it is their own story, told in their own words,
words they wrote home in letters from Vietnam
Every scene, every shot in the film is real,
Nothing has been re-enacted.”
It describes it as a film but some would describe this so-called ‘film’ as a documentary. A documentary is a type of visual media, that works hard to present the illusion that they are introducing actuality to their audience, whereas a film mostly presents a sequence of fictionised events or a re-enactment of a true story, directed to suit its intended audience. The majority of documentaries have narrators. The footage shown in this ‘film’ are real, as well as the letters that are read out but they are very likely to be edited and directed to suit its intended audience. It does give off the effect that it is introducing actuality to its audience. It gives that audience facts about what happened, and this type of format is most likely to be included documentaries rather than in films, but, the ‘film’ doesn’t have a narrator as most documentaries do. This is most likely because a narrator would detach the audience from the action and it would make the audience believe what the narrator says so they would not be able to come to their own conclusions about the situation. Having no narrator would prove effective as, the audience would think about the situation more and get more involved in the film, instead of being directed to a conclusion. Instead of having a narrator, all the facts are shown onto the screen.
Calling the film a documentary would make the events seem as if they happened in the past whereas calling it a film would make it seem as if it was happening then and there making it seem more real, getting the audience more interested and involved.
The factors mentioned above are probably why it is described as a film though it still had some characteristics that make it appear slightly more like a documentary.
The film was directed by an American director which could mean that it could have been slightly biased to suit the American version of events or the director’s own point of view which he wanted to bring across to the audience. The director’s own bias could have affected and influenced our own views of the happenings that took place.
A way that the film could have been constructed to influence the audience’s point of view is in the way in which it would have been edited.
There are some scenes which could have been cut to promote the fact that the America boys were the ones that were lost out or other such like factors to fit in with the probably biased viewpoint of the director, or the way that the director wants to put the film across to its audience.
The footage was most probably taken by US journalists, sent to Vietnam to report on what was going on. These journalists would most definitely have biased view points and would probably record and report on what they believe right and wrong about the situation and they would have definitely been instructed to record only how the war was affecting the American soldiers, as at that time in America, the Viet Cong were viewed as evil and the American soldiers were there to ‘save the day’- so to speak and so the footage would have been recorded to suit this point of view.
Even thought any scenes of the war weren’t re-enacted, the voices behind the actual letters were. This would mean, that the way that the actors/actresses recited the letters, might not have been the way the people who wrote the letters themselves, would have felt. The kind of emotion that these actors would have projected in their voices, would have probably affected the audience reacted to the letters. They would have had feelings towards the people who wrote the letters, such as sympathy, and these would just be reactions to a false interpretation of the letters. An example of this is, right near the end of the film, a woman is reading out a letter from herself to her dead son. It is actually an actress reading it out, but the way in which she says it, is so full of emotion, that it would probably invoke more sympathetic emotions from the audience, than it would have if it was read out in a flat tone of voice or if it was just displayed onto the screen for the audience themselves to read.
The actual letters picked out to use in the film, were probably very carefully chosen, to show how frightened the men fighting in the war were, and that they were just ‘scared little boys’ inside, making the audience feel pitying towards them.
The way in which the film used photos, is that they closed up on them, when letters were being read out, especially photos of soldiers when they were looking joyous, to give more of a sad sort of effect, to show how happy they once were, and to show how much the war had affected them.
Music was used effectively throughout the film. It was sort of a pathetic fallacy effect, where the music reflected what was going on at each point during the film. When the soldiers were on the beach, the mellow song ‘under the boardwalk’ was played, reflecting the carefree moods of them at that time. Then, Alice Cooper’s song ‘eighteen’ was played just after this when the boys were soldiers, the song reflected that they were still young and innocent and yet to experience many things. The song ‘I don’t want no Vietnam’ was a black disco song, play when the mood in the film got slightly more aggressive.
Another way that the film could have affected the audiences’ reactions to the situation, were the different effects and contrasts that were created. An example of this was the news reports that were broadcasted during the war in Vietnam and articles written around the same time, both displayed in the film. The television broadcasts and some articles, mostly showed what else was going around the world during the time of the war. Events such as the death of the four students, show how much more the nation reacted to individual cases than when hundreds of thousands of men were getting killed everyday, the war in Vietnam, didn’t seem real. The broadcasts of the three assassinations, Martin Luther King, John. F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, extended the view of the kind of world that this was, cruel and cold-blooded. It showed the obsession with political matters and the race for power, which sort of symbolized what was going on in Vietnam. Power over land. The Nixon event when he had some of his men steal secrets from the opposition, also proved this, the crave for power became so much, the last resort was to use extreme, unjust methods. These reports also indicated to the audience that it was not only he soldiers involved in the war that were suffering, but also people outside the war that were being broadcast to, families and friends, were also suffering as a result of the war.
A way in which contrast is used during the film is when all the soldiers are playing on the beach before they go to war, and seeing how happy they are, and then, moments later, they are all in helicopters with guns. dressed in uniform. This shows how easily boys can turn into men and how easily they can seem less innocence. This is also shows when, if comparing these first few scenes of the boys when they are happy and carefree, to the scenes of when the soldiers are destroying the houses and burning them up and torturing people, it show a sort of downfall from innocence, and how much the war affects the soldiers and turns them into something they once weren’t.
Another example of contrast is when the film showed a rather meek looking boy at the start of the film checking into a training camp to become a soldier, and then, the soldiers again fighting. This indicates the point mentioned in the afore written contrast in the film.
The film sets out with the intention of informing the nation of the horrors that took place in Vietnam and how the people in it suffered, but it was most definitely biased towards the Americans. The tension is present in the film from the start, but it is clear that as the film goes on, there is more aggression, building up, until a final emotional ending.
