Maybe not a Vietnam war film proper, but "The Killing Fields" that chronicled Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's murderous genocide in Cambodia later.
Your favourite Vietnam War film?
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Solo4114
Master Member
As much as I love Apocalypse Now for its excellent archetype characters and epic scale, it still is, in my opinion, just an over-the-top exaggerated parody of the Vietnam War and militarism in general, much as Kubrik's other war-themed movies were. Saying Apocalypse is the best Vietnam War film is like saying Dr. Strangelove was the best Cold War movie (and Dr. Strangelove is one of my favorite films!)
Kubrik didn't direct Apocalypse Now.
But yeah, it's not so much a Vietnam movie as much as it is a movie set in Vietnam, but about other things.Yeah, but there are a few things somewhat unique to FMJ that, to me, make it very much a Vietnam War film. There's the discussion between Animal Mother and the other guys in the platoon about "Freedom." ("Freedom's a word. If I'm dyin' for a word, my word is...") The other thing about FMJ that, to me, makes it a Vietnam movie is that it's a movie that wouldn't have been made if not for Vietnam and what it did to this country.
While it's true that the same kinds of things likely happened during ANY war in America's history (or indeed any war anywhere), the de-romanticizing of the American war effort and the depiction of war as brutal, dehumanizing, and horrific (as opposed to righteous, glorious, or where we're "the good guys" and they're "the bad guys") is something that really begins with the Vietnam War. As such, while modern films could easily be made about any war using those same kinds of experiences, I think the underlying cynicism and disillusionment -- and the fact that it started with Vietnam -- kind of makes it only natural that it'd be a Vietnam movie. Like, those kinds of movies had to be made about Vietnam first (since that's arguably the first war where the public really gets an eyeful of that kind of stuff) before you'd ever start to see movies like it set in any other time period. I think as a culture that America had to go through Vietnam and then tell its post-war stories in film the way FMJ and other films do, before you could have films like A Midnight Clear or even Saving Pvt. Ryan (which is a far more optimistic view of war than the Vietnam films of the 1980s and early 1990s).
I saw The Deer Hunter and while it's a great film, it's not exactly a WAR movie. It's a movie that, to me, shows less of the war itself, and more of the total effects of the war. In that sense, it's invaluable and a heartbreaking film, but I think you've nailed exactly why most people don't see it as a "Vietnam WAR movie." I think you could say the same thing for Born on the Fourth of July, actually. It's not so much a Vietnam War movie as much as it is a movie about the effects OF the war (rather than about the war itself). If that makes sense, anyway.
Yep. Which is why I don't see it exactly as a Vietnam War movie as much as a movie set IN Vietnam during the war that's really about certain themes. I think Apocalypse Now's setting simply serves as a more contemporary setting to get those points across, rather than colonial Africa in the late 1800s. You could probably tell the same story today and set it in Afghanistan, using a small armored car instead of a boat, and having the protagonist travel "back through time/civilization" in a journey into the Hindu Kush mountains. Like I said, it's less about the setting and more about the message.
Lee Ermey was also a chopper pilot in none other than Apocalypse Now. He's flying one of the scout copters, I believe, in the "Ride of the Valkyries" scene.
ReaverReject
Active Member
Doh! Brain fart - sorry! :$ I knew it was a FFC film, but I was comparing it in my head to Dr. Strangelove and FMJ and incorrectly phrased the sentence...Kubrik didn't direct Apocalypse Now.
I'm pretty much in agreement with your other comments about Deer Hunter and BOTFOJ, although one could argue that "Freedom" was always a theme in America's foreign wars, not just in FMJ - it was never about American Freedom, but the universal right to be free from fascist, communist, or theocratic tyrannies. I exclude the War in the Pacific and the current Afghan campaign, since the ruling militant governments in those countries attacked US soil, so those were more wars of retribution than wars of liberation, although there were always elements of "restoring freedom" to populations victimized by our attackers, regardless of our administrations' political motives.
I think the disillusionment with the Iraq War, more than the simplistic "Bush Lied" mantra, is based on the disillusionment with the doctrine of prevention and intervention, where a perceived strategic threat (communist expansion, control of oil, nuclear proliferation, etc.) that does not constitute a clear and present danger to the continental US forms the basis for invasion or military intervention and is couched in the name of "freedom" and "liberation." So you're right, one could think of the Vietnam War as the paradigm shift in America's view of military intervention, but I'd go even further back to the Korean War, as South Korea was not so much a US ally then as France & England were in WWII. South Vietnam was never seen as an old historic friend & ally in distress, and was so culturally and ethnically different from ours (at the time), that the patriotic motivation to go "help our friends" didn't resonate at home. Plus the fact that the Korean War did not enter our living rooms on the evening news on a daily basis. Had the media covered it as much as it did the Vietnam War, I doubt we would have ever gotten involved.
RR
Solo4114
Master Member
Yeah, that's a fair statement (re: the Korean War). What I'm getting at more, though, is the sort of attitude the soldiers have in the film, and the very stark and brutal way in which combat is depicted. I don't think that you see a lot of that until the era of "Vietnam movies" starts. Apocalypse Now is one of the earlier (1979, no?) depictions of that, as is the Deer Hunter ('78).
While Korea wasn't a popular war, Vietnam brought the horrors of war home to people's living rooms because of TV. You had Kronkite saying "The war is unwinnable" after the Tet Offensive (even though, militarily speaking, the U.S. "won" the Tet Offensive), you had Country Joe and the Fish asking "1, 2, 3, what're we fightin' for?", etc., etc., etc.
Arguably, I think you see this kind of vehement reaction specifically because the truths of the war ran headlong into the myths that had been told about WWII and which were reinforced by popular culture, film, television, and newsreels. WWII was a "good" war, where things "made sense." Film and TV depictions of it were always fairly gallant and bloodless affairs prior to Vietnam. (Although much of popular culture was fairly "bloodless" after WWII -- think about all the westerns where people get shot and have no blood on 'em or just slightly grimace and fall over slowly.)
That all changes with Vietnam.
The "myth" of WWII and the American military basically dies with that war. So, to me at least, the kind of cynical, nihilist "This is the cost of war, dammit!" films you see made about Vietnam are a natural byproduct of the effect of the war on the culture at large. That effect carries through to today where war films are no longer bloodless, gallant affairs. Even our WWII movies nowadays show carnage for what it is. Even when we make films with hopeful messages full of heroic sacrifice like Saving Pvt. Ryan...you've still got the Omaha Landing scene. We get Band of Brothers on TV, but you still show some FNG with half his face blown off by a German grenade, and you still get scenes like Malarkey picking up the laundry for all his dead comrades.
I don't think we'd see ANY of that today without Vietnam having happened first. Likewise, I don't think we'd see any kind of war films depicting that kind of realism without there having first been Vietnam war films. We had to show the first war that really brought that concept home to the public in film in that light before we could tackle other wars the same way.
While Korea wasn't a popular war, Vietnam brought the horrors of war home to people's living rooms because of TV. You had Kronkite saying "The war is unwinnable" after the Tet Offensive (even though, militarily speaking, the U.S. "won" the Tet Offensive), you had Country Joe and the Fish asking "1, 2, 3, what're we fightin' for?", etc., etc., etc.
Arguably, I think you see this kind of vehement reaction specifically because the truths of the war ran headlong into the myths that had been told about WWII and which were reinforced by popular culture, film, television, and newsreels. WWII was a "good" war, where things "made sense." Film and TV depictions of it were always fairly gallant and bloodless affairs prior to Vietnam. (Although much of popular culture was fairly "bloodless" after WWII -- think about all the westerns where people get shot and have no blood on 'em or just slightly grimace and fall over slowly.)
That all changes with Vietnam.
The "myth" of WWII and the American military basically dies with that war. So, to me at least, the kind of cynical, nihilist "This is the cost of war, dammit!" films you see made about Vietnam are a natural byproduct of the effect of the war on the culture at large. That effect carries through to today where war films are no longer bloodless, gallant affairs. Even our WWII movies nowadays show carnage for what it is. Even when we make films with hopeful messages full of heroic sacrifice like Saving Pvt. Ryan...you've still got the Omaha Landing scene. We get Band of Brothers on TV, but you still show some FNG with half his face blown off by a German grenade, and you still get scenes like Malarkey picking up the laundry for all his dead comrades.
I don't think we'd see ANY of that today without Vietnam having happened first. Likewise, I don't think we'd see any kind of war films depicting that kind of realism without there having first been Vietnam war films. We had to show the first war that really brought that concept home to the public in film in that light before we could tackle other wars the same way.
JunkSabers1138
Sr Member
Great post. I agree 100%
ReaverReject
Active Member
"There ain't no time to wonder why, WHOOPIE! We're all gonna die!"...
Solo, I appreciate your analysis, but I still believe that our visceral reaction to the Vietnam War was more a product of a disillusionment with the interventionist doctrine and also in large part as a direct byproduct of several pre-Vietnam "social empowerment" movements (voter rights, women's rights, anti-segregation, anti-communist, etc.) than the graphic nature of war, although that certainly helped bring home the horror unlike any conflict before. However, keep in mind that the Revolutionary, Civil, First & Second World Wars are ingrained in our collective consciousness and there's nothing you can say that will convince me that Americans were naive about the horrific nature of war until Vietnam came along. Time Life Magazine brought home the atrocities committed by the Nazis and Japanese in WWII, despite the heavy censorship, and PTSD was very much a factor with our returning GIs, only it was known as "shell shock" and "battle fatigue" - I point you to The Best Years of Our Lives and Twelve O'Clock High as excellent post-WWII films that, like The Deer Hunter and BOTFOJ, focused our attention on the psychological and emotional damage caused by war to young men's souls.
I agree that war movies up to the late 60s did depict a rather sanitized version of the reality of war, as did the early westerns of the tragedy that continental expansion spelled for the Native Americans, but I feel that part of that "sanitation" has as much to do with the state of film-making and special effects as it does with social precepts. These genres did us a cultural and moral disservice by diluting on the one hand, and glamorizing on the other our perception of violence. But you have to place that in the context of our society at the time: we were a very sheltered, puritanical, and culturally cohesive society. Husbands & wives did not sleep in the same bed, teenagers did not have sex; there were no STDs; no interracial relationships, couples did not get divorced, there was no such thing as alcoholism, rape, incest, drug addiction, and pedophilia, and pro sports, politics, and business were as pure as the first white snow - at least in the broadcast media and mainstream films. Ironically, the only things that did get disproportionate attention & hysteria between WWII and Vietnam was the Cold War and science fiction - and they fed off each other, lol. The closest American cinema came during the post-WWII generation to tackling serious, controversial social issues were landmark films such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Boy with Green Hair, and A Gentleman's Agreement, and even they were sanitized versions of the issues they addressed (racism, bigotry, & anti-Semitism).
I do agree that films about the Vietnam War depicted war more honestly and viscerally than any movie before about any prior war, but those films' graphic nature was a product of societal factors as well as the evolving technology of movie making. Killing and destruction could be depicted more realistically and accurately than anytime in Hollywood history due to advances in special effects (or, in more familiar sci-fi terms, compare 2001 from '68 to Forbidden Planet from '56), and at the same time, we as a society were better conditioned to accept such imagery due to our "loss of innocence" in so many other aspects of our lives, and aided by the way the Vietnam War directly invaded the sanctity of our living rooms as I pointed out before. Saving Private Ryan - the most honest and visceral movie about WWII in Europe (or any war, IMHO) ever made - could simply never have been made in such sweeping, epic scale and with such realistic pyrotechnic and prosthetic effects anytime between the 50s and 80s, even if we were ready to process such realism. And, like the plethora of visceral Vietnam movies spawned by Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan spawned a whole new wave of visceral historical war films, most notably Enemy at the Gates, The Patriot, Schindler's List, Cold Mountain, Flags of Our Fathers, Valkyrie, and yes, even Inglorious Basterds. This can be said about any film genre that required more believable & visceral effects to be considered watershed films: sci-fi, dinosaurs, historical epics, even sports. My argument, in a nutshell, states that film-making technology and budgets are as much responsible for the shift in how we perceive war through film as was our society's loss of innocence BEFORE Vietnam.
RR
Solo, I appreciate your analysis, but I still believe that our visceral reaction to the Vietnam War was more a product of a disillusionment with the interventionist doctrine and also in large part as a direct byproduct of several pre-Vietnam "social empowerment" movements (voter rights, women's rights, anti-segregation, anti-communist, etc.) than the graphic nature of war, although that certainly helped bring home the horror unlike any conflict before. However, keep in mind that the Revolutionary, Civil, First & Second World Wars are ingrained in our collective consciousness and there's nothing you can say that will convince me that Americans were naive about the horrific nature of war until Vietnam came along. Time Life Magazine brought home the atrocities committed by the Nazis and Japanese in WWII, despite the heavy censorship, and PTSD was very much a factor with our returning GIs, only it was known as "shell shock" and "battle fatigue" - I point you to The Best Years of Our Lives and Twelve O'Clock High as excellent post-WWII films that, like The Deer Hunter and BOTFOJ, focused our attention on the psychological and emotional damage caused by war to young men's souls.
I agree that war movies up to the late 60s did depict a rather sanitized version of the reality of war, as did the early westerns of the tragedy that continental expansion spelled for the Native Americans, but I feel that part of that "sanitation" has as much to do with the state of film-making and special effects as it does with social precepts. These genres did us a cultural and moral disservice by diluting on the one hand, and glamorizing on the other our perception of violence. But you have to place that in the context of our society at the time: we were a very sheltered, puritanical, and culturally cohesive society. Husbands & wives did not sleep in the same bed, teenagers did not have sex; there were no STDs; no interracial relationships, couples did not get divorced, there was no such thing as alcoholism, rape, incest, drug addiction, and pedophilia, and pro sports, politics, and business were as pure as the first white snow - at least in the broadcast media and mainstream films. Ironically, the only things that did get disproportionate attention & hysteria between WWII and Vietnam was the Cold War and science fiction - and they fed off each other, lol. The closest American cinema came during the post-WWII generation to tackling serious, controversial social issues were landmark films such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Boy with Green Hair, and A Gentleman's Agreement, and even they were sanitized versions of the issues they addressed (racism, bigotry, & anti-Semitism).
I do agree that films about the Vietnam War depicted war more honestly and viscerally than any movie before about any prior war, but those films' graphic nature was a product of societal factors as well as the evolving technology of movie making. Killing and destruction could be depicted more realistically and accurately than anytime in Hollywood history due to advances in special effects (or, in more familiar sci-fi terms, compare 2001 from '68 to Forbidden Planet from '56), and at the same time, we as a society were better conditioned to accept such imagery due to our "loss of innocence" in so many other aspects of our lives, and aided by the way the Vietnam War directly invaded the sanctity of our living rooms as I pointed out before. Saving Private Ryan - the most honest and visceral movie about WWII in Europe (or any war, IMHO) ever made - could simply never have been made in such sweeping, epic scale and with such realistic pyrotechnic and prosthetic effects anytime between the 50s and 80s, even if we were ready to process such realism. And, like the plethora of visceral Vietnam movies spawned by Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan spawned a whole new wave of visceral historical war films, most notably Enemy at the Gates, The Patriot, Schindler's List, Cold Mountain, Flags of Our Fathers, Valkyrie, and yes, even Inglorious Basterds. This can be said about any film genre that required more believable & visceral effects to be considered watershed films: sci-fi, dinosaurs, historical epics, even sports. My argument, in a nutshell, states that film-making technology and budgets are as much responsible for the shift in how we perceive war through film as was our society's loss of innocence BEFORE Vietnam.
RR
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cayman shen
Master Member
One great review I read called Three Kings a great Vietnam war movie. Yes, set in Iraq/Kuwait, but with all the surrealistic hallmarks of a Vietnam story. It's interesting that Vietnam stories have become something of a type or genre, rather than simply war stories set in Vietnam.
DARKSIDE72
Sr Member
I asked a Vet today who I work with which film he thinks depicted the Vietnam war the best and he said "although there are several that are great films the one which was the most realistic for him is Hamburger Hill", so I asked why, and he said "because it was focused on the mission, and everything he had to do over their was focused on the mission at hand". He also felt that many of the others discussed were too over dramatised for one reason or another.
CTF
Sr Member
Sounds as if he wants a documentary.
First, give me characters, story, then the rest will fall into place.
Solo4114
Master Member
"There ain't no time to wonder why, WHOOPIE! We're all gonna die!"...
Solo, I appreciate your analysis, but I still believe that our visceral reaction to the Vietnam War was more a product of a disillusionment with the interventionist doctrine and also in large part as a direct byproduct of several pre-Vietnam "social empowerment" movements (voter rights, women's rights, anti-segregation, anti-communist, etc.) than the graphic nature of war, although that certainly helped bring home the horror unlike any conflict before. However, keep in mind that the Revolutionary, Civil, First & Second World Wars are ingrained in our collective consciousness and there's nothing you can say that will convince me that Americans were naive about the horrific nature of war until Vietnam came along. Time Life Magazine brought home the atrocities committed by the Nazis and Japanese in WWII, despite the heavy censorship, and PTSD was very much a factor with our returning GIs, only it was known as "shell shock" and "battle fatigue" - I point you to The Best Years of Our Lives and Twelve O'Clock High as excellent post-WWII films that, like The Deer Hunter and BOTFOJ, focused our attention on the psychological and emotional damage caused by war to young men's souls.
I've seen The Best Years of Our Lives. FANTASTIC film. And yeah, it really shows the cost of the war -- even a "good" war. Maybe I'm painting with too broad a brush here, however. I suspect that a good portion of the country knew about the horrors of war, even after WWII. A good portion of the country, however, didn't want to deal with it, though, or confront it.
And then there were the kids (the Baby Boomers, I mean). The kids grew up completely immersed in the "myth" of WWII, and it's those kids who end up going to Vietnam, or joining the anti-war movement, or becoming filmmakers who make movies like Platoon.
Exactly my point. These were, of course, complete fictions, but they were fictions willingly adopted by the populace at large....except for the kids. The kids didn't KNOW any better. I mean, think about it. Think about being born in the mid-to-late 40s or 50s and growing up believing that all of that was just reality. Kids are sheltered as it is, but imagine growing up with what we now get as Nick at Nite/TV Land for your cultural myths. Imagine not KNOWING it's a myth. And then, all of a sudden, the world goes crazy starting in the 1960s (coincidentally, right abotu the time you become an actual sentient being instead of a kid immersed in the myths of the day). Suddenly, you're finding out you've been LIED to. The media, mom and dad, the television, everything around you LIED to you.
Then comes Vietnam, and the world goes even crazier.
I agree that it isn't PURELY the televising of the war that changed things, but that made it so that even those at the home front couldn't hear about "Our brave boys overseas fighting against those rotten commies" like they might've seen in some newsreel at the cinema in the middle of WWII. Whereas after WWII the society could sort of collectively agree to sanitize things, with Vietnam, there was no getting around it.
Oh, I agree with you on the technology. But on the other hand, consider The Wild Bunch (1969). Or Bonnie and Clyde (1967). I mean, we kind of end up in a chicken/egg debate here, if we aren't careful (IE: was the advance in technology coming because people WANTED to depict violence more realistically, or were people depicting violence more realistically because they now had the technology to do so?). But I still think that a lot of it has to do with Vietnam (in addition to many other social factors) stripping away the "myths" that the Baby Boomers grew up with, which their parents sort of willingly bought into even knowing that they were fiction at the time.
Granted, you couldn't do Saving Pvt. Ryan and the beach scene back in 1968. But you did have slow motion blood squibs and innocents being shotgunned in the middle of a western street in the opening sequence of The Wild Bunch. My mom told me a story about how my dad had to take her, sobbing, out of a Peckinpah movie because it was too violent and gory for her to handle at the time. Going back and watching it now, it seems almost laughable that what appears to be bright red paint is deemed to be so grisly. Although in its context, I'm sure it must've been shocking and horrifying (exactly as intended, I suspect). My point here is that while you couldn't do Saving Pvt. Ryan, you could've done the 1960s/1970s equivalent of that, and it would've stood in stark contrast to, say, the sanitized violence in even The Dirty Dozen or The Guns of Navarone or The Longest Day.
Anyway, interesting discussion here, and one of the reasons I love hanging out in the OT area.
ReaverReject
Active Member
Interesting indeed! :thumbsupOh, I agree with you on the technology. But on the other hand, consider The Wild Bunch (1969)....
...Granted, you couldn't do Saving Pvt. Ryan and the beach scene back in 1968. But you did have slow motion blood squibs and innocents being shotgunned in the middle of a western street in the opening sequence of The Wild Bunch. My mom told me a story about how my dad had to take her, sobbing, out of a Peckinpah movie because it was too violent and gory for her to handle at the time. Going back and watching it now, it seems almost laughable that what appears to be bright red paint is deemed to be so grisly. Although in its context, I'm sure it must've been shocking and horrifying (exactly as intended, I suspect). My point here is that while you couldn't do Saving Pvt. Ryan, you could've done the 1960s/1970s equivalent of that, and it would've stood in stark contrast to, say, the sanitized violence in even The Dirty Dozen or The Guns of Navarone or The Longest Day.
Anyway, interesting discussion here, and one of the reasons I love hanging out in the OT area.
Your mention of Peckinpah triggered my recollection of HIS contribution to the war film genre: Cross of Iron - another of my favorite WWII films - a sheer masterpiece! And come to think of it, this film had all the visceral, realistic, and honest portrayals of Saving Private Ryan, only 20 years earlier, and just as intimate a look at the main characters as the Spielberg film. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if Spielberg was directly inspired by this film when he began conceiving his. But I'm sure you'll agree that Peckinpah was a director before his time in this respect, and this film came out a year before Apocalypse Now.
We seem to be in relative agreement about everything else. If you haven't seen Twelve O'clock High with Gregory Peck, you really owe it to yourself - you'll probably rank it among your favorite vintage WWII movies.
RR
CTF
Sr Member
Actually, we wouldn't have Platoon if it weren't for The Green Berets!
Yeah, I totally agree. I said that (well, I tried to articulate it) a few posts back.
I'm not sure if that's meant to be an insult? I've seen it, many times. I like it, but I don't love it, is all.
I'll always wonder what happened to Michael Cimino...
Definitely.
It never tried to hide it, either.
I've always thought Apocalypse Now borrowed a lot from Dante's Inferno, too.
Some excellent posts, guys!
Believe it or not, "The Green Berets" is a revered movie among the Special Forces. When I was in, we had the John Wayne Green Beret posters hanging up in our work places down on "Smoke Bomb Hill" at Bragg. Barry Sadler's song is our anthem.
Explain Myths.
I grew up amongst WWII vets. Both grandfathers (one was part of the Bataan Death March) and a couple of great uncles served during WWII and my late Father-in-Law served with the 442nd. I heard their stories and though WWII was no walk in the park, they served with honor and were proud they came to the rescue of the world. It was a romantic time too if you can couple that word with war. All those movies made during the war reflected real culture back then, as confirmed by my grandparents and their friends.
Carson Dyle
Sr Member
Here here. A highly underrated, or at least film under-seen film (critics almost unanimously praised it upon its release) and one of the best "Vietnam" films ever made IMO. Sean Penn has given a lot of intense performances in his day, but his turn as Sergeant Tony Meserve is one powerful piece of work.
I'll also toss out "Coming Home" by the late, great Hal Ashby. Superb film on just about every level, albeit one which concentrates on the toll war takes on those at home -- particularly those who return home following a particularly brutal tour of duty. Terrific performances, and more timely than ever.
CTF
Sr Member
The first of its kind.
And definitely the best.
Hal Ashby... one of New Hollywood's greatest gifts!
Carson Dyle
Sr Member
Seconded in the extreme.
Director Roland Joffe's experience as a former documentary film maker brings a lot to the party here, as does the Oscar-winning performance by the late Haing S. Ngor. A gut-wrenchingly powerful piece of film making, and one whose themes remain sadly but inescapably relevant.
One of the few movies that makes me tear up (the reveal of that Red Cross tent does it every time).
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