Identify one image, moment, or scene that struck you most about Hearts and Minds. And, using the Cook book as your guide (please cite it specifically), discuss whether you think the film works within the cinema verite/direct cinema tradition.
Following Hearts and Minds's release in 1975, the late 1970s (and 1980s) saw a plethora of fictional films that attempted to represent the Vietnam experience from multiple perspectives. Below, I have posted clips from two of the earliest examples of this trend, Hal Ashby's 1977 Coming Home and Francis Ford Coppola's 1978 Apocalypse Now. After watching these clips, compare and contrast their representation of the war experience with that seen in Hearts and Minds.
Coming Home (Ashby, 1977)
Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1978)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
40 comments:
Nicholas Naber
10.25.07
The most dramatic and disturbing scene was that of the man being shot point blank in the head. This image is seen all the time in photographic form, but to witness it in action on the screen was truly unsettling. The ruthless act of just killing someone point blank in the head is unthinkable and then to just walk away as if it were nothing was upsetting. The film Hearts and Minds is more in the tradition of direct cinema. As Cook discusses movies about politics the films are not simple observational films like cinema verite. Hearts and Minds is trying to bring about some sort of political and social change. The film’s message is to stop the Vietnam War, and showing how terrible the war is. The filmmaker does this through interviews, shocking images of dead bodies, the wounded soldiers, the bombings, and many other terrible images of the carnage that happens because of war. I cannot help but make parallels to the horrible situation we are now engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hopefully there will be some filmmakers besides Michael Moore who will create some work to get people riled up about the mess we have created in the Middle East and make people want to end this war.
The clip from Coming Home was quite similar to Hearts and Minds when the filmmaker interviewed the soldiers. Coming home is obviously more informal it’s not a question and answer session like in the documentary. Also, having seen all of Coming Home it is about the aftermath of Vietnam on soldiers, where as Hearts and Minds is more broad dealing with politics, the Vietnamese people, the military, and various other issues in regard to the war. Apocalypse Now had a very stylized scene of bombing. The use of music really emphasizes the impending bombing on the people and their villages. In Hearts and Minds we get a straight shot without music of bombing by the American forces on the Vietnamese people. Having not seen all of Apocalypse Now I am unsure if they deal with the people that are bombed out and how they are taking the war. Hearts and Minds does deal with those people and talks about how the war is affecting their lives.
Kelly Doucette
10.25.07
Out of all the films we have seen thus far, I was surprised to find HEARTS AND MINDS to be my favorite so far. Regardless of one's political affiliations, I believe that we can all agree that war is bad. We don't like it but we feel we need to do it to protect our country. This viewpoint can often be considered arrogant, because why should WE be the best country? Why do countries have to be better than other countries because we have money and they do not?
While I identify as a moderate liberal, I could not help but be disgusted by George Coker. His viewpoints of the Vietnamese people as low-class people was despicable. However, he HAD been imprisoned by a select few Vietnamese persons for about 7-8 years, so that obviously skewed his opinions quite a bit. But this is what filmmakers Peter Davis (director) and Bert Schneider (producer) intended. They intended to make the Vietnam war (and war in general) to be bad without remorse. Like Nicholas Naber said above, interviews with the innocent Vietnamese people and [sometimes arrogant] U.S. soldiers, images of dead bodies and bombings, etc. make this film perhaps the single greatest example of well-done liberal propaganda. But sometimes propaganda can be good, it provides us with the truth of the matter. Sometimes those of us who don't go to war have an opinion of war (good or bad) but our opinion cannot be validated until we ourselves go to war. Films like HEARTS AND MINDS just provide us with an incite as to what war is like.
Let me just say that COMING HOME, which features stellar performances from its entire cast (primarily Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, Penelope Milford, and Bruce Dern) focuses on a select few individuals who, in documentary-like fashion (after the war)provide us with basically the same argument as HEARTS AND MINDS, that war is evil and in turn, evil is war.
APOCALYPSE NOW isn't so interested in character as it is in their motives. It takes us literally into the war and leaves us to draw our own conclusions of the war via the images it presents us with. What makes it even more interesting is that its original source (the 1902 novel HEART OF DARKNESS) had nothing to do with Vietnam. Screenwriters Coppola and John Milius pretty much introduced that whole situation to us, making the film as much original as it was an adaptation. Also, like HEARTS AND MINDS, APOCALYPSE uses music to tell its point in a more direct way than COMING HOME does.
Shiraz Bhathena
While Hearts and Minds did stick out to me as a compelling documentary, I don’t believe that it really captured the idea of cinema verite that Rothman discusses in our Cook book. “In the seventies,” says Rothman, “filmmakers…adhered to the strict cinema verite discipline they had mastered in the sixties, which calls upon filmmakers to wait silently for their human subjects to reveal themselves and to edit out signs of people’s self-consciousness in the presence of the camera,” (pp 417). Rothman is right about the definition, the cinema verite documentary, also known as the observational, should focus on allowing the viewer to make his own decisions on the work being seen. The voice of God is absent, but the difference is the appearance of interviews. True cinema verite documentaries simply watch- the interviews should be demolished (although in a film such as Grey Gardens, the interviews are more of conversations with the subjects and still done as third party viewers). Beyond that, the other parts of the film that aren’t interviews are archival footage, so it would be hard to judge the ‘presence of the camera’ with the rest of the film as it isn’t coming from one source, but from a variety, although I do imagine that when someone’s leg is blown off, smiling for the camera is the last thing on one’s mind. Still, that was the one aspect of the film that stuck out to me the most, was the use of archival materials in a documentary. In a way, this is one of the first examples where that’s apparent.
It is very difficult to compare this film with Coming Home or Apocalypse Now, personally because Coming Home is the perfect nap movie and Apocalypse Now makes me mad in the fact that it glorifies the war- I don’t think I’ll ever have enough testosterone to find war films cool, but that’s just me. However, for the sake of argument and gaining 5 points, looking at the two scenes posted does provide for a good argument. Coming Home’s opening actually represents a more believable cinema verite technique, as the wounded soldiers play pool. No back story is given on them, and that’s all we see, is a middle framed shot of the boys playing pool and cuts between them as they argue over why they went to war. Their portrayals are so realistic, however, that if no one recognized ugly Kristie Kristopherson, they may very well think that it’s a documentary, and thinking of it as one, it possesses all of the cinema verite techniques Hearts and Minds does not (until Jane Fonda comes in and destroys the whole mood), the characters react to each other without the use of a steady script or reaction to the camera, and the camera appears to be an invisible third party in the situation.
Apocalypse Now, on the other hand, glorifies the war to no end. The studio picks out the most macho testosterone actors of 1978 to portray the war- we have Beethoven reassuring our ‘manliness’ as this chopper pulls into the area. All the characters are randomly screaming at each other, and show no form of compassion or friendship; they’re too busy thinking below the belt (pardon the expression) and shooting things. The portrayal is not only unrealistic, but in a way, very disrespectful to a country that came out of the war 3 years ago, which the film attempts very poorly to portray through it’s classic Hollywood conventions of a war movie (the long pan shots, the over use of color filters, the rancid dialogue, and worst of all, the random screaming every time a character fires a gun). Way to go Coppola, stick to musicals with overaged actors (Finian’s Rainbow) and re-editing The Godfather for the eight-millionth time.
Melissa Neumann
October 29, 2007
What struck me the most in “Hearts and Minds” was the little-minded comments the Americans made about the Vietnamese and the slang names they referred to them as. Also what got me was how those commenting said how we won there, but I was always told we lost and had no business being there in the first place. I really didn’t like how the Vietnamese were called mostly stupid and a poor excuse for human beings. The movie was very good and it kept my attention, but those comments really had me rolling my eyes. It made me think of things I have heard in my own life growing up and found so much wrong with it. But as a film as a whole, it was very good and very interesting. (And it made me think of things I know about the war that wasn’t mentioned, like how drugs were smuggled into the States in body bags, which I heard on “The History of Drugs.”) The movie did very well in showing that the war is bad. Hearing the story of how the man lost his family, including his eight-year-old daughter was heartbreaking. The family was innocent, but they were forced to suffer and pay a price. The film had a Cinéma-vérité feel, but delivered a message that was well heard. It didn’t seem like just a documentary in some parts.
The clip of “Coming Home” was very similar to “Hearts and Minds.” Each group was relating their experiences. But in “Coming Home,” they are saying how they do not want to return, though in “Hearts and Minds,” some said they would go back if they were needed. “Apocalypse Now,” (which had very interesting video selections attached to the posted YouTube clip), seemed to add more glamour to the war and the fighting. The attack had style to it, especially with the music. I’ve never seen either (though I do know a little about the latter due to the Napalm line), but “Coming Home” appears closer to “Hearts and Minds.” “Apocalypse Now” was a movie about the war, while “Coming Home” and “Hearts and Minds” gave the viewer more of the effect the war left. And unlike “Apocalypse Now,” “Hearts and Minds” did not make the fighting look ‘pretty;’ it was shown the way it was, not with the Hollywood feel.
It truly is hard to pick just one scene or image form Hearts and Minds. All day after watching that film I was honeslty in a horrible stooper. I kept seeing the bodies and the mutilation that war brings, and the propaganda used to cover up the true horrors. As I said it is hard to see just one thing without thinking of it all, but after watching the two clips I was able to focus in on just one scene. I recall the slow motion scenes of choppers flying over villages and forest land and the almost artistic explosion of whatever kind of bomb the military may have been droping. I do recall it being accompanied by a juxtaposed mood music, and that aspect making the scene that much more difficult to watch. I do not find this scene to be related in anyway to cinema verte style. It was purposly slowed down and stylized to draw out specific emotion, which it did quite well.
The same goes for the scene in apocalyspe now. The music and the quick cutting draws out emotion in the viewer. It would be incredibly different if one of the aspects was lacking. The filmmaker did this purposly to achieve a specific feeling in the film. Both films. The emotion wasn't drawn out form seeing "just reality" but sculpted reality.
- Timothy W. Hansen
OK, clearly Shiraz Bhathena has never seen Apocalypse Now. Also, it's Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries (not the old Ludwig Van...note that Hitler was big on Wagner) and it's used to underscore the irony of all the big-budget war movie shoot-em-up bullshit, because (and this is reflected in the interviews from Hearts and Minds), that's how the war was sold to the men who fought and died in it on our side.. American Badass, double forte. It looks ridiculous because it was ridiculous. And it still is...what is the Halo phenomenon if not a ploy to get all these neanderthal fratboy "brah"s to enlist and go "fuck shit up!" The difference is that Coppola made it deliberately over-the-top as a scathing critique of American military machismo.
Anyhow. Verite documentary. Here we are, my home turf. This is more or less what I've been actively engaged in for the last four years, in my work on "Catch This Fox!". And let me speak from experience - if objective truth does in fact exist, it is a sneaky little bastard and has thus far in the history of man eluded us. A film, more than anything else, is made out of decisions. Decisions are made out of opinions. Ultimately, each human perspective is unique and incapable of being transmitted in anything resembling a 100% comprehensive form.
So what, then, of truth? Especially in the cinema, truth is what you make it. If you are principled to the idea of objective truth, hopefully your truth will resemble it. If you're really lucky, people might even listen. Then again, as the fellow said in the movie, we are trying not to learn.
Coming Home is truer to the verite fly-on-the-wall principle; the elements of the scene tell its own story without need for the artifice of interview constructs or archival footage; even if it is entirely a contrivance cast with actors and scripted, it still feels like fact. Apocalypse Now forgoes the pretense of "fact" for the clarity of a singular voice...beyond Coppola even...going back to Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" on which it is based and resonating with the same timeless message: war is stupid.
True cinema verite as described in the book is a lovely idea but remains trapped in its quintessentially French abstraction in the face of the mechanics of recording life. Seeing a thing changes a thing. Seeing it with a camera ever the more so. You would think that the chaos of war would allow the camera to sneak in and see unblinkingly but understand that the powers that be can make any kind of truth they need. They took a prisoner of war like George Coker and turned him into a soulless vacuum, a perfectly respectable drone gilt with the brass and fringe of military pomposity and ready to pose for the cameras. Sure, in the context of the film, we see him for the desperate manipulation he represents, but always remember, people believed him. All those housewives, all those schoolchildren...and all of this a perpetual battle for their hearts and minds.
It is said in the Christian religion that the complete knowledge of God would shatter the human mind. Omniscience, that is, knowledge of All that Izz. I fantasize sometimes about what that would be like.
In closing, truth is where you find it. Grab all you can stand.
It makes sense that someone already mentioned it but the image that stuck out the most in my mind from Hearts and Minds (1974) was the point blank gunshot to the head of a Vietnam soldier. The blood spurted out just like it might have if the film was staged or fictional but of course we all know Vietnam and the treatment of these people was very real. David Cook’s text mentions “most of the youth-cult films of 1970 shared a dual impulse to capture the zeitgeist and to be stylistically innovative, often through the adaptation of cinéma-vérité and or art film techniques to narrative but just as often through the conspicuous abuse of rack-focus composition and the zoom lens.” Most of these techniques were found in films that had the Vietnam War as only a setting or light subject but Hearts and Minds was a realistic document of the war with interviews from all sides, real war footage from Vietnam and an actual embodying message that swayed the public’s mind making it everlastingly important. I think Hearts and Minds worked within the cinéma-vérité style because even though it was a documentary about a real event and predominantly information oriented, it used artistic aesthetics and techniques to remain visually stimulating throughout the runtime.
Coming Home (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979) are two very different films that compare and contrast with each other and what was depicted in the real documentary Hearts and Minds (1974). Coming Home feels a lot like Hearts and Minds concerning the reflective thoughts or commentary feel about the war that people had already been to. Overlapping dialog and handheld camera work also created a realistic feeling mimicking the reporting style of Hearts and Minds. Apocalypse Now was a stylistic exaggeration of the cruel and ruthless nature in combat. However, littered throughout the film are realistic qualities that remind us that the film is indeed modeled after real people and events such as the personal traditions and superstitions that all soldiers had as well as the world-weary blood lusting voice over of the main character throughout the story.
One part that really struck me about Hearts and Minds was where the guy points out how the land was now poisoned, as the idea that this was could leave permanent scars on the and itself upset me. As for Cinema Verite versus Direct Cinema, I’d say it had elements of both. It gave an impression of Direct Cinema, (by including footage of that guy who supported the war,) but in reality, he was used to show what we are being told about war. Between the cuts, the witnesses, and the inclusion of statistics written directly on the picture, I’d have to call it Cinema Verite.
Coming Home, from what I could tell from the clip, was about a sort of fictional representation of real people and concepts. Apocalypse Now, while not painting a pretty picture, paints a romanticized picture of war, or at least the warriors. Both could be representations of different truths, so far as it goes.
Christian Turckes
I think the scene were the two Americana men are having sex with the two Vietnamese women, and they are feeling no shame in it, was what caught my attention the most. I mean for the most part, it seems that they were just there for a good screw, which I thought was weird to have put on film, especially since there was a war going on outside. The only thing that one guy was really worried about was whether or not his girl back home would find out about this little affair he was having. This movie was definitely shot in the direct cinema tradition, because it was showing what exactly was going on, and it was trying to make it’s political point of view known to the general public. It’s also like this, because there’s really no story in this film, just the brutal truth of what was happening over in Vietnam.
After I watched the two clips, I thought they both seemed to have been well influenced by something, whether it be Hearts And Minds or first hand information. When you see all the guys hanging around playing pool in Coming Home, and they’re just sitting around talking about what it was like in Vietnam, and whether what they were doing is right or wrong, it seemed just like Hearts and Minds, apart from the fact that it wasn’t just a straight up interview, while the Apocalypse Now clip focused more on the actual war aspect of Vietnam, which was similar to Hearts and Minds, but it went into much more detail, because the movie was made to entertain rather than to get a point across, or at least in my opinion.
A scene that stuck out the most for me was when the U.S. soldiers were burning down one of the village huts. The unfortunate Vietnamese people who lived there looked on hopelessly and I’m sure were pretty pissed off. I know it’s not the scene that was the most graphic (Like the famous scene with the little girl with third degree burns). I just thought the scene showed the insanity of war and its consequences. “The Horror” as Marlon Brando said.
I don’t have the Cook book, but I’ll try to answer this question the best I can. I think it works well within the direct cinema verite. The scenes look naturalistic enough of course, it is after all real footage. A lot of the 1970s films captured that same atmosphere (Which I will talk about in the next paragraph). Some documentaries might have reenactments of the true events, but reenactments for “Hearts and Minds” would not capture the true nature of the war on screen. Though, the war films in the 1970s did a pretty damn good job.
Not the scene from the one given, but the scene in “Coming Home” where John Voight is talking to the younger crowd at the end, reminds me a lot of “Hearts and Minds”. In the film Voight discussed patriotism and the involvement of American’s in the war, and he strikes a cord with his speech. It reminded me a lot of the soldiers who talked about the experience in Nam when they spoke to a younger crowd in “Hearts”. “Coming Home” did a good job of showing post Vietnam life for U.S. soldiers. “Apocalypse Now” also did the same thing with the war itself (Besides Coppola’s artistic vision). In the scene given, it shows village people’s homes being destroyed, much like the “Hearts and Minds” scene I picked out.
For me the most disturbing scenes in the movie were of the brainwashed POW that was a poster boy for the draft and us army. the scene that got me the most was when he was describing the war and its people to school children it honestly made my skin crawl. that someone could say such lies to such a young mind. The message though was made that much clearer about the social context and glorifyed light that the war was put in.
Coming home obviously reflected on how americans were against the war, with a stlye that reflects that of a documentry it takes a down to earth stance one that coppals flick seems to sidestep for a more story driven approach that seems to reach on the concepts of the war then the characters. it also relies on music to bring irony and emotion to all the destruction and bloodthirsty brainwashed soldiers.
Brian Cooney
Hearts and Minds was a very well-made documentary, whether you agree with its anti-war views or not. It made the viewer believe that the war was evil and we were doing nothing but destroying innocent people's lives. The scene that stuck out the most to me was the man getting shot in the head and the blood just pouring out all over. The man who shot him cared so little about taking another person's life, it was staggering. That was probably the most unsettling moment in a film I have ever seen. As for cinema verite, I don't think this film was a great example because so much of it was interviewing. You get the real information and the true feelings, but you don't get it in the classic cinema verite way, which according to the Cook book is just sitting back with the camera and watching everything happen in front of you with no interference whatsoever. As I said, this is a well made documentary, but it has its faults as well. It is very one-sided and doesn't show that there actually can be good men who are for war. Anyone they interviewed who was for war was completely dumb and said stuff like "I don't care who I'm fightin for, I just wanna kill some G#$%>."
Coming Home was a better example of cinema verite. Granted it was fictional but I'd imagine scenes like that occurred in real life plenty of times. It was just a group of guys playing pool and talking things out. Apocalypse Now was very stylized and almost choreographed to the music. The soldiers were all Superman, and the Vietnamese were only little bugs scrambling around. This scene and Hearts and Minds are virtual opposites on how people can percieve war.
Brian Cooney
Hearts and Minds was a very well-made documentary, whether you agree with its anti-war views or not. It made the viewer believe that the war was evil and we were doing nothing but destroying innocent people's lives. The scene that stuck out the most to me was the man getting shot in the head and the blood just pouring out all over. The man who shot him cared so little about taking another person's life, it was staggering. That was probably the most unsettling moment in a film I have ever seen. As for cinema verite, I don't think this film was a great example because so much of it was interviewing. You get the real information and the true feelings, but you don't get it in the classic cinema verite way, which according to the Cook book is just sitting back with the camera and watching everything happen in front of you with no interference whatsoever. As I said, this is a well made documentary, but it has its faults as well. It is very one-sided and doesn't show that there actually can be good men who are for war. Anyone they interviewed who was for war was completely dumb and said stuff like "I don't care who I'm fightin for, I just wanna kill some G#$%>."
Coming Home was a better example of cinema verite. Granted it was fictional but I'd imagine scenes like that occurred in real life plenty of times. It was just a group of guys playing pool and talking things out. Apocalypse Now was very stylized and almost choreographed to the music. The soldiers were all Superman, and the Vietnamese were only little bugs scrambling around. This scene and Hearts and Minds are virtual opposites on how people can percieve war.
The scene of the documentary “Hearts and Minds” which stuck me the most was the scene where an American soldier shot a Vietnamese man on camera. This was an image of an actual execution caught on film. As the Cook book tells us, the cinema verite style used in these ground breaking documentaries places the film makers in a position to capture things as they happen with out influencing their surroundings. This was a shocking event that I am sure wasn’t intended to be filmed which captures the cinema verite style disturbingly well.
Both clips from “Apocalypse Now” and “Coming Home” share similar content with “Hearts and Minds”. The clip from “Coming Home” shows Vietnam vets talking about what they did much like the vets did “Hearts and Minds”. The clip from “Apocalypse Now” shows American helicopters attacking a Vietnamese target. Although “Hearts and Minds” contained footage of bombing, the “Apocalypse Now” clip incorporated a more Hollywood style as it glorified explosions and used a soundtrack to create a more upbeat feeling to the attack.
The most shocking moment of the film for me was actually a string of moments - when the filmmaker reveals that the veterans he is interviewing are disabled. The beginning of Coming Home opens with disabled veterans talking about how they have to justify their actions in Vietnam in order to justify their disabilities. The rest of the film goes on to show that in order to cope with his disability, Jon Voight had to accept that he was wrong to fight; instead of justifying his actions, he goes to high schools and speaks to kids out his own war experience. In Hearts and Minds we see these veterans talking about how they didn't even take into consideration the people whom they were dropping bombs on; they justified their actions by using the war mentality of "us vs. them" and never stopped to wonder if it was right or wrong. They are very similar to Willard in Apocalypse Now - it is a mentality that takes over and is hard to escape. The veterans in Hearts and Minds were forced to return to the US because of their disabilities. Willard voluntarily returns to Vietnam because he can't function back at home and only knows war.
Cook writes that the cinema verite documentary "aspires to be as purely observational as possible and whose mode is revelation, as it is in dramatic fiction films, rather than assertion" (pg. 443). I think that Hearts and Minds achieves this very well. Instead of having a voice over narration the film makes use of interviews, giving it a more personal, human touch. At the same time, news clips and footage of speeches, etc., give a raw view of the war. The film climaxes or reaches a revelation when the camera pans out on the veterans and the audience realizes they are all disabled. The film is able to convey emotion without directly saying a word.
One of the moments that struck me the most was when the soldiers shot the innocent Vietnamese man right in the head. He wasn't doing anything wrong and they just shot him for no reason. I totally disagree on what the Americans did to the people there. Even though I am an American I totally disagree with how discusting our soldiers were over there. People can talk about how bad it was and how was messes with your mind. Well nowhere in war does it say kill innocent people and children. I couldnt even watch them do that to those people because i felt so bad. I dont think this film fits within the cinema verite/direct cinema tradition. This film is more of a documentary compared to a real movie.
After watching those two clips i realized they are related closely to the film we watched in class. The first film Coming Home reminded me of the people they interviewed that were injured in the war. Those guys just sat around the pool table talking abuot the war and they were in wheelchairs and in bed so it shows they were injured in the war. The Apocalypse Now reminded me of the short clips they showed during the movie of actual examples of war. It brings you into the film and actually makes you believe you are there during that time.
Jordan Robbins
Like most people, what got to me was the close mindedness of the Americans and their views of the Vietmanese, and the images of the soldiers raping the girl, the woman going into her husband's grave, but when it comes to one individual moment or scene, it was the man being shot point blank. Whether in a documentary or dramatized in movies, just the noises and reactions and physical aspects of the act of someone being shot is intense, its one thing to hear someone talk about violence, but its another to see it, and to see it for real, where the cameras keep rolling.
I'm not sure if it works with the direct cinema tradition because it isn't a fictionalized documentary, it doesn't take facts and create a story around it. But it does follow the tradition of cinema verite, a little bit, being a more cinematic (or dare I say 'crowd pleasing' documentary) using edits and interviews to create a more narrative documentary than others before it, but it also goes against Rothman's definition, "filmmakers to wait silently for their human subjects to reveal themselves and to edit out signs of people’s self-consciousness in the presence of the camera,” (pp 417). I believe the film is more propagandist than what Rothman defines cinema verite.
Coming Home and Apocalypse Now were just a little similar to Hearts and Minds. Coming Home was similar in that it dealt more with the life after the war and what the soldiers went through. Apocalypse Now in a very broad sense is similar in that its more stylized. And like a documentary has a very distant feeling, but at the same time you get to know they people. And the violence was not held back.
In my opinion there really isn't one scene in particular that stands out in order to represent Hearts and Minds as a whole. However, after viewing the two clips, there are subtle similarities not with Coming Home, but with Apocalypse Now. Hearts and Minds is not a film about strict politics, but rather the morality of warfare and how human beings act under the pressure of war. The main link I see between Hearts and Apocalypse is the pride one takes in what he feels to be a form of art: bombing targets successfully. Instead, the reality of the situation is that they are destroying innocent people and the place in which they live. In Hearts and Minds the bombers speak of it as if it is a perfected science and in Apocalypse Now, the troops take great pride in hitting their targets and destroying as much as possible. Both films display an ignorance in the destruction of war and a certain pride in accomplishing an assigned task.
Thomas Penglase
The scene that truly struck me numb is the one where the point blank execution style murder takes place in the street. This scene seemed to sum up the idea in the documentary of how cheap life can be. It truly is a very sad reality.
The Cook book discusses the differences and similarities of Cinema Verite and direct cinema filming. It talks of cinema verite as how " the camera sometimes has to provoke reality into revealing its deepest truths. It talks of direct cinema as how "observation is the camera's deepest way of provoking it's subjects to reveal themselves. I believe Hearts and Minds relates itself to both traditions while at the same time steers off the path of both forms limitations.A good example of the Cinema Verite style is when the camera man follows the two soldiers around the Vietnameise town. It seems like the camera is clearly influencing the actions of the soldiers because they obviously know the camera is present but they still go about their routine. The cameras influence on the soldiers brings what the cinema verite director would be looking for, a stronger sense of realism in film brought out by the knowledge of and presence of the Camera.
An example of the direct cinema method in the film is evident in the riot scenes where the camera man acts as a fly on the wall. People are carrying out actions without the knowledge or influence of the camera . However, there are scenes where the camera man is interviewing people which seems to be outside both traditions.
I feel Ashby's Coming home is a film that seems to mimic the documentary style which makes it a closer representation of the Hearts and Minds feel. It seems so unscripted and believable. The clip of Apocalypse Now feels much more like a Hollywood action depiction of the war and almost begins to look like a video game. However,I have the feeling that this scene was meant to be ironic primarily because of the Wagner instrumental in the background which is often music associated with Hitler but also I just Cant believe the man who mad the great Godfather movie would ever be dumb enough to glorify killing in this kind of bravado way.
I too was disgusted with the cold blooded execution of Vietnamese man. I’ve never seen anything like that. Startling. That guy had ice flowing in his veins. Unreal. The thing that gets me is that that was just one guy, think of all the other deranged psychos doing similar acts, no don’t, it’s just too messed up. Wow. As far as working within the cinema verite, maybe, maybe not. The camera isn’t just sitting far back on a tripod waiting to observe, not interfering (Cook). The camera painted a shocking picture, what’s most shocking about is that it’s real. They just keep hitting you, and there’s no sugar coating. In that sense I think it may work within the cinema verite. I can’t help but think about the war in Iraq.
From what we saw, Coming Home was slightly more similar to Hearts and Minds than Apocalypse Now was. I think that both representations of the war experience were authentic, after seeing Hearts and Minds I can make that assessment.
Sebastian Juarez
Hearts and Minds was full of images, scenes, and moments that struck me. The images of young children running down a street with their flesh peeling from their body because of napalm, the statements of General Westmoreland stating that the Orientals did not appreciate life as much as Americans did, or the solider talking technically about bombing without having to see the victims. If you switched the words Viet Nam for Iraq you would think this was a current documentary. This movie was very hard for me to watch. The film made me think of both Viet Nam and the current Iraq war.
I was a young child during the period of the Viet Nam war and would listen as my grandparents, mother, and uncle discussed the war over the dinner table. My uncle was of draft age during the early 1970’s and my grandparents would talk about what he should do if he were drafted. My grandmother thought he should dodge the draft and go to Canada. My grandfather, a World War II veteran, thought he should serve if he was drafted. My uncle said he would go if he were drafted. He fortunately never had to make the decision because the war was ended before he was draft number came up. Viet Nam was the first war televised. Every night on the evening news we would hear Walter Cronkite or another anchorman tell the nation what the casualties of that day were. We would see the carnage of war between the ads on the network evening news.
Flash ahead some thirty years and I am again hearing the daily casualty count now on the 24-hour news channels. I watch the reports from the news reporters that are embedded with the troops. I hear military and politicians talking about smart bombs and the technical precision of the bombs. It made me think about the soldier in the documentary talking about his bombing missions and how he did not see the results of his bombing.
No matter what your political affiliation I think we would all agree that war should be a last resort. It is sad that now there has been so many casualties that now we don’t even hear the names of the dead and don’t even think of the numbers as human beings. One of those casualties was my friend Todd Cornell. He died November 9, 2004 in Fallujah, Iraq. He was acting as an advisor to the Iraq army when he came under gunfire. I was the best man at his wedding and the godfather to his son. He was more than just a number and affected the lives of many people.
Now I will get back to the question from my tangent on war and my personal experiences. Hearts and Minds is not a direct cinema or cinema verite in the traditional sense. The filmmakers have a personal view on the subject matter and let the viewer know that they do not think the Viet Nam war was a good war. In a traditional direct cinema film the views of the filmmaker would not be exposed to the viewer. A direct cinema filmmaker would let the viewer look at images and decide for him or herself what they thought about the subject. Also, interviews, especially directly asked to a subject, would not be included in a direct cinema documentary.
The scene from Coming Home is closer to what is shown in Hearts and Minds. The soldiers talking about their experiences in Coming Home is like the interviews the soldiers gave to the filmmakers in the documentary Hearts and Minds. Apocalypse Now kind of portrays the way the military promoted how war is an adventure. During Viet Nam many young men felt that joining the military was an adventure, in a good way, and that it was the patriotic thing to do (enlist in the military). I do not think Apocalypse Now is a film that promotes war. The scene is very stylized and the Robert Duvall character is over the top. After his troops take the beach he goes surfing while some bombing is still going on. I think most viewers would find this to be more a satire of the gun ho general than a promotion of war.
I felt that Heats and Minds presented both sides of the war from an American perspective, in more of a direct cinema kind of way. It did have parts that were more observational, but was filled more with interviews and commentaries. I think this very much parallels today's situation and the mixed opinions of the American people, particularly through the soldier's eyes and whether or not they would return willingly. In this respect, both clips of Apocalypse Now and Coming Home have similar qualities to Hearts and Minds, despite vastly contrasting the other. Apocalypse Now very much romanticized the glory of war particularly with the helicopters arriving to Wagner's Ride of the Valkyrie. Coming Home represented more of the disgruntled interviews, particuarly the last few images you are left with in Hearts and Minds, where the camera pans out and shows that the soldiers being interviewed throughout the flic are now debilitized by the war. It was a very effective method, and I feel like the film should be viewed more publicly, particularly being in the time we are in.
--Jennifer Campbell
Nicholas Eason
Hearts and Minds does not fit in within cinema verite tradition. Even though it attempts to present itself as an neutral observer, the filmmakers attempt to get the audience to adopt the specific views of the characters and not the filmmakers. In Lost Illusions, Rothman writes of Edward Pincus' experience of capturing “Pinola,” an impoverished African American who took control of Pincus' shooting by refusing to act as if he was not being studied but instead showing Pincus his world. Rothman Writes, “What Pincus learned from his encounter with Panola was a new understanding of the depth of his own responsibility, as a filmmaker, to his subjects and to himself. His aspiration...was to to overcome or transcend the inhumanity of the cinema-verité filmmaker's role by filming the world without withdrawing from the world.”
Coming Home portrays the experience of the Vietnam War very similarly to Hearts and Minds. While slightly overacted, it illustrates the disparity in the beliefs that many personnel who fought in the war took during the war, and afterwards. However, Apocalypse Now takes a very different perspective. It removes most of the human consequences of the fighting and idealizes the operation from the perspective of the U.S., while minimizing the Human casualty of firing at civilians.
Nathan Pratt
I believe that the most dramatic scene was the one when the man was on his knees and the soldier shot him directly in the head and we watched as blood rushed from his body.The film Hearts and Minds falls into the direct cinema tradition. It falls into this tradition because unlike the verite tradition it discusses some political ideas and is calling for political and social change in the U.S. The clip from coming home is similar to Hearts and Minds because it deals with the soldiers views on Vietnam but also is a more different because it discusses less political problems and more of the soldiers problems after the war.
Apocalypse now deals with the war itself rather than the people who were involved unlike Hearts and Minds. But it also uses music to emphasize the situations represented in the films unlike in Hearts and Minds where they just give us the bombing scene in silence without the sound which makes u think about what is happening.
10.31.07
Kevin Stephan
The film hearts and minds a basic documentary about the vitenam war, was a first for its kind, and it left a lasting impression on many people. I think the one scene that got me the most, was when they were showing all of the innocent peoples homes that were blown up from bombs, and how bad everyone was doing after that. I was also suprised that since all of the film people were from the U.S. that no one tried to kill them, when they were doing interviews and get film shot for it. Everyone seemed really nice to them except for a few people that were wondering what "they" were doing here. I think the film does work in someways that it showed how was the war was, thats something a lot of people never got the way of seeing, but still with it being on film its not nearly the same as if u were really there.
Coming home by ashby took the emotional aspect of the war and used it in a movie. They were asking all the questions on how some people could live with themseleves after going into a war and killing many innocent people, and how some people were able to live with themselves after ditching america and going to canada and then comeing back to the U.S. While apocalypse now went the complete opposite way with, just playing unrealistic music and blowing everything up, and showing that americans are heartless bastards, and all they care about is killing people. Now when compared to hearts and minds, they took a little of both and found an easy but still controversal way, but hey atleast they didnt show americans as comeplete mind killing manics.
I know it has allready been mention quite a few times however no shot or sequence in Hearts and Minds (1974) could possibly compare to the gunshot to the head by an American soilder to a Vietnamese soilder. The photographic shot of this I have seen before in textbooks and dialogue written about the mistreatment of Vietnamese soilders, however watching the full on clip of the execution puts the emotions beyond words. The Cook book says that the verite style put filmographers into situations in which they could capture the essense of what was going on, in this case war. However, this execution was probably a spontanious, spur of the moment thing thatw as not intended to be captured on film, which makes it even more the verite style.
The clip from Coming Home was very much like the sequences from Hearts and Minds, where veterans are talking and discribing what they went through, and the injurys sustained while in Vietnam. I have never viewed the film so I do not know how accurate my statement is when i saw Coming Home dealt primarly with the aftermath of the war while Hearts and Minds tended to cover everything, the early years, the war, and the aftermath.
Apocalypse Now seems to be more of a Hollywood film that portrays the Americans as inferior warriors that can't be beaten. It really just seemed to me that the film was propaganda towards the way giving people hope that we were winning in Vietnam. The music intensified the action, however at least in that clip we do not see the effects of the bombing as shown in Hearts and Minds.
Marisa Marcus
Due to selective editing, this film can possibly be accused by objectors towards the film of being an unbalanced view of the events depicted during the Vietnam era. The film portrays many of the atrocities of the American soldiers, however, doesn’t reveal the atrocities committed by the Vietnamese during war time as well. Despite possible claims of negativity towards the film in regards to its controversial nature, the film was essentially meant to depict the negative sentiment towards the Vietnam War, as well as meant to accurately portray the atrocities committed by Americans during the war in Vietnam. Up to this point, the film portrays how the American media has only shown an unbalanced portrayal of the Americans as innocent victims, as well as the demonizing of the Vietnamese citizens. This film directly challenges this notion of the Americans as great liberators, and the Vietnamese as only atrocious villains. So, while it seems that some objectors to the film might be able to accuse the film of having an unbalanced portrayal, the strong message depicted in this film is still depicted in a way that can effectively challenge the previous favorable mentality conducted towards the Vietnam War. Through the images in the film, the film ultimately portrays a conscientious objection to the tragic, degrading, and controversial actions committed by American soldiers and politicians during the Vietnam era.
Some of the most remarkable images and statements were in terms of the disregard of humanity during times of war. Interviews of soldiers stating the satisfaction they feel when bombing particular areas are contrasted with the tragic statements of how these bombings have affected the Vietnamese population. Images of how these bombings affect the body, as children’s clothes are burned and their skin is altered by the continuous bombing reveals the consequences of the bombing these soldiers claim was so satisfying. Racist statements were shown to reflect the mentality of the soldiers as they treat Vietnamese citizens with abuse, malicious harm and insensitivity especially in terms of the killing of unarmed citizens, and how the soldiers depicted in the film were more concerned with sexual interest than assisting the Vietnamese citizens in humanitarian ways. By showing the brutality shown by the soldiers depicted in the film, as well as the traumatizing effect on the Vietnamese population, ultimately humanized the Vietnamese citizens in a time when they were mostly depicted previously with a stereotypical and degrading mentality. The film also challenges the mentality of deserters of this war to be mainly cowards, by portraying a sympathetic portrayal of a soldier who loses his national identity as an American citizen because of his strong objections to the behavior he observed during the Vietnam War. It is difficult then to pick one image that is considered more significant because these images as a collective effectively show the anti-Vietnam sentiment and disturbing behavior conducted during the war.
The clip from Apocalypse Now seems to directly reflect some scenes in Hearts and Minds in which the soldiers’ sentiment towards bombing is directly contrasted by the consequences it had on the Vietnamese people. Like the documentary, Apocalypse Now in brief images shows the culture that is being destroyed by these oncoming bombs. Despite these brief images, by showing the film through the soldier’s mentality, the depictions of war are glamorized in a way similar to the favorable mentality shared by the soldiers in the documentary Hearts and Minds. The clip from Coming Home, therefore, seems to reflect the mentality and sentiment of the documentary Hearts and Minds more. The concerns about the Vietnam War that are portrayed within this clip directly reflect the strong anti-Vietnam commentary and concerns contained within the documentary Hearts and Minds.
The images of the violence and brutality of the war itself as a group are most memorable to me, particularly where the man is shot in the head. I've seen similar scenes in fictional films, but I've never seen an actual murder on screen like that. The film seemed to be a bit biased and manipulative--there were a couple good reasons why we were in Vietnam, and like any war there were acts of kindness and acts of sickness. The filmmaker chose to ignore any positive images of the war, and show only horrific war footage, disabled vets, and crazy old racist white men in uniform; cinema verite was a trend of subjectivity in filmmaking, and the leftist leanings in Hearts and Minds epitomize this.
Coming Home touched on a lot of the same points as Hearts and Minds, and had a focus on the aftermath of the war and veteran's perspectives--it is definitely an anti-Vietnam film. Apocalypse Now seems to me to be a more accurate depiction of the war--it gives justification (in the form of an anti-aircraft gun) for the air raid, yet still shows a pretty little hamlet full of civilians being destroyed by an army with superior technology and more resources. It shows that while the Americans were somewhat detached ideologically from their actions, the Vietnamese knew their independence depended on their fight to keep the Americans out.
A scene that struck me the most was the one involving the man yelling at the camera about losing his wife and daughter from a bomb. The beauty was in its complexity, it was compelling, it was sad, but it was also somewhat ignorant, on both sides. For one, the helicopters shouldn't have been bombing civilians, which was a huge problem during Vietnam, and also the man laments Nixon, as if to say he was the sole orchestrator of it. The cinema verite works perfectly well by keeping the footage and the interviews very unobtrusive and humanistic. The people talking would narrate film, but as if they were conversing to one of their peers about the tragedies, instead of “a 'Voice of God' narrator,” as Cook would put it. Even the footage shown in the White House and other government buildings looked as if they were shot on a home video camera, which was most effective in pulling the viewer into the world of the film by playing on our own sense of this period of time, and also extremely refraining from camera trickery and formality to tell a story.
The most immediate difference is the formality of the camera angles and movement; it gives the viewer a sense that this is fiction. In Apocalypse Now, there is a tracking shot that travels from left to right across a Vietnamese building being bombed, which showed the cynical nature of the film, because we are played into this “big budget action movie” aesthetic, but we are watching an actual recreation of a very tragic event. Coming Home does a little better in keeping a fictionalized story more grounded in human action because there is little to no camera formality, and the scene is about normal people discussing their experience. In all three films, however, there is a general lament for the Vietnam War, whether it be in discussing it's shortcomings, or cynical effects sequences.
There were two images that caught me off gaurd in the film. They have both been mentioned, but they were the famed head shot exection shot and the scene where the troops struggle to light the village on fire. Both scenes just examplified unnecessary human behavior. These scenes are under Cooks definition, verite. You do just sit back and experience the scene, no matter how horrible or graphic it may be. As a whole though, i don't believe the piece was completely verite. The interviews were important but we kept going back to the images of the people. Maybe if we only saw their face once, and the rest was voice over might be stronger in the verite aspect. Or if the film makers did more scenes like the whore house. where its on screen confessions of real life and not interviews.
as for Apocalypse Now, that scene alone shows how rediculous the attitude towards the war was. Manny people saw it as a chance to go balls to the wall and be a super star. The movie as a whole actually shows the difference as a man performing his duties and his inner struggle to conquer the realities of war. Coming Home is another look at the reactions and the humanistic points of view of war, once they are out of the combat settings.
Three scenes came to mind regarding Hearts and Minds. One is when a American truck diver was talking about which side, North or South he was fight for and he said “North Vietnam”. Second one is towards the end when a “General” dressed up in business suits talks about the Orientals. He said something like “the orients don’t care about life” and mores things along that line. The last image is also towards the end when the Vietnamese soldiers are burring a fallen comrade and an old lady was trying to crawl into the grave with the coffin. Yes I believe that this film works in terms of cinema verite “the world on film is capable of revealing its own truth:” These three examples certainly shows the knowledge that the Americans had regarding the Orientals at the time.
Coming Home was talking about people having their own will as well as wanting a justification of what their actions were and being able to live with one selves and Apocalypse Now is celebrating their killings on the field. It started not only with helicopters flying over water but also with a powerful score as if they are enjoying it. Both of these two films somewhat relates to Hearts and Minds in that “Yes” American soldiers did “enjoyed” killing the VC and also some regretted later on such as one of the pilots and a few of the soldiers.
Xiong Koua
After watching hearts and minds there was few scenes that stuck out to me. But, the one that really stood out to me was when the shot this man directly in the head. It was not expected at all and was just so unreal to me. I’m sure this happens but I have never seen it on a film before and that’s why it just struck me as being the one scene that really stood out to me the most.
After watching those two scenes and comparing them to hearts and minds I believe they are similar. They both show the peoples views of the war. But the scene from Coming home I believe showed its more real how people viewed things. I think this scene was more similar to Hearts and Minds. On the other hand Apocalypse seemed real but seemed to go with more the of Hollywood style of films. I didn’t see this style in Hearts and Minds and therefore I think its similar to this movie in the way that they viewed things but not the style of how they portrayed it.
Kelly Grzybowski
The one moment that really stuck out was when the one man got shot in the head. Seeing that happen for real and knowing that it wasn't movie effects made everything a lot more horrific. I do believe this works within the verite/direct cinema tradition in that it's showing the truth and realism of what is actually happening in the war. The footage isn't staged and the interviews are real. However some of the events were stylized using different camera effects and other things so it wasn't a completely real experience.
Coming Home shows the conflict between the two sides. Was the war a justified thing or was it just something to do. This doesn't show the war,but it's realistic in that it shows the indecision and conflict between different people. Apocalypse Now shows the attacking of peaceful villages,but it just doesn't feel real. Everything is over the top "cinematic". The emotion of the war is there, but it just doesn't feel the same after watching how things actually played out in Hearts and Minds.
It was strange really getting a first person perspective, or in this case many, about the war in Vietnam. Most of what people nowadays know and hear about Nam is either in a text book or in a movie. Hearts and Minds really got in depth with multiple soldiers forced to fight and encounter some pretty horrific settings. I was surprised how in depth the movie actually got and how many different angles it portrayed. He gets soldiers points of view, politicains, pedestrians, and those of some Vietnamese that survived the bombings. It was shocking to a certain degree to hear these former soldiers discuss what being tossed into a war that you don't understand the meaning. What was more shocking was the footage they were able to get while in Vietnam. The shots of dead bodies and executions gives you a chilling idea of what it was like. After watching the clips from COMING HOME and APOCOLYPSE NOW it is possible to note a few similarities and differences. In COMING HOME, the characters seemed a lot like the Veterans they interviewed. They are kind of looking back about why they were there, or what the purpose was. You get in touch with the characters just as you do in HEARTS AND MINDS. In APOCOLYPSE NOW you are seeing what some of the soldiers were talking about. How it was just kind of a job to go in and destroy. If you hit your targets, you did your job. Most everyone in the helicoptors seemed pretty relaxed and went about their business. Chris Krombach
The image that struck me most about Hearts and Minds was near the end when they showed all the pilots bombing Vietnam. The pilots were talking about being proud about what they'd done and proud of the fact that they were good at bombing. However, the movie had already shown enough footage to make you question whether the bombing was good at all. It really put into perspective what destruction was happening and made you question whether we should have done it at all since it affected so many innocents.
Coming Home seems to concentrate more on the psychological damage done to our troops and has a more informal presentation as they're just having a conversation around a game of pool. Hearts and Minds had a more nonobjective look, as it dealt with all the different perspectives, and not just the soldiers'.
Apocalypse now had a more bravado and gung ho look at Vietnam. The bold music and action made this more of a Hollywood style entertainment film than a film more concerned with the morality issues of the war.
Dylan Statz (301-004)
Dan Boville
The thing that touched me the most from HEARTS AND MINDS is the Vietnam side of the story. Whenever you think of the Vietnam warfront of this time, images of jungles and villages come to mind, but not the horror, death, and destruction that really affected them. Images of airplanes dropping bombs are one thing, but having a father tell that all of his children are dead because of it is another. People getting shot point blank are also a shocking image that sticks out as well. In movies such as SHINDLER’S LIST, you see many people get shot point blank, but it’s fake. Unlike that film, HEARTS AND MINDS captured the horror of the real deal. This documentary works in he film verite category just well in that everything seemed realistic, and at no point did I feel that it was dramatized in anyways. From the interviews to the footage, it all touched me as real.
The movies that dramatized Vietnam are all one-dimensional. They show the army move in and demolish the village, and thematically you are rooting for the Americans to walk away unscathed whether their mission is morally right or not. In APOCOLYSE NOW I found myself edgy when the .50 Cal. Gun was being shot by the villagers, in fear of the Americans getting shot down. There was sense of relief when those villagers were killed, was I wrong in feeling that? In COMING HOME I like the discussion because it touched on the reality of the psychological aftershock of the war it had on American soldiers. They make references to justification and moral obligations which I feel many soldiers thought and felt during the wars end.
It would be hard to narrow down just one dramatic or heartbreaking scene, but the ones that stick out most in my mind are the scenes in which the camera is observing or interviewing the Vietnamese homes destroyed and they're crying over their child's death or other family death that occurred due to US bombing. Also the scene where one of the US bombers starts to breakdown when he imagines how he would feel if his child died from a bomb dropped. this is a very direct cinematic tool. It has a point it's driving at the entire movie, which of course is how immoral the war in Vietnam was, is, and had become. Although it gave the story a multi-perspective the side that believed the war just was almost demonstrated as absurd points of view.
"Coming Home"'s opening scene was reminded me of the interview scenes in "Hearts and Minds" in the way that the camera sat back and observed these Veterans talk about how they felt there time was served over there. Although because it was fiction the dialogue had more dramatic tension. "Apocalypse Now" on the other hand used action and music to display an almost tragic drama, but I believe the music was used in a more satirical way, to display the ignorant mentality a lot of young men had going into Vietnam, which was either coldness or anger, like "yeah, let's go over there and kill us some gooks"
After watching Hearts and Minds, I could not get the scene where the general is talking about life in Vietnam. What the general tries to convince the viewers to believe is that life in Southeast Asia is not important and that nobody cares when a person dies. Then the clip changes and shows this family who just lost the husband/father. It shows the wife sobbing and trying to climb into the grave. Then you have this high ranking general saying life doesn’t matter to them. The wife would rather die then continue on because her husband died. Scenes like this (there were several) really make me wonder how much research was done before the U.S. invaded Vietnam. I don’t think anybody knew why we were over there, so they were forced to come up with bull-crap stories to de-humanize the Vietnamese to somehow justify it.
The film does not fit into the cinema verite genre, because the film was speaking to the viewer, answering all the questions as if the person asking was a viewer from the audience. Both Coming Home and Apocalypse Now would fit the genre because they are both films where the characters interact with each other in the film, and the viewer just watches these scenes. The viewer may achieve some type of feeling from either of the cinema verite movies, but it is not the same feeling one might get when they view a direct cinema film, because it is true. People know its true, because here is this man who was doing the bombing, telling us that they dropped napalm on innocent villages. When I watch Apocalypse Now, I do not think that there is this crazy general out in Cambodia that is de-heading civilians, because I know it is not real. If there where several soldiers being interviewed then I may believe it. That is what makes the news so believable. If they were to just act things out and talk to each other behind the news desk while the viewers watched, it would just be another Anchorman.
Something that struck me most about Hearts and Minds was during the funeral where the little Vietnam boy was crying hysterically. I thought that that was very sad and disturbing because the little boy was just crying. I think that it was because it reminded me a lot of my own cultural funeral with the setting and all. I was just very touched by the little boy’s sad cry when the body was being placed into the hole and the boy couldn’t do anything but just cry. I think that this documentary didn’t really work in the cinema verite genre tradition because most of the works were from other sources collected and placed carefully together. The director also did interviews that helped balanced the views and thoughts of the documentary. Many documentary films during the time had to do a lot of direct cinema where they have to distribute their film themselves to and try to get the audience that the film was intended for.
Each film showed something from Hearts and Minds in a more dramatic movie style, but unlike Hearts and Minds, the violence was much harder to watch because you know that it’s real and its real people that are dying and are being shot at. The first clips with the injured soldiers, they were talking about the same issues as in the documentary about was it worth it going to Vietnam and coming back cripple for the rest of your life. I just think that the violence in the clips did not compare to the real life situation of the documentary because it was just a one-side view of the war.
Post a Comment