Posted on 05/29/2006 12:05:36 AM PDT by L.A.Justice
When his Vietnam saga "Platoon" appeared, Oliver Stone felt it was a painful reminder of an aggressive mentality he hoped America had left behind.
Two decades later, the country has fallen back on old habits, Stone said Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival, where "Platoon" had a 20th anniversary screening in advance of a new DVD edition coming May 30.
A semi-autobiographical account of Stone's infantry experiences in Vietnam, "Platoon" depicts the combat with terrible savagery. With the current war in Iraq, the message has gone unheeded, said Stone, whose film won four Academy Awards, including best picture and director.
"It's a shame, because you make these movies, you hope that they will make people more conscious about what war is," Stone told The Associated Press in an interview alongside his three stars, Willem Dafoe, Charlie Sheen and Tom Berenger. "It did work, and it went around the world like a shock. It made all our careers.
"Twenty years later, actually 10, 15 years later, it started to change again. People forget, and they drifted back to a militaristic point of view. ... By the time Iraq came around, `Iraq 2," I was pretty depressed."
The Cannes screening of "Platoon" was preceded by footage of Stone's upcoming film "World Trade Center," starring Nicolas Cage in a Sept. 11 drama about two policemen trapped in the rubble of the twin towers after the terrorist attacks.
Due out Aug. 9, "World Trade Center" is the year's second big-screen film centered on Sept. 11, 2001. "United 93," which opened in the United States in April and also is playing the Cannes festival, was a stark docudrama about passengers killed in the crash of their plane after they fought back against their hijackers.
Stone said the "World Trade Center" footage is a fitting companion to "Platoon," the two films offering closeup views of war or terrorism in the trenches.
"It is a return to the working-class heroes, people who confront reality at this ground level," Stone said. "When you actually get down and see what these men did in that hole, and their families, it makes it more human, and it makes you understand what war is and what terror is."
"Platoon" is the story of a raw infantry volunteer (Sheen) who enters his tour of duty with innocent optimism but soon learns the harsh reality that the only cause worth fighting for is survival. He becomes a pawn in a power play between two sergeants, one (Dafoe) who has maintained his humanity despite losing his idealism, the other (Berenger) a man who has become a cold-blooded killing machine.
The soldiers depicted in "Platoon" were aimless, doing battle for the sake of doing battle, having lost any sense of purpose or objective, Berenger said.
"The classic comparison would be the Greeks and the Trojan War," Berenger said. "They're outside the walls of Troy, fighting, fighting, fighting, and then fighting among themselves. They begin to forget what they were there for."
Stone put the actors through rigorous boot camp to train for the roles, depriving them of sleep and trying to give them the edge of irritability that comes with jungle combat.
"I think we got a real sense of, save for the actual life and death aspect of being in a combat zone, that we were in a real conflict," Sheen said.
"And the thing that sucked for me was in that training camp, during those two weeks, you had to maintain your rank in the movie," said Sheen, whose character was the low-ranking new boy. Nodding at Dafoe and Berenger, Sheen added, "And you guys weren't nice. You weren't nice to me."
I have difficulty sitting through PLATOON and BORN ON FOURTH OF JULY. I think they are too anti-American.
Marine Capt.(Retired) Dale Dye worked with Stone on PLATOON. Dye has a radio talk show in Southern CA. I don't think Dye and Stone would agree on many political issues. Dye is very supportive of present US military efforts.
Platoon is a great movie and far better than Born. True, you get most of the 'worst' notions of the war conveyed but sadly, for many, it is the closest they will come to seeing Vietnam portrayed. My father was there in 70 and by 68, you were beginning to see the "Nam" experience that is portrayed in that movie (which I think is in 68.)
It's not anti-American to portray some terrible stuff. It happened. My father would tell you, if he were still alive.
Dye works with Stone on all those flicks. He worked with him (and acted) in Heaven and Earth as well.
He's made a lot of people conscious of what they "think" war is, especially the ones that want to turn the other cheek or the blame America first crowd.
I didn't see Stone making movies about Saddam Hussein killing tens of thousands of his neighbors and his own people or terrorists killing American's around the world, a few at a time until 9/11 came along. Stone and his political bent can take a hike.
"Platoon" was an excellent movie.
I think Stone tried to show how the stress of combat can lead to events like My Lai.
I was a Huey driver and never ended up in a night fire fight on the ground, but "Platoon" portrayed the chaos about as well as anything could.
Can't believe it's been 20 years. Of course I can't believe it's been 39 years since I was first in Vietnam, either.
"It's not anti-American to portray some terrible stuff. It happened. My father would tell you, if he were still alive."
No, it's not and your father was right. May he rest in peace.
I would agree with the first sentence. But I think it also served as a therapeutic vehicle for other vets. What some forget is that while Platoon is more "realistic" that Barnes and Elias were a dramatic invention and that the level of hostility would not set in during that time but that it was important in conveying the idea of what is right in war vs. what is right (though Elias wasn't perfect himself) and one can almost imagine Elias and Barnes are actually separate creations of an actual real life model who was embodied both sets of traits.
I agree that the time frame did not see quite the decline the US Army as the film seems to indicate but perhaps Stone was trying to portray more than just his experience.
I'd also point out that the atrocities in that film were not a matter of tactical routine but were done in heat of the moment situations. I forget the timeline but I would point out villages were burned and people were put into strategic hamlets earlier in the war, which backfired and that was bey design. The guy who headed that program turned out to be a VC double-agent who designed the program to inflame passions against the RVN and the US.
Basically, Stone tried to encapsulate much of the horror of that type of war, even that which he did not experience, while still having "good" characters who did not engage in that conduct.
"May he rest in peace."
I hope that he finally found it. He died in 91, just before hitting his 42nd birthday. I know all too well what he carried with him.
A pox on Dye for getting into bed with that POS Stone.
I think this was/is the best movie of Vietnam to date!
But after I saw Platoon for the first and only time, I thought "That's it?" I think it would obviously appeal to those who've been through the situations in the movie, and i have nothing but good feelings about how it brought our shamefully ignored Vietnam vets back into the public eye. That alone makes it worthy.
But for me, more unrealistic movies made me feel what it must be like to be involved in a war. I prefer Apolcalypse Now and FUll Metal Jacket, because they were unrealistic in many ways but made me FEEL, as a viewer, what it must feel like to be in such a crazy situation.
A Vietnam combat vet of my acquaintance likes Hamburger Hill a great deal.
Actually, "The Doors" wasn't half bad. Morrison was overrated as a genius-poet, but the band put out some good tunes.
Haven't seen The Killing Fields.
Any reaction to that? (Seems to me it was about Pol Pot?)
FMJ, before they moved to Vietnam, was excellent, and believable. AN is excellent as a metaphor.
The Killing Fields was great and depressing.
It's worth seeing.
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