17-09-2009, 07:22 PM
(This post was last modified: 17-09-2009, 07:47 PM by Jan Klimkowski.)
Peter - good points.
They make me realize that I view The Deer Hunter primarily as a film about American identity, rather than a Vietnam film.
For me, Apocalypse Now is a Vietnam movie: Conrad's Heart of Darkness meets the Phoenix Program.
Platoon is a Vietnam movie: complete with an ending which is Oliver Stone at his very worst.
I interpret Full Metal Jacket as part of Kubrick's lifelong exploration of Power, Control and the human Psyche. If A Clockwork Orange is about Their attempts to control and channel violence, Full Metal Jacket is about how They create Killers. And what causes Manufactured Killers to break with the conditioning and, potentially, rebel (or not): through Suicide at the end of Part One; and Horror at the end of Part Two.
Joker "mercy" kills the Vietnamese woman. Has he joined the Club? Or rebelled?
The credits roll as Marines exchange their tribal war songs for Disney: Who's the leader of the Club that's made for you and me? M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E!
The scenes set in the Russian American steel community at the heart of The Deer Hunter resonate very strongly with me. I view the movie as the story of a small, insular, community with a strong code of loyalty: the need to belong of outsiders. Suddenly that fundamental, unthinking, automatic, world view is tested by extreme events. The young men sign up to fight for "their country", to prove their loyalty, and end up playing Russian roulette in a rat-infested hellhole. Vietnam only really exists in the Russian roulette pits of the river and Saigon. For me, Vietnam represents a psychological trauma in the journey of these young Russian Americans discovering what is important and what isn't.
And perhaps this is why the one-dimensional portrayal of the Russian roulette game organizers doesn't really bother me. I don't see them as representing the Vietcong. I see them as extreme manifestations of the human condition, which Nicky (Walken) and Mike (DeNiro) are drawn to and repelled by, in their own different ways.
So, I read the end scenes of The Deer Hunter, Nicky's funeral, and the breakfast wake, as being the culmination of this journey into the psyche of these young people and their discovery of deeper meanings of identity, loyalty, love, hate.
Michael has finally brought Nick "home", to the American immigrant steel town in which he was born and raised.
They sit round the kitchen table, struggling to make sense of what they've been through.
"How does everybody want their eggs?"
"God bless America. Land that I love."
A great and ambiguous ending.
They make me realize that I view The Deer Hunter primarily as a film about American identity, rather than a Vietnam film.
For me, Apocalypse Now is a Vietnam movie: Conrad's Heart of Darkness meets the Phoenix Program.
Platoon is a Vietnam movie: complete with an ending which is Oliver Stone at his very worst.
I interpret Full Metal Jacket as part of Kubrick's lifelong exploration of Power, Control and the human Psyche. If A Clockwork Orange is about Their attempts to control and channel violence, Full Metal Jacket is about how They create Killers. And what causes Manufactured Killers to break with the conditioning and, potentially, rebel (or not): through Suicide at the end of Part One; and Horror at the end of Part Two.
Joker "mercy" kills the Vietnamese woman. Has he joined the Club? Or rebelled?
The credits roll as Marines exchange their tribal war songs for Disney: Who's the leader of the Club that's made for you and me? M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E!
The scenes set in the Russian American steel community at the heart of The Deer Hunter resonate very strongly with me. I view the movie as the story of a small, insular, community with a strong code of loyalty: the need to belong of outsiders. Suddenly that fundamental, unthinking, automatic, world view is tested by extreme events. The young men sign up to fight for "their country", to prove their loyalty, and end up playing Russian roulette in a rat-infested hellhole. Vietnam only really exists in the Russian roulette pits of the river and Saigon. For me, Vietnam represents a psychological trauma in the journey of these young Russian Americans discovering what is important and what isn't.
And perhaps this is why the one-dimensional portrayal of the Russian roulette game organizers doesn't really bother me. I don't see them as representing the Vietcong. I see them as extreme manifestations of the human condition, which Nicky (Walken) and Mike (DeNiro) are drawn to and repelled by, in their own different ways.
So, I read the end scenes of The Deer Hunter, Nicky's funeral, and the breakfast wake, as being the culmination of this journey into the psyche of these young people and their discovery of deeper meanings of identity, loyalty, love, hate.
Michael has finally brought Nick "home", to the American immigrant steel town in which he was born and raised.
They sit round the kitchen table, struggling to make sense of what they've been through.
"How does everybody want their eggs?"
"God bless America. Land that I love."
A great and ambiguous ending.
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war