War films aren't really
my cup of tea. I've never really enjoyed them. Still, Platoon is one that I do
find interesting. It is the first film about the Vietnam War that showed a
realistic depiction of what the soldiers went through on a day to day basis. Lawrence
W. Lichty and Raymond L. Carroll bring up
how the first films that were made about the Vietnam War that came out before
Platoon, such as John Wayne's The Green Berets and The Boys in Company C, tried
to show the lighter side of the war rather than the hell it actually was.
Although not realistic of the war and harshly reviewed by critics, The Green
Berets was successful in ticket sales and "many in the audience cheered"
when they first saw it. This showed that in 1968, people did want this type of
war film and maybe that they were trying to get away from the actual horror of
it through films and media.
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| The Green Berets (1968) |
By 1986 this had changed.
I think that the audience who grew up seeing images of the war on the news and
in the papers and soldiers who were actually there wanted there to be, and for others
to see a realistic depiction of the war and what they actually went through. This
is where Platoon was quite successful. The film's director, Oliver Stone,
served in Vietnam and the film is loosely based on his experiences, another
reason it's so realistic. The scene where the platoon reaches a village, burns
it down, and kills and rapes its inhabitants is one of the rawest scenes in any film I've
ever seen. It's extremely disturbing to watch. However, this film does not
completely shy away from exaggerating events and making them more imaginative.
For example, the image/scene that is depicted on many posters and ads, where Elias is shot multiple times
is much more movie like than trying to show a reality of the war.
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| Poster for Platoon |
Another interesting
point about Platoon is how much of the story and characters can be paralleled
to David Lynch's Blue Velvet. The main
character in both films are college aged males who get themselves into a living
hell. In Platoon, Chris Taylor drops out of college and volunteers for combat
duty in Vietnam and ends up realizing he has made a huge mistake. Similarly, in
Blue Velvet, Jeffrey Beaumont investigates a mysterious women's apartment after
finding an ear in a field, also realizing it's a huge mistake when he comes
into contact with the sadistic Frank Booth. Both of these characters are seemingly
innocent and relatable when they are first introduced to the audience but this
soon changes and the major theme of moral ambiguity is entered into both films. In Platoon, Taylor becomes frustrated and snaps at a young disabled man which leads to his bludgeoning. In Blue Velvet, Jeffrey becomes a bit similar to Frank Booth and hits Dorothy when she asks him to. These and other actions from the two characters lead the viewer to question if we're really supposed be rooting for them.
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| Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) in Platoon |
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| Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) in Blue Velvet (1986) |
I feel like the scene in the village is one of the most iconic scenes about this movie, perhaps eclipsed only by Elias' death. It is definitely very difficult to forget. This scene actually reminded me of a scene from "Tears of the Sun." A village is destroyed, and innocent people killed and mutilated by enemy soldiers. The survivors are discovered by a recovery group of American Navy Seals. While in that case it is the Americans who are the sympathetic group, the scene in general evokes the same "I hate humanity" feeling that the scene from Platoon evokes.
ReplyDeleteThe scene in the village is most definitely traumatizing and that is why it is so perfect for this film. Finally a director who saw these events in real life has the balls to show what Vietnam was really like, instead of the garbage that John Wayne was pumping out. The American public knew damn well what was going on in the war and to sugar coat it seems offensive to the viewers.
ReplyDeleteThe parallels between Platoon and Blue Velvet are interesting, and worth developing. Do consider though, the difference between what audiences might have wanted to see in movies about Vietnam, and the idea of revisionism--the difference between fantasies of a happy war as it was happening, and dealing with the aftermath, particularly in terms of the conservative backlash of the 80s.
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