Maya Lin

            Is the Vietnam War remembered as a strong clear plan, with definite intentions and victory? No. But I believe that was the point of Maya Lin’s monument, she wanted it to be simple to contrast the chaos of that time. Similarly the documentary had this same stark feel. Although I did learn from this documentary there were no surprises, no special effects, not even voice inflection, which left me uninterested and unenthused.

            I have been to the Vietnam Memorial yet I never looked into who designed it. I can’t believe that Maya Lin was practically my age and was such a source of national debate. The documentary showed how dedicated she was to her architecture, her original design and her poise in handling dissenting opinions.

I thought it was very telling in the beginning of the documentary when Scruggs explained that, “it was obvious the government was not going to build a monument”.  I could sense the tension in his words about this issue. This was a red flag that there would be controversy over the monument, and from then on I could predict pretty much everything to come in the rest of the documentary. 

The addition of the civil rights monument displays her precision and importance of detail, with a meaning to everything. Maya Lin puts great emphasis on psychologically and emotionally capturing viewers. I only wished that the director of Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, Frieda Lee Mock, had done the same.