A rule about writing and art is to write what you know. Your memories and experience turns into passion and accuracy without trying to hard. You can see in the movie Platoon that Oliver Stone had strong memories of Vietnam, for which he served. The whole movie feels like just that, a memory.
War movies, to me, are almost always the same. Good vs. evil, show some fighting, show the barracks, troubled soldiers, career soldiers etc.. Platoon different though. Platoon did not follow character arcs, good vs evil, or even general plot direction. The film is jarring, disorganized and puts you right into the action. The shots are composed where you almost never see the enemy directly and the soldiers are just as confused as you. Things happen in no particular order and fight scenes are drawn out and unnerving.
I think this is what makes Platoon great. As the reading mentions, many Vietnam movies tried to make an accurate war movie about Vietnam but failed with cliches, excessive plots that are hard to follow and borderline propaganda. Stone's memory of Vietnam is vivid and true. The film directly portrays the feeling of war. How war is random, unexciting at moments, and overall extremely scary. The other movies that preceded it tried to have a semblance of a plot and tried to spin the war into something it wasn't.
I generally don't like war movies. I think that is is very hard to sell the idea of war into a cohesive film. Platoon is the exception. Because of Stone's experience, Platoon was scary realistic and is a great reminder of the terrible Vietnam war.
I agree, the film had a very weird mnemonic feel to it. I generally like war movies from a history perspective but Platoon differentiates itself. I like how you pointed out the weird structure of the film, it's very different from the arc driven Apocalypse Now
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that a lot of war movies can be similar and I do think that I think Platoon is different because it shows a more realistic side, not just a propaganda story. Platoon was also different because it didn't have the typical "Good versus evil." The sense of morality kind of got lost in a lot of the situations that the men faced throughout the movie.
ReplyDeleteI like your point about this film reading like a memory because on the face of it, it contradicts your points about realism. Memories are by definition recalled from a distance and in a fairly organized fashion, as opposed to an experience, which is extremely messy. Unless you're talking about trauma memory, which is appropriate. Either way, its worth working out in more detail--and incorporating the reading and stuff.
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