on a trip to the Persian Gulf and back.
Premiering Sunday night and taking up almost half of the week's public-broadcasting prime time, it might be viewed by a suspicious or uncharitable critic as the network demonstrating to its conservative critics that it knows how to wave the flag. Although there is no politicking by the filmmakers or much political expression from the people in it, "Carrier" is not incidentally a paean to military hardware and the men and women who work it, live in it, and keep it organized and clean...
...apart from whatever assurances the brass may or may not have been given, it is natural enough that after traveling for six months cheek-by-jowl with people who are (as seen here) hard-working, dedicated, friendly and all too human, the filmmakers would finally send them a valentine.
Even from a critical standpoint, one wants to make clear that, as with the Iraq war itself, one's problem with the film is never with the troops, but with the thing they have volunteered for...
A thing largely made of snippets and sound bites, it's restless and choppy, even when describing days of tedium.
Its aesthetics are too often those of Madison Avenue. Pop songs, overly loud on the soundtrack, needlessly amplify the obvious majesty of the ship, the seas, the jets and the mission, but more crucially swamp the series' small, delicate, human moments, making sentimental and "cinematic" what would otherwise be plainly moving.
This is especially true toward the end, when friends bid goodbye and families awkwardly reunite.
Just stripping off the soundtrack would improve the series by half.
The people we meet here have joined the Navy for all sorts of reasons, patriotic or practical or romantic; there is some diversity of opinion on the war, God and life -- though having opinions is not necessarily what leads to success in this world, described by one sailor as "a floating dictatorship defending a democracy."
It is a more homogeneous society than most, and yet diverse within those bounds, separated not so much by color and creed as by rank and job. Dissension is acknowledged in the series -- talking heads, often shot against a black background, speak up for themselves -- but it's not really shown being explored...
Mark
Ottawa