Growing up in the 80s, "war movies" were always pretty much synonymous with "Vietnam War" movies. Breaking away from the John Wayne template of good guys vs bad guys, Vietnam movies were the first to the interpersonal, social and political issues of war.
Nowadays, movies about Vietnam are becoming less and less common as the more current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq seem to take precedence. I for one am discouraged to see the lush jungles of Southeast Asia replaced with the boring, drab desert landscapes of the middle east in the world of cinema.
Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Casualties of War, Heaven and Earth, Hamburger Hill...?
What Vietnam War movie do you feel is the best representation of the conflict? Which is your favorite?
Besides the ones you mentioned Born on the Fourth of July is pretty unforgettable. It's Platoon's companion piece really. Also First Blood (original Rambo) was one of the first movies to touch on ptsd from Vietnam while being action packed of course but still heartbreaking.
Animal Mother, is still a favorite screen name to use when i need to make one up on the fly.
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I'm not enough of a 60s history buff to know which is the best representation of the war, but Platoon is my pick for the best movie of the bunch and Oliver Stone, who wrote and directed it, served in the war so I assume it is at least representative of his experience of it.
All those movies are powerful, and deeply disturbing. With them, I like the PBS 13 part (I strongly believe) series based on Stanley Karnow's book "Vietnam: A History." Even as a documentary, it puts you there, amnd the background music make you feel the evil of it all. It, like the above movies, sucks one right into the drama like Dylan's lyric, "Its a hard rain's a-gonna fall."(grammar?)
The best was Full Metal Jacket and worst Green Brett
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Anyone else watch "Tour of Duty", the Vietnam TV series from the late eighties? It was reasonably well-done, basically, "Platoon: the series" but obviously with the bloodshed toned to TV allowed levels. Not as good as the best Vietnam movies but better than I expected from network TV (it ran in the days long before the current "Golden Age" of made-for-cable shows).
I actually left out "The Deer Hunter" on Purpose. I think it may have been a bit too soon to fully capture the Vietnam experience. I will watch it again though. I also don't put Apocalypse Now high on my list because I feel like they just used the setting of Vietnam to explore the same issues presented in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." Even though it was a highly regarded movie.
The list I gave was by no means complete. There are plenty of other movies that present the issues that weren't big blockbusters.
For my money, I have to go with the Oliver Stone Trilogy... Of course this was before the time that studios knew that trilogies could actually make money so it wasn't exactly marketed as such.
1) Platoon Best Vietnam movie all around in my opinion. Winner of best picture at the Oscars in 1986 and one of my favorites of all time. Charlie Sheen pre-Tiger Blood! Showed the American experience in Vietnam.
2) Born On the Fourth of July. Another one of my favorites. Showed the American experience at home. It makes me want to ignore Tom Cruise's obsession with aliens and volcanoes...well... that's another thread.
3) Heaven and Earth The oft neglected of the trilogy, probably because it focuses on the Vietnamese experience in the war. I guess female, Vietnamese protagonists didn't seem to sell tickets back in 1993. If you have any interest in the Vietnam conflict then I recommend this movie. I always like to see these issues from both sides.
BTW, don't you think it's time for a new Vietnam TV series? I bet HBO could Game of Thrones that shit. I'm thinking a series like "The Wire" that follows the story from both sides. Goldmine. Call me, HBO.
Casualties of War can seem a bit exploitative at times but man is it horrific. It really does make you feel like shit while watching it. A feeling that lingers well after the movie is over.
BTW, don't you think it's time for a new Vietnam TV series? I bet HBO could Game of Thrones that shit. I'm thinking a series like "The Wire" that follows the story from both sides. Goldmine. Call me, HBO.
oh, are you aware that Ken Burn's will be airing his new Vietnam Doc in the very near future?
You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.
I agree with all the above, but would add this one. A different take and my understanding,
based on a true battle - Battle of La Drang and true guys - Hal Moore and Joseph Galloway.
oh, are you aware that Ken Burn's will be airing his new Vietnam Doc in the very near future?
Holy fuck, Sprite you beat me to the punch. I had no idea. I'm usually the biggest TV nerd in the room.
While I'll definitely look forward to a probably 16 hour doc series on Vietnam, backgrounded with sensible era-appropriate music played over spoken letters written from both soldiers and the "girl back home..."
I know that sounded sarcastic, but I actually am excited. And I am genuinely pleased to hear this news. Ken Burns is the master of documentaries, and I'm sure this will be a masterpiece. I have watched all his Docs (sometimes twice), and this is legit making my day. I actually watched both his docs on the civil war and baseball which accounts for about 31 hours of my life. And then the Lewis and Clark doc... probably the best doc ever made.
Nevertheless, I think the conflict could and should be shown in live action on the small screen with the amount of time necessary to develop characters and such.
HBO... ignore Sprite and please give me a call. But please be warned that my script might have a bit more snippy dialogue, lesbian activity and anal sex.
Quote by Ping I agree with all the above, but would add this one. A different take and my understanding,
based on a true battle - Battle of La Drang and true guys - Hal Moore and Joseph Galloway.
Thank you for bringing this one up. I actually owned this movie back when owning VHS tapes was actually a thing.
Not a bad movie, although the hammy scenes with Chris Klein kinda made it cheesy to watch. I distinctly recall watching this in theaters and hearing the entire place erupt in laughter when he mentioned " building wells for African orphans".
I feel like this one is important because it focuses on the first actual battle that the Americans had with the NVA in 1965. Most other movies about the subject tend to focus on the 1967-1970 era. I feel like it's important to see other aspects of the war other than the guerilla war in the Mekong River Delta that most North Americans associated with "Vietnam."
Holy fuck, Sprite you beat me to the punch. I had no idea. I'm usually the biggest TV nerd in the room.
While I'll definitely look forward to a probably 16 hour doc series on Vietnam, backgrounded with sensible era-appropriate music played over spoken letters written from both soldiers and the "girl back home..."
I know that sounded sarcastic, but I actually am excited. And I am genuinely pleased to hear this news. Ken Burns is the master of documentaries, and I'm sure this will be a masterpiece. I have watched all his Docs (sometimes twice), and this is legit making my day. I actually watched both his docs on the civil war and baseball which accounts for about 31 hours of my life. And then the Lewis and Clark doc... probably the best doc ever made.
Nevertheless, I think the conflict could and should be shown in live action on the small screen with the amount of time necessary to develop characters and such.
HBO... ignore Sprite and please give me a call. But please be warned that my script might have a bit more snippy dialogue, lesbian activity and anal sex.
i'll watch pretty much anything he does a doc on - i have no interest in baseball, but it was a fascinating watch, as was the world war 2 one and the civil war one. best, imo, was the one he did on Jazz. i knew a little about it before, but i had no idea how little - i was floored and ended up getting a lot of jazz albums. if the one on Vietnam is half as good, it'll be brilliant. i enjoy history and have a good grasp on a lot of it, but he really tends to dig deep and create a living thing. haven't seen Lewis and Clark - guess i need to remedy that. putting it on my list, so thank you
i don't think there's ever been a tv series about 'Nam? MASH was the korean conflict - kind of overdue, yeah? wait, lesbians and anal sex? sign me up!
You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.
Far and away.....FULL METAL JACKET! The inhumanity of boot camp. But they treated you like that because if you could survive that, you could survive anything. Or so they thought.
It came out in 2008 but kind of flew under the radar. It was a true story starring Christian Bale. It documented a US pilot shot down over Laos and his subsequent escape from a Pathet Lao prison camp. I wouldn't put it in my top Vietnam Movies but I found it important because most American to this day still don't know that the US engaged in a secret bombing war in Laos. They dropped more bombs on Laos and Cambodia than they dropped in the entire WW2. People in Laos are still getting legs blown off from un-exploded shells.
I'll admit right off that war movies tend to depress me to a significant degree. I actually often have to force myself to watch most of them, even those that are purely fictional/entertaining like Tears of the Sun, Courage Under Fire or Enemy at the Gates. I can handle violence/gore in movies just fine, but I guess that I'm really not cut out for the whole 'militaristic spirit'.
Having said that, Full Metal Jacket would be my choice (it's surprisingly one of my favorite movies ever). It's loaded with Kubrick's usual cleverness and the astute mix of realness and satire fitted my own liking perfectly. It was a sharp criticism without any sort of hypocritical patriotism, which I appreciated quite a lot and which is exactly the spirit that I want to be into whenever I'm watching a war movie.
for the record, i hated full metal jacket. it seemed (to me) to glorify violence and it seemed soul-less. of course, i'm not a big fan, normally, of mayhem in slow motion, but still, it seemed to take it one step further to the point that all i really recall of it is the over the top gore.
You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.
If I may skirt the OP a bit...the best "Vietnam" War Movie ever made was The Killing Fields and while it was set in Cambodia rather than Vietnam one could argue that the rise of the Khmer Rouge was linked to the war in Vietnam and the interventions of both France and subsequently the US in Southeast Asia. One of the most powerful films ever made.
Quote by LYFBUZ If I may skirt the OP a bit...the best "Vietnam" War Movie ever made was The Killing Fields and while it was set in Cambodia rather than Vietnam one could argue that the rise of the Khmer Rouge was linked to the war in Vietnam and the interventions of both France and subsequently the US in Southeast Asia. One of the most powerful films ever made.
There is no question that the Killing Fields was powerful.
Historically, China with the Soviet Union supported DRVN (Democratic Republic of Viet Nam) but during the Cultural Revolution in China, VN and China did not see eye to eye and China stopped supporting VN. That left VN a Soviet satellite.
To balance that China supported The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot agreed to take Khmer (Cambodia) to "ground zero." That made Pol Pot start to kill his own people and purge them of all "Western" ideas. China got the US to work with them in the Shanghai Communique, and both China and the US supported Pol Pot's government at the UN. That made Khmer a Chinese sphere of influence.
Once VN had rid itself of the US, the turned to Khmer and invaded it
throwing out Pol Pot and replacing it with Heng Samrin.. China staunchly supported Pol Pot's fight against VN etc.
Eventually China invaded VN and the two sides had a War that is little known.
I hope that creates some context for the Killing Fields.
I've just watched the first 4 episodes of Ken Burns' "Vietnam War" documentary series.
Although it does have a bit of a different tone that most of Burns' other docs, it is starting to grow on me. Most 'Nam docs generally focus only on the American experience so I found it refreshing to see interviews with NVA and Viet Cong soldiers as well. I also liked the first episode focusing on the French involvement (which is usually forgotten).
Not was good as "Civil War" or "Baseball" but still some of the best historical documentaries out there.
