If ever the word "sprawling" applied to a television miniseries, this is the one. It's like watching the unfolding of World War II through the hundred eyes of a housefly, each lens yielding a different perspective.There are not only multiple generations involve -- those are intrinsic to epic series and epic novels -- but an entire extended family of consanguineals and affines, all facing different inner conflicts and circumstantial troubles.Robert Mitchum is listed at the head of the cast but only because of his name recognition. We don't see him any more often than we see his family. There are few battle scenes, relatively well done. Most of the emphasis is on Jane Seymour and John Gielgud as two Jews of substance who are gradually swept up in the Nazi's genocidal programs. Seymour barely survives; Gielgud doesn't.Herman Wouk clearly put an enormous amount of effort into his novel and contributed to the screenplay. Some of the dialog is lifted straight from the book. Yet, structurally, Wouk has weakened the story in order to cover every major historical even he could get his hands on. The plight of Seymour and Gielgud is particularly depressing because it's so literal. We are taken into the Disinfection Room with Gielgud and stay with him as he and dozens of other naked inmates at Auschwitz, including women and their children, die horrifying deaths. We see his corpse shoveled unceremoniously into the furnaces. We follow his ashes as they are dumped with a thousand others into a nearby river. We see familiar footage of cadavers being bulldozed into mass graves.It's a terrible downer. Still, the path taken by the pair, from distinguished American citizens to despair, is necessary to the narrative. For one thing, it provides us with some insight into the insidious nature of the extermination program, which liquidated not only six million Jews but probably as many other undesirables -- homosexuals, gypsies, political dissidents, inferior Slavs. The process wasn't implemented all at once.For another, and I realize this sounds a little incredible, a lot of younger people of college age and even older, have no clear idea of what went on. At best, the genocide was an historical event, as remote as the Big Bang. At worst, we now have "holocaust deniers" who don't believe it happened. So, yes, emotionally draining or not, leave the sequences in.Herman Wouk's best novel was "The Caine Mutiny" because it was a taut tale of life aboard a US Navy ship run by a paranoid eccentric, told mostly through the description of one upper-class, naive young man, Willie Kieth, who grows to maturity under stress. His relationship with a nightclub singer is an ancillary but accurate parallel to Keith's evolving sensibilities."War and Remembrance", for all its ambition and for all the research that went into it, is less focused and finally less interesting. It takes us all over the place -- Pearl Harbor, London, Paris, Moscow, Poland. It's an ensemble piece in which it's easy to lose track of the dozen or more main characters, all of whom seem to be falling in love in ways, and with people, that may or may not be foolish. There are top-level political scenes but they're overwhelmed by questions about whether Mitchum and his wife should be divorced and whether he should then marry the British journalist and whether she will have him if he proposes. In other words, it begins at times to look an awful lot like a soap opera.Another elements of the series, which some may not find as irritating as I did, is the essentially bourgeois nature of Mitchum's family and his intentions. Mitchum's character is morally pure. He always makes the right judgment, or tries to. Any resentment in relationships are always slightly masked or underplayed. Mitchum is taciturn and he "listens" well. He always did. But that's about all he does. He never lets loose with a feral howl as he did when belting Madam Anthorp in "Farewell, My Lovely."And, just as in "The Caine Mutiny," Wouk is simply unable to get inside the head of ordinary enlisted men. Wouk's Navy characters are almost always high-ranking officers sitting around at formal dinners in snazzy dress white uniforms. They never heard of khaki. We get to know absolutely nothing about the enlisted men. The few lines of dialog they get are given in corn cob dialects. I'm prejudiced because I was a swab, true, but if you want an enlisted man's view of the military at that time, read James Jones' "From Here To Eternity," where you'll discover that those in the military don't always sit around in immaculate dress uniforms, drinking tea, and being polite, but that some have to scrub pots and pans.The bonus "featurette" isn't worth watching. As all those who are interviewed tell us, it was great. It was great working with the others. It was great that we overcome difficulties with weather and politics during the shoot. The director was great. The cameraman was the finest in the world. In a word, it was all great.

I watched "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" when they were first aired in 1983 and 1988 respectively. With five years in between I had no problem adjusting to the appearance of new actors in "War and Remembrance." Having just watched both again with no break between the two I am very conscious of the substitution of new actors. First, Sir John Gielgud was superb as Aaron Jastrow. He brought a warmth and humanity to the role that was lacking in John Houseman's cold personality. But why, oh why was Ali McGraw dropped in favor of Jane Seymour? Ali was marvelous as Natalie. Depending on what the script called for every emotion flitted across her face - determination, fear, love, stubbornness, flirtatiousness, humor. In contrast Jane Seymour most of the time had a blank expression on her face She has a nice smile but you rarely see it. Even at moments of high drama like her reunion with her husband and with her child she was largely expressionless. And why was the excellent Jan-Michael Vincent dropped for Hart Bochner? Bochner is a good looking young actor indistinguishable from many others. In scenes where he was in a room with other officers I had trouble picking him out. But in spite of these criticisms the "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" are magnificent epics which keep viewers enthralled, particularly people like me who lived through World War II.

I really hate TeeVee. I hate how it has changed news into the most trivial of snips, how it it has transformed politics into the manipulation of narrative, and how it has made it commonplace for advertisers to assault our deepest senses. But most of all, I curse it for the way it drags on film, real film. The very existence of TeeVee means that we are trained differently than we might allow ourselves to be. But when we have a "major" film event and it uses TeeVee conventions, its particularly repellent.Pop music is what it is because of the accident of how the market has evolved to make money from it. You have to buy an artifact to "own" the music. At least that used to be the case, and even today that model is still clung to by the "music business." Because the idea is not to provide music, but to sell artifacts, the music is perturbed. It has developed into a form that suits the market: so many seconds, so few hooks, so much personal charisma or charm. The result is that what we carry in our heads as melodies are little sales viruses that crowd out the transformative power of real music.TeeVee is worse, because it digs semantically deeper.The commercial compact with theatrical film is rather straightforward: if something is attractive enough, I will pay. Then I will enter a space designed to eliminate everything but the film. I will engage in a shared world with the filmmaker. During that uninterrupted time, we engage in the long form, something unique, something special, something powerful enough to change lives. I decide what is attractive, what tradeoffs I wish to make and to some extent when.TeeVee is a different contract. They're interested in attracting me not so I can see the primary narrative, but all sorts of inserted side narrative designed to convince me to buy something. The purpose is not to be whole, singly engaged. In fact it is the opposite, to be serially interrupted. So TeeVee never engages in the long form proper. Instead it builds on small episodes. It gives the illusion of the long form by stringing episodes together and having some large container. That large container in the original soap opera are grand sweeps of human interaction: betrayal, scheming, justice. In this case, that is enhanced by large sweeps of war that surround this, provide some notion of flow, and even plot devices that allow tragedy and separation. But its still a soap opera. Its still chunks, little chinks to go between ads and slightly larger chunks to be consumed in an evening. Oh, you may get involved in various characters, but you'll more likely be involved in the accounting process, simply keeping track of who that was that now reappears, and what story they are re-igniting for a little flash before jumping to the next.If you are like me, you use film as a tool for life; you use narrative and explorations of it as part of a rich adventure with people who can make stories that weave with selves. Its a gift, the biggest we have as humans. If so, if you feel this way. If you depend on art. Then you will be disgusted by the TeeVee travesties of the long form that are shaped only by the crassest of market forces.This is the first "big" miniseries production, and it is a template for many others that followed. Its probably no worse than many others, but it should be reviled because it was the first. It set the template for all that follow, that allow you to sit and go nowhere with the illusion of motion and with your wallet in your hand.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

I looked forward to watching sequel to 'Winds of War'. I must admit that it was not as good as 'Winds of War' The scenes are well done but the viewer seems to be just getting a narrative of all the major events in World War II including the Holocaust.Whereas 'Winds of War' arouses deep feelings and emotions but this one doesn't. Maybe I expected too much.On the positive side, Jane Seymour is much better then Ali McGraw in every aspect. So is the guy who played Hitler.In conclusion, these two series (Winds of War and War and Remembrance) should be very good for history students and scholars