The Vietnam War

[Capetan Mihali]

Vietnam was the first news that caught my attention.  The Stars & Stripes had a daily (weekly?) map showing the current battles and territory controlled. 

I think this was the first Northern invasion.  Might have been the second.

My first memories of Vietnam were mostly of it being a taboo subject.  Then in the 80s you had the flood of movies & documentaries.

Films about Vietnam are a fascinating subject. You get traditional war films like Green Berets while it's still raging on, dry anti-war fare like Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, etc...  in the 70s, and cap it with Rambo re-winning the war in the 80s alongside the more potsmodern and quasi-celebratory anti-war films like FMJ and Apocalypse Now.

It's one of those cases where you can really trace the evolution of a society through the art it produces, all in two decades.

70s.   Within a year or two of The Deer Hunter IIRC.

[The Minsky Moment]

.  I was serving in high school when the war ended.

The important thing is that you survived and were able to move past it.

[celedhring]

Vietnam was the first news that caught my attention.  The Stars & Stripes had a daily (weekly?) map showing the current battles and territory controlled. 

I think this was the first Northern invasion.  Might have been the second.

My first memories of Vietnam were mostly of it being a taboo subject.  Then in the 80s you had the flood of movies & documentaries.

Films about Vietnam are a fascinating subject. You get traditional war films like Green Berets while it's still raging on, dry anti-war fare like Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, etc...  in the 70s, and cap it with Rambo re-winning the war in the 80s alongside the more potsmodern and quasi-celebratory anti-war films like FMJ and Apocalypse Now.

It's one of those cases where you can really trace the evolution of a society through the art it produces, all in two decades.

70s.   Within a year or two of The Deer Hunter IIRC.

I knew somebody would point that out  , but it's much closer in style to the 80s movies. It's a precursor to them actually. Was released in 1979 IIRC.

[Ideologue]

Coppola was a pioneer.  Shame the only good thing with his name on it these days is his claret.

[derspiess]

I along with grumbler, who presumably served during a good chunk of the period, actually remember the Vietnam war. (must be a few others here who remember it)

I think you are taking the jokes about me serving in the Roman Army a little too literally.  I was serving in high school when the war ended.

But enough about Dien Bien Phu

[Admiral Yi]

I knew somebody would point that out  , but it's much closer in style to the 80s movies. It's a precursor to them actually. Was released in 1979 IIRC.

Really?  I see it closer thematically to Deer Hunter: Vietnam as a Greek tragedy.

[celedhring]

I knew somebody would point that out  , but it's much closer in style to the 80s movies. It's a precursor to them actually. Was released in 1979 IIRC.

Really?  I see it closer thematically to Deer Hunter: Vietnam as a Greek tragedy.

Deer Hunter, like the other classic 70s antiwar films (would lump Johnny Took His Gun with them, despite not being about 'Nam), is an uncomfortable, dry watch. It has very little stylisation and doesn't glamorize war in any way. Apocalypse Now is way more fetishistic, and it plays with both the attraction and repulsion of war, through its dizzying, LSD-like visuals and a character like Kurtz who repels and fascinates you simultaneously. In AN, war is something that it's as fascinating as it is terrible - a view that's not present in the 70s films- and which it is played upon in films like FMJ, Rambo, the Oliver Stone ones... from different ideological povs. There's a reason why people can spout Apocalypse Now, Rambo and FMJ quotes to no end, there's a pop quality to them that was absent in the 70s films, which were born right on the heels of the war.

[Capetan Mihali]

Yeah, I basically agree.  The whole helicopter-blasting-Wagner/"I love the smell of napalm in the morning" aesthetic is much more in line with the later mid-80s movies.

[alfred russel]

Films about Vietnam are a fascinating subject. You get traditional war films like Green Berets while it's still raging on, dry anti-war fare like Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, etc... right after it ends in the 70s, and cap it with Rambo re-winning the war in the 80s alongside the more potsmodern and quasi-celebratory anti-war films like FMJ and Apocalypse Now.

It's one of those cases where you can really trace the evolution of a society through the art it produces, all in two decades.

The first Rambo movie was more like Deer Hunter than it was the later Rambo movies.

[celedhring]

Films about Vietnam are a fascinating subject. You get traditional war films like Green Berets while it's still raging on, dry anti-war fare like Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, etc... right after it ends in the 70s, and cap it with Rambo re-winning the war in the 80s alongside the more potsmodern and quasi-celebratory anti-war films like FMJ and Apocalypse Now.

It's one of those cases where you can really trace the evolution of a society through the art it produces, all in two decades.

The first Rambo movie was more like Deer Hunter than it was the later Rambo movies.

The second is fascinating though! Rambo goes back to 'Nam to win the war and blame it on Washington.

[Admiral Yi]

I dunno celedhring.  Deerhunter is a pretty trippy film.  You don't think the Russian roulette scene (the first one) is fetishistic, stylized, etc, etc?

[alfred russel]

The second is fascinating though! Rambo goes back to 'Nam to win the war and blame it on Washington.

Stallone had a formula down pat with Rocky and Rambo. Have a lead character with a name that starts with R, have his name be the movie title, have a serious first movie that gets good reviews, then go full on 80s cheese for a bunch of sequels.

[celedhring]

I dunno celedhring.  Deerhunter is a pretty trippy film.  You don't think the Russian roulette scene (the first one) is fetishistic, stylized, etc, etc?

No, I don't think so. It's the most stylised scene in the film, but it's pretty straight from the "war as horror" playbook. It's a fucking painful scene to watch. Conversely, when you watch the helis going all Wagner on the village in AN, or the Battle of Hue in FMJ, there's a certain banalization of war, an "oh that's cool" feeling, that the 70s films would never do - and which is probably in tune with the 80s zeitgeist. That's sort of what I think that's at the hearth of what makes Nam films different in the 70s and the 80s.

Again, you can't create strait jackets to shoehorn films, books, etc... into neat categories, so I'm sure you can find stuff in 70s and 80s war films that probably defy my broad classification. Art is organic.

[Duque de Bragança]

The second is fascinating though! Rambo goes back to 'Nam to win the war and blame it on Washington.

Stallone had a formula down pat with Rocky and Rambo. Have a lead character with a name that starts with R, have his name be the movie title, have a serious first movie that gets good reviews, then go full on 80s cheese for a bunch of sequels.

Interesting, but it only works overseas where the first Rambo movie was  indeed called Rambo and not First Blood as in the US, in cinemas at least. 

[Malthus]

I read somewhere that "Apocalypse Now" actually inspired army recruitment - which I thought was really bizzare (assuming it is true).