War and history within films

Platoon

'Platoon' is known as one of the best Vitenam war films with it's portrayal on the events yet has been criticised for its bad representation and acknowledgement of the Vietnamese roles within this war. Oliver Stone was the director for Platoon and is a well established director and producer for history films such as 'JFK' and 'Savior'.

'Platoon' gave me a window into the world at this time and that's the great element of films with a history event as the setting. However, as filmmakers have a structure to follow and an audience to entertain, we nearly always end up following one main character and therefore a bias view on subjects, such as war, normally following the Americans. Other war films like 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'Pearl Harbor' are also prime examples of this, following an American group of soldiers to save this American Private and we hear the Americans speaking of 'Dirty Germans' in Pearl Harbor. However, Platoon showed an honest view of the soldiers in that they didn't want to be there. They were scared. As an audience Stone educates us on the society differences and rights, with the poor characters were forced to go to war yet Charlie Sheen's character, Chris Taylor, chose to be there, who had a wealthy background. He later realises it's not somewhere anyone wants to be.


Pearl Harbor

What i enjoy about war films is telling a story from particular viewpoints and the different types of emotions they go through, when going through events we clearly know off through public history, yet are not aware of the people involved within these events. Fictional characters or not, it's a chance for us to experience history and imagine how we may feel through the characters we follow.

Saving Private Ryan - Normandy scene

With war films, there is the brutality of the scenes with gun-fires and explosions, along with many deaths. Saving Private Ryan has it's most realistic scene right at the beginning with the portrayal of the Normandy landing, going straight into peoples guts exploding everywhere and non-stop shooting. This shows just how suddenly war was and the In-humane of it. Platoon, I noticed also serves this effect with extremely quick cuts in the war battle scenes, with hand-held cameras following the characters as if we were another soldier behind them. With this shaky style, it creates a tension and relates us to the characters emotions as neither of us are that aware of where the bullets are flying or hitting.

Saving Private Ryan

Platoon

Platoon - re-creation on houses on fire

I think the main reasons for Platoon being praised as a great portrayal of the Vietnam war, is due to Oliver Stone's experience in the war and how he re-created scenes from famous photographs that the audience would relate to when thinking of that war.

'Platoon also painstakingly re-enacts a number of key photographs of the war including the burning of houses with Zippo cigarette lighters at Cam Ne, a Viet Cong suspect shot in the head during the Tet offensive and photos of civilians murdered by US troops at My Lai.'

                                (Westwell.G, 2006. P.78)

Westwell.G. (2006) 'War Cinema' 'Hollywoods Vietnam' P.78