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Summary: Some thoughts on Hearts & Minds
Review: I, too, use this film when teaching a history class and have found it to be very useful. The other reviews have dome a fine job of discussing the content of the film, so I would like to restrict my comments to observations that have not been previously mentioned.
1. HEARTS AND MINDS is probably the best film around that portrays the tragic misunderstanding between the US's Cold War anti-Communism & the process of decolonization in Asia & Africa. Daniel Ellsberg in the film describes this problem perfectly. The US government, military, & population simply missed the unique nature of the Vietnamese situation and instead saw the conflict as a WWII aggression scenario.
2. On the other hand, this film does not give sufficient emphasis on the SINCERETY with which Americans took anti-Communism. To portray the US effort in Vietnam as mere imperialism is to completely miss the dedication and commitment this country had in its opposition to Communism.
3. HEARTS AND MINDS also fails to present the truly brutal nature of the North Vietnamese government. When South Vietnam was overrun in 1975, former soldiers, officers, & officials of S. V. were either summarily executed or placed in "reeducation camps" for many years. In my ESL teaching days, I had a student who had spent 10 years in such a camp with little food & no family contact. In his perspective, our defense of S. V. was wholly justified & necessary.
4. HEARTS AND MINDS successfully brings to the viewer the cost of war. Every war has a price, and every generation has to ask if it's willing to pay that price. Sometimes it's worth it.
5. In response to the "put America on trial" reviewer, I defy him to name one other country that would allow such a self-damning film to made, distributed, shown, and awarded. That alone places the US in a unique category.
This is an extremely impressive & thought-provoking film. I recommend it highly, and its rerelease is definitely a call for celebration.TRAHMEIER
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Summary: PLEASE Watch this film.
Review: It's interesting that so many of those who have reviewed this film have included information about when and where they first saw it. But I understand. In 1974 we had cowardly withdrawn our promised assistance to our Vietnamese "friends." The riots had stopped. We stopped caring about a war that continued unabated; the evening news no longer led with stories of American vs. "bad guy" bodycounts. I saw the film in a theater located on one of the very streets where the most bottles had been thrown by students and other youth, and where the most heads had been bashed by Seattle's finest (gee, some things never change!) When the film ended there was absolute silence: no one spoke; no one moved from their seat; it seemed no one even breathed. After almost a minute you could finally hear some muffled sobs only. There were, and are, no words to express the darkness of men's souls; there is only art. And, besides being a good documentary on the Vietnam war,
(by "good" I mean it will anger both sides, and provoke much conversation and debate,) this film is art, of the most important kind.
A late-blooming "child of the 60's" I am oft-dismayed that more recent generations neither know nor value the cultural icons of our youth, many of which I still hold dear. But the single most true thing about our generation was growing up in the shadow of a news machine that fed us war and hate on a daily basis. A shadow that was sometimes our own hatred, and sometimes our fear of oncoming nuclear missles (which fortunately never came,) or the fear of a loved one in a body bag. Please watch this film. You'll gain a better understanding, not just of part of the war, but of a part of the soul of America . . .my part.
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Summary: I put this next to Shindler's List in importance.
Review: Non-better. Everyone should see it! This documentary must be re-released. America needs a good jolt of reality to shake us up and get our children back on track. It is impossible to remain prejudiced or violent after seeing this.
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Summary: wonderful documentary about America's longest war
Review: Peter Davis's 1974 documentary about the causes and effects of America's Vietnam War has been digitized and reissued after 25 years, and it is an invaluable touchstone for each of us. Using war footage, newsreels, clips from Hollywood films, and interviews with officials, soldiers and Vietnamese, ex-CBS journalist Peter Davis and his team present a sobering view of American arrogance, misguided policy and dishonest government. (Sound like anything you've heard lately?) Some of the most memorable scenes for me are: General Westmoreland's comment that the "Orientals" don't value life the same way we do, right after we see a Vietnamese boy mourning at his father's funeral; a Vietnamese coffin maker hammering nails into a child's coffin; Daniel Ellsberg, on trial at the time for releasing the Pentagon Papers, listing the lies told to the American people by five presidents -- Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon; Charlie and Jerry, bored Air Force men cruising Saigon for entertainment; fitting prosthetic limbs onto veterans; Clark Clifford, Secretary of Defense from 1968-69, discussing the interviews that suddenly made him realize that the war could not be won; a father talking about how his son died for a worthwhile cause as his wife looks on. Shocking, also, is the revelation that the US offered France TWO ATOMIC BOMBS to use in their war with Indochina (later Vietnam)!! This film is heartbreaking and poignant, capturing the tragedy of lives caught up in madness. Davis used interviews from people who supported or fought in the war; some later came to oppose the action while others continued to support it. A wonderful extra feature would have been to talk to those same interviewees today; instead, the only dvd extra is the director's commentary, but it is terrific. You hear what Davis's thoughts were in making the documentary and how his own perceptions changed over the years, the material he did get and the material he wasn't allowed to use, experiences he had during filming and the problems he had getting it released. If you have this film on vhs or remember seeing it, you will love this crisp new print and enjoy Davis's insightful comments. If you have never seen it, you simply must. While this documentary doesn't have the benefit of hindsight, it does have the advantage of immediacy, being shot and released while the war was still being fought. The message: no one wins a war.
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Summary: The most important reflexion on Vietnam's war.
Review: The documentary deals with the battles and points of view of soldiers and high American Army staff on the Vietnam culture and the war it self. It compares scenes of Vietnamese people and their impressions, feelings, thoughts about the war with the Americans beliefs and actions about and on that people and culture. The construction of the enimies, the disrespect for their sorrows and suferings, make this film always up to date, not only to rethink that event, but to understand many others, occuring today. It will be very important to have it avaible again.
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Summary: Powerful antiwar propaganda film
Review: The fact that "Hearts and Minds" won an Oscar for best documentary speaks volumes about what the Hollywood establishment thought of Nixon's war in Vietnam and Cambodia by the early 1970s. It was an important film, a benchmark granddaddy to Michael Moore's documentaries "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Coumbine." The passage of thirty years exposes the film as an effective, but skewed propaganda film. No one is around to speak the Administration's position, unless you count the bullet-headed Westmoreland, whose banal comment that "the Vietnamese just don't value human life the way we do" is immediately skewered by scenes of a grieving Vietnamese mother trying to crawl into the grave of her dead son. The North Vietnamese are portrayed sympathetically, while American GIs come off as stoned-out waste cases. I suppose, after years and years of being lied to by our government, we needed "Hearts and Minds" as an antidote, and the directors and producers of the movie were right to push the pendulum far to the left. It definitely is a valuable historical record of the war, and more importantly, the intellectual revulsion and rage against the war. The movie makes several sociological points, including the scene of the insane Midwestern high school football coach egging on and beating his rabid players. (This concept was later picked up in the opening high-school wresting scenes in the anti-war movie "Born on the Fourth of July" starring Tom Cruise.) . Parents: The graphic real bordello scenes with acne-pocked American soldiers earned the "R"rating. "Hearts and Minds" is not an objective work of history. The best historical documentary on the Indochina conflict from 1945 through 1975 is an out-of-print VHS series (available in a lot of libraries), Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam: The 10,000 Day War."
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Summary: Powerful antiwar propaganda film
Review: The fact that "Hearts and Minds" won an Oscar for best documentary speaks volumes about what the Hollywood establishment thought of Nixon's war in Vietnam and Cambodia by the early 1970s. It was an important film, a benchmark granddaddy to Michael Moore's documentaries "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Coumbine." The passage of thirty years exposes the film as an effective, but skewed propaganda film. No one is around to speak the Administration's position, unless you count the bullet-headed Westmoreland, whose banal comment that "the Vietnamese just don't value human life the way we do" is immediately skewered by scenes of a grieving Vietnamese mother trying to crawl into the grave of her dead son. The North Vietnamese are portrayed sympathetically, while American GIs come off as stoned-out waste cases. I suppose, after years and years of being lied to by our government, we needed "Hearts and Minds" as an antidote, and the directors and producers of the movie were right to push the pendulum far to the left. It definitely is a valuable historical record of the war, and more importantly, the intellectual revulsion and rage against the war. The movie makes several sociological points, including the scene of the insane Midwestern high school football coach egging on and beating his rabid players. (This concept was later picked up in the opening high-school wresting scenes in the anti-war movie "Born on the Fourth of July" starring Tom Cruise.) . Parents: The graphic real bordello scenes with acne-pocked American soldiers earned the "R"rating. "Hearts and Minds" is not an objective work of history. The best historical documentary on the Indochina conflict from 1945 through 1975 is an out-of-print VHS series (available in a lot of libraries), Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam: The 10,000 Day War."
Rating:
Summary: Powerful antiwar propaganda film
Review: The fact that "Hearts and Minds" won an Oscar for best documentary speaks volumes about what the Hollywood establishment thought of Nixon's war in Vietnam and Cambodia by the early 1970s. It was an important film, a benchmark granddaddy to Michael Moore's documentaries "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Coumbine." The passage of thirty years exposes the film as an effective, but skewed propaganda film. No one is around to speak the Administration's position, unless you count the bullet-headed Westmoreland, whose banal comment that "the Vietnamese just don't value human life the way we do" is immediately skewered by scenes of a grieving Vietnamese mother trying to crawl into the grave of her dead son. The North Vietnamese are portrayed sympathetically, while American GIs come off as stoned-out waste cases. I suppose, after years and years of being lied to by our government, we needed "Hearts and Minds" as an antidote, and the directors and producers of the movie were right to push the pendulum far to the left. It definitely is a valuable historical record of the war, and more importantly, the intellectual revulsion and rage against the war. The movie makes several sociological points, including the scene of the insane Midwestern high school football coach egging on and beating his rabid players. (This concept was later picked up in the opening high-school wresting scenes in the anti-war movie "Born on the Fourth of July" starring Tom Cruise.) . Parents: The graphic real bordello scenes with acne-pocked American soldiers earned the "R"rating. "Hearts and Minds" is not an objective work of history. The best historical documentary on the Indochina conflict from 1945 through 1975 is an out-of-print VHS series (available in a lot of libraries), Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam: The 10,000 Day War."
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Summary: The Truth is Disturbingly Heartbreaking and Grotesque...
Review: The images from Hearts and Minds are disturbingly heartbreaking and grotesque. For example, a naked little girl is shown running down a road with skin pealing off her body as napalm continues to eat into her flesh. American soldiers watch the girl running by them, until it seems as if the camera that is capturing the moment urges the soldiers to help the girl. A Viet Cong suspect is shot point blank in the head on the street and his body falls to the ground with blood pulsating out of his temple. A child cries in agony by the grave of someone close to him while the grave diggers take a break with a cool Coca Cola. These unsettling scenes slowly descend into some unused space of the brain as they will return to consciousness in order to haunt the viewer of the horrors of the Vietnam War at a later time.
Peter Davis had accumulated over 200 hours of footage before beginning the long process of editing down the film into a feasible 112 minutes. During these 112 minutes the audience gets to follow how the American mindset which is created from young age, and how it influenced the decisions of the war. Davis brings the audience to a high school football game where young minds are formed into believing that what they do is right and that they have to win at all costs. Similar mentality saturates the thinking behind the American decision makers as President Lyndon B. Johnson increased the American participation in the war, to which he stated, "The ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there." The President's statement also became the title for the film.
The Vietnamese people, whose living standards were and are much different from the typical American lifestyle, fought for independence and freedom while the United States fought against the fear of Communism. This political and fundamental difference in perceiving the war was monumental as Communism, in essence, become the liberator for the Vietnamese people, and the Americans were perceived as the evil invaders. Most Vietnamese were opposed to the American's, as most people in Vietnam are poor, and those who promoted the so-called Americanism of Vietnam were war profiteers and people in high positions. The war continued into a dirty slaughter of civilians and children through dropping millions of bombs, spraying the herbicide Agent Orange, burning villages to the ground, and killing suspect Viet Cong as the American soldiers were in constant fear of being shot in the back.
Interesting comments were made by several characters such as General Westmoreland who said that "the Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does the Westerner." This followed by a shot of a child weeping in misery by a grave, which brings across the message of the ignorance that some of the leading military staff possessed. However, General Westmoreland continued to make derogatory comments about the Vietnamese people and continued to come across as a bigot and a racist.
Hearts and Minds was initially delayed in the United States for a year as a result of the distributors, Columbia, being afraid of legal repercussions. However, the film went on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 1975, and the Oscar's positive appraisal of Hearts and Minds led to a massive controversy. Nonetheless, Hearts and Minds message was out as it was the biggest documentary of the time with a million dollar budget.
Ultimately, the audience will have traveled a rough cinematic journey, which could be summed up by Daniel Ellsworth's quote "We weren't on the wrong side -- we were the wrong side." This notion is offered through several perspectives while viewing the horrors of war, as families were destroyed, children burnt to unidentifiable lumps of meat, and men wished they were home with their loved ones. Hearts and Minds provides the audience several interesting notions to ponder, but the most vivid idea would be that war should be avoided at all costs as people are mutilated and die on all sides.
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Summary: Where are they now?
Review: The reviewer "An anonymous warrior from A Company, 2nd Battalion, 173d Airborne Brigade - 1966" touched on this, but I want to know if anyone has a source of information as to where they all are now. I just read that Vietnam hawk Rostow had died recently. Among those who participated in the documentary, who are still around? What did they think of the final edit of "Hearts & Minds?" Have their feelings changed over the years? How do they view the U.S.'s pending involvement in Iraq? Where are they now, and what became of their lives??
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