True sentiment

Robert LLOYD writes in “Truth, the Franchise” [Aug. 5]: “And for all the restrained formalism of his approach, [Ken] Burns can be awfully sentimental. When he gives way to his inner Norman Rockwell, his latent Steven Spielberg, as the small-town orientation of the generally hard-nosed ‘The War’ often calls him to do, things can turn bad. Tom Hanks reading the words of Luverne, Minn., newspaper columnist Al McIntosh over images of farmland and quiet streets, is pure Hallmark.”

If Burns had used more flash cutting and shaky cam effect during these scenes, would that have “kept it real”? Or perhaps he should have ignored rural America entirely in his documentary.

Sure, the rural populace does a disproportionate amount of the fighting and dying in our wars, but those hayseeds in the flyover states don’t have the star power to carry a documentary. Let’s keep our demographic attention focused on our beloved media epicenters.

Steve Gansen

Minneapolis