Comparing Vietnam Movies Essays

Comparing Vietnam Movies Essays Comparing Vietnam Movies Essay Comparing Vietnam Movies Essay Comparing Vietnam Movies Although a great majority of the population of the world was not physically present during this devastating and bloody war, many people have no need to be. The proliferation of Hollywood-made Vietnam movies has allowed the public to view the Vietnam War from the perspective of the Hollywood moguls. Although the war itself was very unpopular with the public, it seems that the public cannot get enough of movies about the Vietnam War. A lot of the Vietnam movies which are still being created to this day, usually hold the perspective of the American soldiers expected to fight a war which was not held in their own homeland. Although the war may have ended decades ago, the effects of the war, and the publics interest in the war still holds true today. A number of these Vietnam movies may not be 100% accurate, but they do give the public an idea on how life was during the Vietnam War. The three movies: We Were Soldiers, Full Metal Jacket, and Platoon, are all great movies that show what happened in the Vietnam War. Platoon directed by Oliver Stone is a brutally realistic look at a young soldiers tour of duty in Vietnam. Chris Taylor is a college student who quits school to volunteer for the Army in the late 60s. Hes shipped off to Vietnam, where he serves with a culturally diverse group of fellow soldiers under two men who lead the platoon: Sgt. Barnes, whose facial scars are a mirror of the violence and corruption of his soul, and Sgt. Elias, who maintains a Zen-like calm in the jungle and fights with both personal and moral courage even though he no longer believes in the war. After a few weeks in country, Taylor begins to see the naivete of his views of the war, especially after a quick search for enemy troops devolves into a round of murder and rape. This film, still remains one of the classic films of American cinema. Platoon tells the story of Vietnam from the point of view of a young, naive infantry soldier, played by Charlie Sheen. The film showed the war in all of its ugliness and confusion. Oliver Stone the producer and writer, partially based the movie on his own experience as a soldier in Vietnam, Sheens character, Chris Taylor, finds himself in a completely different war from the faceless one being fought against the Vietnamese. His platoons allegiance is split between two senior officers, Barnes (played brilliantly by Tom Berenger), and Elias (played by Willem Dafoe). Barnes is the war torn soldier, a man who has seen enough of war, and the war has taken its toll. He is a man who only knows to fight and therefore he often steps over the lines of human decency and law, especially in a riveting scene in a Vietnamese village when Barnes kills an innocent woman and threatens to kill her daughter, without remorse. Elias is also a war torn soldier, but is an idealistic one. He doesnt believe that the U. S. will win the war, but even though he has lost passion for what he is doing over there, he still represents the good, and the struggles between him and Barnes create an inner war in the platoon, which solidifies the statement of the horrors of war, and the war in Vietnam in particular. Stone made this film different from other war films in that he was able to show the horrors of war and the fighting without glorifying them. Instead, the effect is mass confusion, a generation lost in a struggle that it didnt really believe in, a group of young men fighting for a country that didnt really care or have a plan for what was really happening deep in the jungles, within their own platoons. This was the story we needed to see it would be the first in a trilogy of Vietnam War films from Stone which probed deep into the Vietnam quagmire to show a new generation of Americans and for all those who were alive then the truth and the lies of that war. Full Metal Jacket directed by Stanley Kubrick begins by following the trials and tribulations of a platoon of fresh Marine Corps recruits focusing on the relationship between Gunnery Sergeant Hartman and Privates Pyle and Joker. We see Pyle grow into an instrument of death as Hartman has forseen of all of his recruits. Through Pyles torment and Jokers unwillingness to stand up against it the climax of part one is achieved with all three main characters deciding their fates by their action or inaction. The second chapter of Full Metal Jacket delves into Jokers psyche and the repeated referal to the fact that he joined the Corps to become a killer. When his mostly behind the scenes job as a combat correspondant is interfered with by the Tet offensive he is thrust into real combat and ultimately must choose if he really is a killer. Full Metal Jacket, is an unconventional war story. Instead of focusing entirely on the war itself, it also captures the mental developments of the soldiers and their emotions. It goes beyond a normal war story and examines the soldiers themselves, and their motivations and relationships to each other and the war. Motivation for fighting is a prominent aspect of every war movie. People fight for a variety of reasons; money, power, land, honor, freedom, women, reputation, and so on. Most characters in war stories give the viewer a clear understanding of their goal in the battle, and the reason they are there. It is often brought up a subject of conversation amongst the soldiers at some point in the film. They will ask themselves why they are there, explain how they got where they are, and examine their personal motives for continuing. However, Full Metal Jacket denies the audience such clarity as to the motives of the soldiers. The film is divided into two parts. The first half takes place at a basic training camp in South Carolina, where the recruits go through the dehumanizing process of becoming Marine-trained instruments of death. The second half takes us to Vietnam and into battle itself during the Tet offensive. During both halves, characters are challenged to understand the reasons they are fighting. We Were Soldiers directed by Randall Wallace is based loosely on the book We Were Soldiers Once †¦ and Young by Lieutenant General Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway, where they look back on a major battle between the U. S. Army and North Vietnamese Army regulars fought in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in November, 1965. Moore, who then held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, led a battalion of American soldiers. Galloway was there as a journalist, but ended up fighting, too. Moore and Galloway gave their book an elegiac tone, which the film preserves. Early in the movie, we meet Hal Moore, his wife and their five young children. Its 1964, and they arrive at Fort Benning, Georgia, where Moore heads up the combat training of about 450 men. Moores unit includes a daredevil helicopter pilot, a battle-hardened sergeant major, and a green second lieutenant. Eventually the unit is ordered to Vietnam, and we hear Lieutenant Colonel Moore promise his men, When we go into battle, I will be the first to set foot on the field and I will be the last to step off. And I will leave no one behind. We Were Soldiers is a movie that stands apart from most Vietnam movies by showing what was good about the war as well as what was bad. The Vietnam stole away our own faith in our own leadership. It made us seem to be imperialist aggressors in the worlds eyes. It caused boys to be sent home in pieces or in body bags, all for a dubious cause. If they did make it home, there were no parades. There were college kids calling them baby-killers. This movie makes us realize it is good to remember hat beneath that inept and misguided leadership was bravery and heroism and fellowship, and good men fighting for their country and for each other. They did it because it was their profession, or because their country asked them to or forced them to. This film centers around the first major American battle of the war, Ia Drang Valley, and it is told from both the American and North Vietnamese perspectives, switching back and forth ala Patton. It is not shy about poin ting out some of the mistakes made by America at the time, both military and political, but that really is not the point of the film. The authors have no political axe to grind. The film is simply the story of the American field commander, Lt Col Moore, his men, and their kinship as a unit. It is based on Moores own book, We Were Soldiers Once, and Young, which he co-wrote with a reporter who was also present at the battle. the film confers honor on those who did what they had to do honorably, and it does so effectively and cinematically. It is an excellent movie, deeply moving, yet both profound and fair. In the last analysis, it is about a bunch of men who bonded together when performing an impossible task that they were ordered to do. There is something greater and deeper about their team than the teams we play on, because they played for bigger stakes and when they lost, they lost everything. At the end of the film Joe Galloway says In the end, they did not fight for God country right. They fought for each other. This represents the main point of the movie. War stories are complex tales involving many characters, emotions, motives and struggles. They go through highs and lows, moments of intense battle to moments of inner reflection. Some war stories are obvious depictions of war, including a series of battles, a dramatic plot, often a love interest, and a dramatic ending. These Vietnam movies show a different side of war that people cant see unless they experience it first hand. Although Vietnam war was not popular with the public it seems that the Vietnam War movies have gained a lot of popularity in Hollywood and the public. Full Metal Jacket. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Prod. Jan Harlan. Perf. Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, and Vincent DOnofrio. DVD. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1987. Platoon. Dir. Oliver Stone. Prod. MArtin Bregman. Perf. Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker, Kevin Dillon, Keith David, John C. McGinley, and Johnny Depp. DVD. Orion Pictures, 1986. Moore, Harold G. , and Joseph L. Galloway. We Were Soldiers Once and Young. New York: Random House, Inc. , 1992. We Were Soldiers. Dir. Randall Wallace. Prod. Jim Lemley. Perf. Mel Gibson, Sam Eliot,Madeleine Stowe and Greg Kinnear. DVD. Paramount Pictures, 2002. Hamburger Hill. Dir. John Irvin. Prod. Marcia Nasatir. Perf. Dylan McDermott, Steven Weber and Don Cheadle. DVD. RKO Pictures, 1987. Zaffiri, Samuel. Hamburger Hill. New York: TheBallantine Group, 1988.