Long Nguyen

English 2321

Ms. Bigley

April 24, 2003

The Vietnam War on Film.

Films have taught the younger generation many valuable lessons in life.  They help people to experience what happened in the past.  Films that depict the Vietnam War are a valuable medium for those who were not there at first hand to experience it. Even though movies about Vietnam War are cruel, these films reflect American society and make a great impact on their audiences.

  Exploring how the Vietnam War subgenre first formed clarifies the history of Vietnam War films.  In reference to Dittmar and Michaud, films, which dealt with aspects of the Vietnam War, did not constitute a genre themselves.  They borrowed their narrative and cinematic style from other media and other films.[1]  In addition, the parent of Vietnam subgenre was the World War II film, the genre most often characterized as the best example of American political, moral, and military strength.[2]

   According to filmsite.org, The Green Berets was the first Vietnam War film, produced in 1968 by John Wayne and Melvin LeRoy with a World War II approach.  The movie, The Green Berets portrays decent Americans who struggle to defend South Vietnamese incompetents and victims from Viet Cong.[3] Moreover, in the article from the New York Times by A.H. Weiler, The Green Berets drew attentions from its audience.  The movie was quite successful and earned up to eleven million for its studio.  Spectators really liked the movie because it glorified American militarism. [4]  The movie portrays John Wayne as a heroic, tough, and professional soldier while the Viet Cong is the savage.  American soldiers in the film are noble, good and they believe in their country. 

Hollywood made the movie The Green Berets for American political propaganda purpose.  The film industry tried to form agreement in the public and intended to educate and motivate American troops.  It also helped the Department of Defense recruit young men for United States army.[5]  The message that the film’s creator tried to get across from The Green Berets encouraged young men to join the military.  After many years of battling, people started to dislike the war in Vietnam.  In response to this, Hollywood released many Vietnam War films that directly addressed the anti-war and anti-military climate.  Vietnam films changed from pro-war to anti-war because people realized that war caused evil.  War brought death to innocent people, enemies and American troops.

Along with making a political statement, Vietnam War films also influenced Americans perceptions of the veterans.  Many films often portrayed returned veterans as emotionally unstable and that most of them had posttraumatic stress disorder.[6]   For examples: Rambo, Born on the Fourth of July and The Deer Hunter.  Those movies portray society as having abandoned the Vietnam vetarans.  The vets are a burden to society when they return home.  Additionally, Vietnam War films also led people to feel the pains of war.  The vision and feeling of the films were shown to take an impact on the viewer so they can remember.[7]  For example, in the movie Born on the Fourth of July, director Oliver Stone spent less time in depicting combat, but rather he focused on the life of the veteran after his return home.  In this film, Tom Cruise plays Ron Kovic, a crippled veteran who returns home confused and bitter by the war.  He reflects the situation of many veterans at that time.  Many of them were not know what to do when they returned home without their limbs.[8]

Vietnam films had a hard time depicting the Vietnam experience because there was no definition of the Vietnam War experience.  They all were just on man’s story and each of them reflected a different perspective because they were made from different experiences.  In The Green Berets, for example, the movie portrays man’s ferocity, courage, capacity for sacrifice, and the like.[9]  In that film, Americans undertake war, even when the cause was mistaken.  The images of the brutal Viet Cong are shown in contrast with the personally decent American.  There is not a single scene where enemy troops are shown assisting their wounded fellows.  The star, John Wayne, is very patriotic and depicts the Vietnam War with a World War II angle.[10]  Another movie that has a totally different feeling to Vietnam experience was Full Metal Jacket directed by Stanley Kunrick.  Many critics said that it was too cold.  The military trained soldiers into robotlike killing machines.[11] Kunrick exaggerated the scenes of the movie in his perspective viewpoint to inform people not take it in personally.  All he wanted people to see that films are just for entertainment.

One issue that audiences want to tackle was the question of movies as historical artifacts or as just merely entertainment.  According to Dittmar and Michaud, Platoon was not offered as a realistic proposition.  In the movie, the internal conflicts among American soldiers lead to violence and death suggests the depths of social division.[12]  Most scenes are dramatized by conflicts between soldiers.  The setting usually takes place in the jungle, in firefights. The shadow of the night, darkness and realistic of the movies gave the audience the sense of horror. It helped the audience to realize that war is inhumane.[13]  Thematically, Vietnam War films had a common problem, which often suggested that bad leaders or mistaken or misguided policy had led to a cruel war.  They showed how people reacted less civility and with insanity in bad situations.  An example of that was the movie Apocalypse Now directed by Francis Ford Coppola.  The movie portrays a negative character, Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who goes crazy and becomes a U.S. Army renegade.  The military assigns Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) to track down and terminate the command of a renegade colonel in Cambodia jungle[14]. Apocalypse Now is highly stylized and visually powerful where helicopters fire at villages and destroy everything. The movie had scenes involving with technology changes from powerful technology to low technology, from urban to deeply jungle.  With incredible sound effects, dramatic music and with soldiers show frequently in mud, blood, sweat and war paint, Coppola paints a surrealistic view of the war from realistic parts. It is a work of art in which all the elements work together to show the negative and mad side of the war.

While each producer tried to make a box office hit, some were successful while others were flopped; they were all trying to portray something about the war in Vietnam.  Directors such as Oliver Stone and Michael Cimino decided to take on the huge task of bringing the reality of Vietnam to the silver screen.  Their outcomes were Platoon and Deer Hunter. The movie Platoon put writer and director Oliver Stone on the Hollywood map.  Platoon was his most acclaimed and effective film, because it was based on Stone’s first hand experience as an American soldier in Vietnam.[15]  Despite many criticisms, the Deer Hunter did well at the box office.  It won an Oscar for best picture, best director, and best supporting actor (Christopher Walken).[16] 

In the future, films on the Vietnam War will glorify American militarism.  The growing integration of Hollywood with the American government shows no sign of slowing down, but has rather accelerated since the attacks in September 11, 2001.  Future war films produced will be directed against terrorism and evil and show their support to US troops and families. Vietnam War films might decline, because the film industry will produce more films related to the Iraq war.  People will prefer to know more about the current war in Iraq rather than the Vietnam War that occurred in the past.  Film producers try their best in making war movies to win the hearts and minds of people around the world.  Many of them use new technology to enhance their old Vietnam War movie versions with special effects.  For example, Apocalypse Now new version had more explosions and horrible bombing scenes. To make Vietnam War films more exciting filmmakers can mix it with action and adventure.  They can use the high technology weaponry and equipment of the American military in new Vietnam War films.  In order to rejuvenate the Vietnam War movies, filmmakers can enhance more special effects to make the film as exciting as a video game. They can use 3-dimensional special effects to draw more attention from their audiences.  By using this technology, Hollywood makes the audience feel they are a part of the war rather than mere spectators.

      War is a terrible thing.  The film industry discussed many difficult and controversial topics, which related to the Vietnam War through its movies.  Many films shaped the public sentiment on various society and political issues. Ultimately, films are for entertainment, but more importantly they are a bridge between people and history.  Depending on their perception, people can chose either to accept or reject Vietnam War films.   

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