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What a great article! I'll need a couple rereadings to understand it better, but I did appreciate the section about spectacle and about how cinema is tied to wa

What a great article! I'll need a couple rereadings to understand it better, but I did appreciate the section about spectacle and about how cinema is tied to war. Another film that exemplifies that line of thought is Beau Travail. The characters prepare for war in a ritualistic frenzy, throwing themselves into each other in lavish choreography, dancing in the water and in the club. Michel Subor says it well when he notes that a good soldier is taught elegance in and under their uniforms. And the ending, well let's just say the ending demonstrates this spectacle well. I would be remiss if I didn't mention though the crucial failure of Apocalypse Now, which is the crucial failure of many American war films. It reduces the enemy to this faceless, incoherent savage. The Vietnamese are never given a say in this story. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen goes over this point. Yes, yes, Coppola is a fantastic director (The Conversation is an especially good masterpiece), but he nonetheless cannot seem to stray away from the genre of American soldiers feeling guilty about murdering savages. Contrast this to a war film like La Grande Illusion, where Renoir explicitly notes that the French nobility have more in common with the German nobility, their enemies, than with the French common folk, their comrades. But of course, the German nobility are the German nobility, and not the "savages" of Vietnam.

mc32 4y ago
Is there a Vietnamese movie about that war that doesn’t portray American soldiers as bloodthirsty goons?
- the_af 4y ago
  I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me if there isn't. Though I've heard from Americans living in Vietnam that the Vietnamese are pretty forgiving and not at all bitter against them. They are understandably proud of having defeated their invaders, of course. I think this doesn't matter though. This is a critique of American cinema and their ambivalence towards the war even for a supposedly anti-war piece. It is relevant regardless of what the Vietnamese do with their cinema.
  - serf 4y ago
    One could argue, myself included, that Apocalypse Now is neither a war or anti-war movie. I think it's a movie about the developing psyche in humans under extreme duress, with the backdrop of a war that happens to be the US/Vietnam conflict. That's exactly why I think ambivalence should be allowed in this case; the war is merely the backdrop which influences the psyche problems that we explore within.
- neves 4y ago
  Rambo?
somedude895 4y ago
> crucial failure of Apocalypse Now I think cramming that in there just to tick a box would have hurt the film rather than do any good.
- hardwaregeek 4y ago
  Why do you assume it would be to tick a box? A movie that reckons with war should reckon with the people it leaves behind. I don't see how that's "ticking a box".
  - dekhn 4y ago
    You completely and fundamentally misunderstand the point of the book and the movie.
    - hardwaregeek 4y ago
      Okay...please elaborate? I don't believe this is a productive comment unless you explain.
      - junofan 4y ago
        It’s not a war film. The social commentary you crave is actually implicit.
      - serf 4y ago
        You may think it's an unproductive comment, but some may think that you yourself have not put the leg-work into understanding the movie, either. The war itself and suffering depicted in that movie are tools that are used to explore the different levels and depths of human consciousness and insanity depicted by the varying characters that must endure such conditions. In the context of this journey any suffering conditions could have been used as such a tool. Vietnam was a powerful choice for the media released at that time as it had a large impact on the audiences interested and the people at the time. Now, it can be said that the same suffering from the opposite side could have been used just as easily -- that's true -- but it's at that point that we must explore the fact that Western film-makers are interested in making Western successes. Perhaps 'Apocalypse Now' produced by an SE-Asian crew would have looked a lot different -- but I wouldn't have faulted them for not exploring my Western perspective in that movie, either. When a movie tries to be all things for all people it usually 1) ends up with a 4 hour run-time and 2) satisfies no-one.
poulsbohemian 4y ago
>The Vietnamese are never given a say in this story. That's because it's not a movie about the Vietnam war. It's a story about violence and about human savagery that happens to be set within the context to the Vietnam war. The obvious parallels with Conrad's Heart of Darkness have been discussed elsewhere. One could take the story and put it in any other time or context if they wanted, akin to West Side Story being a modern rendition of Romeo and Juliet.
- arkitaip 4y ago
  That's even worse because it implies that the Vietnamese problem mattered so little, that they were backdrop details.
  - poulsbohemian 4y ago
    Are you attempting to be provocative or are you not understanding my comment? Apocalypse Now was a retelling of a novel set in Africa - it isn't "about" the Vietnam war, that just happens to be the context for this particular telling of the story. It comprises a journey, a narrator, a "madman," and various other fictional characters. Heck, I bet you could retell it using hobbits and elves or really fictional characters if you really wanted. The actual setting in this case is secondary to the message of the story, which is why it isn't brought forward more - I would posit that's probably why the scenes with the French colonists were left out in the original theater release.
    - SoftAnnaLee 4y ago
      Every story consists of the decisions that an author executes. Sure, there are the intentions of the author, but that comprises only a small selection of factors that goes into a reading of any work. Within the Jazz community, there is a saying; > It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play. Likewise, within narratives, both fictional and non-fiction, a story is not composed only of the intentional and emphasized aspects of a narrative. But likewise, the subtle details, and the details left unsaid that lead one towards a conclusion; that craft a message unconsciously. To use a more simplistic narrative to illustrate this. Take a look at the original Star Wars. The overt message created in the actions of Luke, Han, and Leia is a tale of good overcoming evil. But in the small details of the setting, there is a subtle narrative about living under an authoritarian regime. The unpleasant but overly clean hallways and rooms within the Empire's bases and vehicles; contrasting with the impoverished, lived-in, locales of Tattooine. The identical uniforms and looks of the Empire's soldiers and commanders; contrasting with the infinite variability of those who live outside (and opposed to) their armies. But another subtle detail that becomes deafening in its silence is; why does the camera only display complex emotions with the human characters? C-3PO and R2D2 are flat comedic relief characters. The only alien we have extended time with as an audience is Chewbacca. Meanwhile, Luke, Han, and Leia all get to experience anguish, wonder, frustration, relief, and elation in varying degrees throughout the narrative. The fact that the narrative is human-centric is an implicit message that only humans within the Star Wars setting have interesting, exciting, and relatable inner lives. Since we are not given a proper chance to relate to a significant non-human character. Likewise with Francis Coppola and John Milius both have made an implicit message to place the narrative within a particular real-life setting; yet significantly downplay the humanity of those who actually inhabit that setting in real-life. It may not be a particularly intentional decision by those two men, or it may actually well be. But the implication of it in either case is that American Men are implied to be those who wield autonomy in foreign lands that they visit, at the cost of those who are native to those lands. It can be read as an implicit view of how the American characters view the Vietnamese people they fight for/against; or a missed opportunity to enhance the horror of war. Or in the most uncharitable light, it is implicitly saying that only American lives are worth depicting and that the loss of an American is a tragedy while the loss of a Vietnamese life is a statistic.
wikitopian 4y ago
For most of the American soldiers who were deployed, the Vietnamese were a barbarous and exotic other that were trying to kill them. It would do a disservice to all of the sides of the conflict to insist that each of the films exploring it deliver a full representative survey of the perspectives.
cm2mtv 4y ago
While Apocalypse Now is the target for Viet Thanh's Nguyen's criticism, I think his point is about Hollywood and the whole genre of Vietnam War films as a whole. America lost the war but won it in memory. Most Americans when thinking of Vietnam only remember the war that was fought (a simple mistake in the American narrative), but it's a beautiful country with thousands of years of history.
etblg 4y ago
If anyone has not had the pleasure of seeing the ending to Beau Travail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rop2r0PASlM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rop2r0PASlM It's the thing that made me want to need to see the movie, and I had no regrets.

mc32 4y ago

Is there a Vietnamese movie about that war that doesn’t portray American soldiers as bloodthirsty goons?

the_af 4y ago
I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me if there isn't. Though I've heard from Americans living in Vietnam that the Vietnamese are pretty forgiving and not at all bitter against them. They are understandably proud of having defeated their invaders, of course. I think this doesn't matter though. This is a critique of American cinema and their ambivalence towards the war even for a supposedly anti-war piece. It is relevant regardless of what the Vietnamese do with their cinema.
- serf 4y ago
  One could argue, myself included, that Apocalypse Now is neither a war or anti-war movie. I think it's a movie about the developing psyche in humans under extreme duress, with the backdrop of a war that happens to be the US/Vietnam conflict. That's exactly why I think ambivalence should be allowed in this case; the war is merely the backdrop which influences the psyche problems that we explore within.
neves 4y ago
Rambo?

somedude895 4y ago

> crucial failure of Apocalypse Now I think cramming that in there just to tick a box would have hurt the film rather than do any good.

hardwaregeek 4y ago
Why do you assume it would be to tick a box? A movie that reckons with war should reckon with the people it leaves behind. I don't see how that's "ticking a box".
- dekhn 4y ago
  You completely and fundamentally misunderstand the point of the book and the movie.
  - hardwaregeek 4y ago
    Okay...please elaborate? I don't believe this is a productive comment unless you explain.
    - junofan 4y ago
      It’s not a war film. The social commentary you crave is actually implicit.
    - serf 4y ago
      You may think it's an unproductive comment, but some may think that you yourself have not put the leg-work into understanding the movie, either. The war itself and suffering depicted in that movie are tools that are used to explore the different levels and depths of human consciousness and insanity depicted by the varying characters that must endure such conditions. In the context of this journey any suffering conditions could have been used as such a tool. Vietnam was a powerful choice for the media released at that time as it had a large impact on the audiences interested and the people at the time. Now, it can be said that the same suffering from the opposite side could have been used just as easily -- that's true -- but it's at that point that we must explore the fact that Western film-makers are interested in making Western successes. Perhaps 'Apocalypse Now' produced by an SE-Asian crew would have looked a lot different -- but I wouldn't have faulted them for not exploring my Western perspective in that movie, either. When a movie tries to be all things for all people it usually 1) ends up with a 4 hour run-time and 2) satisfies no-one.

poulsbohemian 4y ago

>The Vietnamese are never given a say in this story. That's because it's not a movie about the Vietnam war. It's a story about violence and about human savagery that happens to be set within the context to the Vietnam war. The obvious parallels with Conrad's Heart of Darkness have been discussed elsewhere. One could take the story and put it in any other time or context if they wanted, akin to West Side Story being a modern rendition of Romeo and Juliet.

arkitaip 4y ago
That's even worse because it implies that the Vietnamese problem mattered so little, that they were backdrop details.
- poulsbohemian 4y ago
  Are you attempting to be provocative or are you not understanding my comment? Apocalypse Now was a retelling of a novel set in Africa - it isn't "about" the Vietnam war, that just happens to be the context for this particular telling of the story. It comprises a journey, a narrator, a "madman," and various other fictional characters. Heck, I bet you could retell it using hobbits and elves or really fictional characters if you really wanted. The actual setting in this case is secondary to the message of the story, which is why it isn't brought forward more - I would posit that's probably why the scenes with the French colonists were left out in the original theater release.
  - SoftAnnaLee 4y ago
    Every story consists of the decisions that an author executes. Sure, there are the intentions of the author, but that comprises only a small selection of factors that goes into a reading of any work. Within the Jazz community, there is a saying; > It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play. Likewise, within narratives, both fictional and non-fiction, a story is not composed only of the intentional and emphasized aspects of a narrative. But likewise, the subtle details, and the details left unsaid that lead one towards a conclusion; that craft a message unconsciously. To use a more simplistic narrative to illustrate this. Take a look at the original Star Wars. The overt message created in the actions of Luke, Han, and Leia is a tale of good overcoming evil. But in the small details of the setting, there is a subtle narrative about living under an authoritarian regime. The unpleasant but overly clean hallways and rooms within the Empire's bases and vehicles; contrasting with the impoverished, lived-in, locales of Tattooine. The identical uniforms and looks of the Empire's soldiers and commanders; contrasting with the infinite variability of those who live outside (and opposed to) their armies. But another subtle detail that becomes deafening in its silence is; why does the camera only display complex emotions with the human characters? C-3PO and R2D2 are flat comedic relief characters. The only alien we have extended time with as an audience is Chewbacca. Meanwhile, Luke, Han, and Leia all get to experience anguish, wonder, frustration, relief, and elation in varying degrees throughout the narrative. The fact that the narrative is human-centric is an implicit message that only humans within the Star Wars setting have interesting, exciting, and relatable inner lives. Since we are not given a proper chance to relate to a significant non-human character. Likewise with Francis Coppola and John Milius both have made an implicit message to place the narrative within a particular real-life setting; yet significantly downplay the humanity of those who actually inhabit that setting in real-life. It may not be a particularly intentional decision by those two men, or it may actually well be. But the implication of it in either case is that American Men are implied to be those who wield autonomy in foreign lands that they visit, at the cost of those who are native to those lands. It can be read as an implicit view of how the American characters view the Vietnamese people they fight for/against; or a missed opportunity to enhance the horror of war. Or in the most uncharitable light, it is implicitly saying that only American lives are worth depicting and that the loss of an American is a tragedy while the loss of a Vietnamese life is a statistic.

wikitopian 4y ago

For most of the American soldiers who were deployed, the Vietnamese were a barbarous and exotic other that were trying to kill them. It would do a disservice to all of the sides of the conflict to insist that each of the films exploring it deliver a full representative survey of the perspectives.

cm2mtv 4y ago

While Apocalypse Now is the target for Viet Thanh's Nguyen's criticism, I think his point is about Hollywood and the whole genre of Vietnam War films as a whole. America lost the war but won it in memory. Most Americans when thinking of Vietnam only remember the war that was fought (a simple mistake in the American narrative), but it's a beautiful country with thousands of years of history.

etblg 4y ago

If anyone has not had the pleasure of seeing the ending to Beau Travail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rop2r0PASlM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rop2r0PASlM It's the thing that made me want to need to see the movie, and I had no regrets.