- Re: This might be useful Archived Message
Posted by Raskolnikov
on May 17, 2020, 3:26 pm, in reply to "This might be useful"
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The problem is that, in showing — visually and verbally — that the U.S. force’s overpoweringly disproportionate might is accompanied by a total denial of even the basic humanity of those being attacked, the scene as a whole becomes something that provides the ‘white supremacist dirtbag’ demographic with a literal festival of racist extermination — complete with a handy primer in racist insult (“… Gook … Slopes … ####ing savages… stinking Dink … Dink bitch … Charlie…”). That's like complaining that the idiots that thought "Born in the U.S.A." was a patriotic celebration or "Wall Street" was praising bankers mean that that song and film have no merit. That fact that the 'white supremacists dirtbag" demographic will (apparently) misinterpret what they are watching doesn't negate the original intentions. Also, it seems they are not alone. The language used is offensive and it's also authentic. The "othering" of the enemy, often by means of derogatory terms, is pretty much part of basic training and was certainly incredibly common in the time depicted. It also contributes to the theme of the distance, moral and physical, between the attackers and their victims as noted in the previously quoted piece. It’s all very well to point to the sudden, intentionally horrifying early cut to the village square and its children as providing an emotional and moral ‘fixed point’; or to observe that the outrageous moral insensibility of ‘Col. Kilgore’ is written and filmed with the most scrupulous dramaturgical care: the fact remains that, as we watch this scene, the film itself erases the Vietnamese experience every bit as much as do the attacking characters — and every bit as much as would the lowest piece of pro-U.S. propaganda garbage. Thus the morally developed viewer is degraded by involvement in the ‘excitement’ that is, in reality, a totally dehumanised depiction of the attacked Vietnamese — who, as a result, are seen to die with no more significance than ants under a boot. (That is, of course, when they’re actually seen to die at all: in the scene’s final napalm attack on the tree-line, the doomed Vietnamese are even absent from their own extermination. The "...horrifying early cut to the village square and its children" does exactly what you go on to state is missing a few lines later. Their experience in this scene is going about their normal business and then being massacred by helicopter gunships. They are shown being killed all through the scene, albeit with no close-ups for the reasons noted in the criticism I quoted in my first post. The sequences where the machine gun crew is killed and the helicopter chases and guns down the grenade throwing woman are also fairly explicit. Also, how would you propose to show the Vietnamese experience of the napalm attack? An establishing shot of them firing from the treeline? The trouble is that what we hear about what those Vietnamese were doing to their own population in that story — a straightforward war crime, of course — is something that appears to have no historical basis. Let me go through that once again: the movie speech that, more than any other, gives the world its view of ‘what the Viet Cong did to their own people’s children’, retails events that, in historical reality, are not actually known to have occurred. That's a pretty specific category, "the movie speech that gives the world its view of what the Viet Cong did to their own people's children". What comes in second place? Third? Do you really think people are quoting Brando when they talk about this? The main idea of those particular lines is that Kurtz, or who and what Kurtz represents, sees sense, logic and a great efficiency in the most insane butchery. He thinks having more people who would commit such slaughter as the way forward. I don't doubt that the story of the amputations is false but the V.C. committed plenty of atrocities and war crimes (the Dak Son massacre just for one). Also, don't for a minute think I'm trying to support the invading hordes saving the world and our previous bodily fluids from communism. I just think this is reaching. As I do for the Do Lung Bridge scene being racist: the machine gunner you compared to Willie Best doesn't seem to be scared to me but rather consumed with blood lust. Maybe fear expressed as anger could be another interpretation. He also collects himself as soon as he realises he's speaking to an officer and gives a brief situation report; hardly a "feets don't fail me now" moment. As for the Roach being a "magical negro" he hardly goes out of his way to help the white man at great peril to himself (one of the main facets of that particular trope). He has to be virtually dragged over to their position. He does have "special powers" if you want to call being that company's "frag man" a special power but most units had people who were particularly good with certain weapons. But because he's black? Meh! Also, once he's done his killing he then walks away without answering the "Do you know who's in charge here?" question in a coherent manner, although he does answer it in an incredibly memorable way. Once again he isn't going out of his way to help. I do agree with your respect for the Do Lung Bridge scene cinematically; it's masterful. I think your writing on the BBC, at least what I've read, has been superb but I think we differ on some of this. Never get out of the boat. |