Platoon: Apocalypse Was

Oliver Stone's Platoon has provided an in-depth and personal incite in to American occupation in Vietnam.  The 1986 Best Picture winner takes the audience through a soldier’s time in Vietnam wherein not only does protagonist Chris Taylor undergo a psychological transformation but often many of the audience do as well.  Platoon as a film not only is a direct response to nationalist propaganda attempting to change opinion of American efforts in Vietnam, but also retains a post-modern quality to it linking it to other Vietnam War films.

            As many other Vietnam War films such as Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter are typically criticized as sacrificing realistic aspects of Vietnam in order to attain metaphorical and abstract allegory, Platoon does not share such criticism.  As the audience begins to follow Private Taylor in to the merciless and hell-inducing jungle we soon begin to make judgments of the rest of his company.  We find ourselves siding with the moral weed-smoking soldiers, led by Sergeant Elias, while we are opposed to the blood thirsty war hawks, led by Sergeant Barnes.  As most of our experiences through the war are shaped directly through what Taylor witnesses these initial characterizations seem quite defined around halfway through the movie as we begin to understand the horrors of the war. 

            As the platoon finds their way to a North Vietnam Army (NVA) camp, one of the soldiers in their platoon is abducted and brutally killed by the NVA’s and nailed to a tree in order to scare the soldiers.  As the platoon arrives at the camp the American soldiers take all of their aggression out on innocent villagers and this is where Oliver Stone makes some of his most interesting choices directorally.

            In this scene specifically I was shown in-depth how brutal war genuinely is as well as insight in to how a soldier feels during such atrocities.  To start, a mentally handicapped man did not understand the directions to move that Private Taylor had given, and in frustration and in vengeance Taylor begins to shoot at his feet.  As Taylor walks away crying, another soldier, Bunny, walks over and begins to beat the man in the head with the butt of his rifle killing him.  The interesting directorial choice was in not showing the man being killed, I don’t think it was because of a lack of special effects and making it look real, but gives deeper insight in to how war feels.  The montage of semi-quick paced shots were static in order to give the viewer a disturbing stillness to the scene, while also cutting to reaction shots  of the soldiers, many of which are in horror as splatters of blood hit their face.  This provides the viewer with the understanding that even to those who had seen some of the worst of combat, still found this act to be horrendous and shocking.  While some say a later rape as well as the violence feel romanticized, because of the lack of shocking and disturbing material (somewhat ironic), the scene where a villager’s wife is shot in the head is shown in its most brutal form. 

            The scene where a villager’s wife is shot because he does not give Lieutenant Barnes discernable information regarding NVA locations, is shown in its utter and disturbing sincerity.  Unlike the previous atrocity, this scene is shown in one or two very long shots where we are allowed to see how distressing the event really is.  I believe Oliver Stone made this interesting choice because in this scene it seemed as though everyone had their attention drawn to this argument which resulted in this women’s death.  Everyone was drawn in through tension.  The earlier killing had been done in fragmentation because much else was going around the soldiers, as they were still shell-shocked they had distractions around them permitting them to partially look away, while the scene did not.  This scene and the killing of Lieutenant Elias and Lieutenant Barnes, as Devil and Christ figures proves not only do both sides of the moral spectrum not make it through to the war, but those not even directly involve not make it through.  This creates a moral ambiguity not only for the viewer, but also for Private Taylor who remains arguably, ethically intact while morally broken.    While this proved to be unique in its portrayal of Vietnam War violence, Platoon still pays homage to Vietnam films made prior.

            Earlier films such as Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter had played major roles in creating Platoon either through similar characters or pictorial depictions.  Similarities can certainly be seen in Platoon’s Lieutenant Barnes and Apocalypse Now’s Colonel Kurtz.  Both characters are the renegade authority who disregards all morality in order to achieve a goal.  Leading to the realization at the end of both films that: we as a country were fighting not only the Vietcong but also our own predispositions concerning morality.  Also similarly the characters of Private Taylor and Special Forces Willard, played non-coincidentally by Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen, which provides the audience with another connection and whole other lineage concerning the aging of opinion of the Vietnam War.  Another connection that was made at the very end of Platoon is when Private Taylor wakes up and sees a deer, a connection to 1978’s The Deer Hunter.  The deer for both movies represents the loss of innocence.  This is made apparent after Taylor minutes later finds the injured Barnes and makes the decision to kill him in retribution to killing his friend Lieutenant Elias.

            As Platoon conjures up the atrocities of war and puts them in the faces of the audience, an honesty is shown wherein America as well as its people have lost all innocence and revealed that there is in fact duality between ultimate good and evil.