Because of the negatives that are associated with the Vietnam war, anything associated with it, specifically, movies, seemed to be portrayed in a bad light. The producers are in a difficult position. While wanting to produce a historical movie that is accurate and provides the viewer with an experience of the event, they also need to produce something that the public WILL watch. The only way to ensure public approval is to deviate from the truth and produce something else.
A lot of the Hollywood movies concerning Vietnam do not portray the Vietnam War in sense of the truth, so how does the viewer know they are receiving the facts? With a number directors and producers coming from many angles, each director has a different angle and opinion of what happened. Many of the directors have tried to go for ratings and revenue by exaggerating the more dramatic points of Vietnam for the film while others have tried to stick to the truth. By exaggerating the film it becomes di storted and evasive and has provided biased information to the viewer.
Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July both directed by Oliver Stone were based on the actual experiences of Oliver Stone and fellow veteran, Ron Kovic. Platoon is often said to be the most realistic of all the Vietnam War films, because of its ability to represent the terror and the numbing confusion of daily battle.
The problem with Platoon, although it was painfully and visually truthful when depicting the violence in Vietnam, was that it gave a lot of the soldiers in Vietnam a stereotype of being completely psychotic. Vietnam veteran Michael Herrera says that the first time he saw Platoon in a theatre, there were a number of Vietnamese people in the audience. After the village scenes, if anybody had asked if he was a vet, he would have said no. The film focused too much on the negative, completely ignoring the positive civic action - sponsoring orphans, rebuilding communities - that many t ook an active role in. A friend who served in the infantry shook his head and said that Oliver Stone must have known an awful lot of psychotics.
Born on the Fourth of July spends less time in combat and more time depicting the life of the veteran after his return home. Because Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July was one mans story of his experience in Vietnam, it could be a little generalized. He will only remember certain things he chooses to remember, so the viewer will yet again get a biased view of the war in Vietnam. Oliver Stone and Ron Kovic were both eventually anti Vietnam so this again would of distorted the outcome of both Platoon and Born on the fourth of July. They are both Anti Vietnam war veterans. Both of them were gung-ho patriots who were eager to answer their country's call to arms. When they came back home, they were still patriots, hurt and offended by the hostility they experienced from the anti-war movement. Eventually, both men turned against the war, Kovic most dramatically.
Full Metal Jacket is formed round the experiences of young men in 'boot camp', and when they're sent off to war in Vietnam. Kubrick in Full Metal Jacket chooses to portray genuine events from the war. He focuses his action on the Tet Offensive 1968, directed by the enemy divisions in the South towards the United States. They wished to weaken American confidence in the Saigon government, strengthening American anti-war protest and ultimately bring America to some agreement. In order to asset Viet Cong influence and undermine Saigon authority, the North Vietnamese captured the city of Hue. Kubrick concentrates on the battle, which resulted from the marines dispatched to Hue. He manages to capture the vast destruction caused by the intense violent fighting in the houses and the streets. The tet offensive was an important event in the war because the offensive marked a military victory for the Viet Cong. For many Americans who had believe d that the war was being won, the sight of Viet Cong troops holding the US embassy is a rude awakening, and forces them to question the US true position.
The film has an almost documentary-like feel, as if this is real footage of the battles. In the first half of the film, Kubrick focuses on the marine training. Again it feels like one is right there amidst the recruits preparing for war.
How confident can we be when watching these films that we are seeing the truth about Vietnam? This is important because, many people will watch a film as though its the truth instead of reading a historical book on the Vietnam War, thus the directors of Vietnam films had the biggest say in what people depicted in the war. Directors should make more of an effort of sticking to the truth when it comes to making a Vietnam movie instead of evading and distorting the truth. The choice then, is how we the viewers accept these films, and do we accept them as the truth or with skepticis m. There is no simple solution, because each film is different and conveys a different message to the audience that it tries to reach. But if an audience can take in a film, any film with history or cultural changing implications, with some perspective of the past, either through personal experience or learned experience from others, then that audience can view the film with knowledgeable skepticism. And knowledge is the best filter for gaining the truth. Even modern day films such as We Were Soldiers dont show Vietnam in its full, just the parts the Americans won, even though eventually they lost the war in Vietnam. It just leaves you wondering, how Hollywood will depict the present on going war in Iraq.
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