eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Eugene Miya) (01/07/90)
BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY
A film review by Eugene Miya
in the public domain
Born on the Fourth of July
Directed by Oliver Stone
Why would anyone want to see this film? Sounds like a Springsteen song.
Some people like Tom Cruise. I can understand; I paid ASC dues for a
while. It's not comedy, and it's not one of those macho man films, but I think
there were some people in the audience who thought it might have been. This
film won't have many repeat attendees. It was emotionally draining for a few
people.
It is a long film, nearly 2.5 hours. A few of the scenes might seem down
and out. I guess life is kind of like that, and as I get older, I have tended
to get tired of some of the current same-as-always fare. So you might not like
this (my) view. I don't know if people want Vietnam films, judging from
popular expression of support in Panama--an irony it happens at the same time.
I went to see this film because when I was growing up I remember Dad
watching the tube and seeing a fellow named Ron Kovic in a wheelchair and my
Dad exclaiming, "That man is a Communist." It happened more than once, and
that was my introduction to The Vietnam Veteran Against the War.
This film is not for weak stomachs. It does not show some aspects of life
in a very positive manner: values, non-White races, women [to a degree],
Catholicism, the VA [especially], people with handicaps, and others "we" don't
treat well. Especially the VA: I know that from personal experience because I
remember spending lots of time at VA hospitals [Westwood and Long Beach] with
my Dad who was a Legionnaire (and I was a Son: still recall the preamble,
visiting WWII vets, and I know that those and other earlier Vets tended to look
down up the Nam vets.
The obvious comparison is Hal Ashby's COMING HOME. This is a different
story, a real one. You can go borrow Kovic's book from a library (is it still
in print?). So you can check the deals as I did for Michael Fox's CASUALTIES
OF WAR. I do not think it is possible to spoil the film by recounting the
sequence of events: it is a very graphic, very visual film.
I think this is one of the most powerful films of the year. It is very
similar in tone to Stone's earlier PLATOON (incidental music is the same).
There are no BIG names in this film. Tom Berringer and Wilhelm Dafoe from that
earlier film appear in this film: Berringer as a recruiting sergeant (I
remember when that happened in my life) and Dafoe as another vet in a chair.
The details are well taken care of, perhaps too obvious in attention to having
a few long scenes: the anti-war books before Kovic changed his mind (JOHNNY GOT
HIS GUN and ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT), Life Magazines, the TV footage;
oh, Stone himself appears as a newscaster interviewing a colonel on the tube.
Ron Kovic himself is in the film as another wheelchair-bound vet.
This is another one of those "male-bonding" films, to use the cliche. It
does not speak well of fixed roles, or how we treat our fellow man. A signal
the film sends out (from the 50s) is that it is an honor to give your life for
your country: the ultimate sacrifice. But the film shows that to die is
preferable to coming back "less than whole." These men who returned have made
the ultimate sacrifice.
I don't know how well it will do in the box-office in the long run. I
went to see the film at a nearly full Saturday matinee when I was waiting for a
long computer run. Do I used Leeper's scale? Dare I gave it a +3? Sure. May
even be a +4. But people like Kovic's mother would question that (remember, I
said that some women do not appear in a favorable light). That's Leeper's
scale. Only time will tell.
Okay, you had your chance (that concludes commentary). Synopsis follows--
nothing else. Again, it's visceral, so I don't think I will give any earth-
shattering thing away.
The film begins with two boys paying Army (Ron) on Long Island in 1956.
(I remember the surplus helmet I had.) Well done, down to throwing the dirt.
It's the 4th of July, Ron's birthday. They attend a parade, see the soldiers,
the disabled vets. One first notices one of the vets wincing at the sound of
firecrackers (I never saw anything like that growing up, but the parade was
well done; I've walked in three or four myself). Ron's future "sweetheart" is
shown. Not into girls yet. It moves to a time when Kennedy is stepping into
office (the "ask not what you country can do for you..." speech; this evoked
the only cheer in my audience). But Ron's mother is worried about Communism.
Said many times through the film.
The next scenes show Ron getting older. He's into wrestling, and he loses.
He's working very hard, the American dream. His mother catches him with a
Playboy (I am surprised she did not do the equivalent to washing his mouth with
soap). The group pressure is shown. A recruiting team visits. He decides to
become a Marine. His Dad, a WWII Vet, isn't so sure he should do this, not
saying why, not a strong-willed father figure. The concept of duty to country
was well shown. His brother playing Dylan.
It's too bad the film is as long as it is. It would be a great film if it
had the training scenes from FULL METAL JACKET at this point, but the film now
cuts to a beach near the DMZ. It's a village they are preparing to check out.
They open fire early, the confusion starts, and the pressure of authority
(command) is there. Ron, on his second tour (that part seemed a bit less
probable), and his men (one new) check out for friendly casualties. They
wasted a few. The wounds are very graphic--there is a way the skin parts on a
grazing wound and they show this. But then they are under attack. The
confusion of battle and retreat is well portrayed. NVA, bullets. Looking
toward the sun, movement, Ron shoots. It's the new man. From Georgia. Not a
pretty sight.
The Major denies Ron killed his own man, but Ron is feeling it. They
don't tell you that 10-12% of the casualties of a war are caused by "friendly
fire" (explored by a Carol Burnett film of that title). Remember that when
you see Panama casualty figures.
Ron is getting a bit frosty; his mind is off somewhere else. Some months
later, Ron's squad is advancing on another village. The NVA open up. Someone
gets it thru the head. Ron gets his heel blown off, but still the fighter, he
keeps shooting. He gets hit. Point of view includes getting hauled out. This
is the only film I know which shows the exit wound as well as an entry wound.
Ron has a gaping hole in his back. The aid station is a nightmare. Soldiers
dying. Just when you thought it was bad....
The VA hospital is shown as a real nightmare. COMING HOME was clean
compared to this. Ron tries real hard; he still has his fighting spirit. He's
trying to regain the use of his legs when the doctors are telling him no hope.
When he falls, it's a compound fracture on a paraplegic. He tragically loses
his leg. The chair forever now. This whole sequence is not for weak
stomaches. And it forebode more: "America Love it or Leave."
He finally goes home. Things are different. One "sleeze" peer has gone
into business (was in college). He gets a chance to feel better; he's in
parade dress and to speak on the 4th from a platform. When he gets a memory
from a baby crying. He can't finish, but he runs into an old buddy who has
also been there. Lost friends are discussed in a way only a Vet can joke
about.
He sees his sweetheart. A demonstration [Readjustment Blues by John
Denver would have been right here]. Ron is slowly becoming a problem. His
hair starting to get longer. He has a confrontation with a WWII Vet. He blows
up in front of his Mom, Catholicism, and his Dad suggests Mexico.
Down in Mexico, he sees other wheelchair-bound vets. He is killing time.
Gets into a fight with Dafoe, tragic humor at its best. What are you going to
do, Ron? He visits the parents of the man he killed. Many tokens of past
soldiers in the house. You can guess for yourself if he tells a story of
bravery or the truth. A powerful moment.
The film concludes which Ron (a Republican) getting into the 1972
Republican convention and "disrupting it." One of the vets is really an
undercover cop, trying to get him specifically (this really happened). The
media coverage. Then the 1976 Democratic convention. His book is out. He is
"home."
This film would appear a real downer except at the very beginning and end.
The problem is that many of these people, policies, attitudes still exist. It
would be really hard to create an uplifting ending. It is a film about
principles.
It is somewhat ironic the film was shot in the Philippines where so much
recent blood has been shed. One hears a a couple dozen killed in Panama, but
few remember that over 300 Americans were wounded, some by friendly fire, some
to probably go thru what Kovic did. Then what of the 1000 Panamanians? What
of the millions of Vietnamese? Okay, so this is commentary. Finis.
Another gross generalization from
--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
{ncar,decwrl,hplabs,uunet}!ames!eugenelmann@jjmhome.UUCP (Laurie Mann) (01/19/90)
BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY
A film review by Laurie Mann
Copyright 1990 Laurie Mann
While there are a few missteps in the movie, the acting is superb. I
never really considered Tom Cruise an actor until I saw this film. Oliver
Stone continues building on his reputation as a director who creates visceral,
gut-wrenching movies. An 8 or 9 on the Chuck scale.
BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY is the true story of Ron Kovic, a
rabble-rousing Viet Nam paraplegic and how he got that way. The film opens
idyllically in the late '50s, when little Ronny Kovic is playing soldiers with
his friends. The action switches to the 4th of July parade, where we meet
Ronny's ever-growing family, and Donna, the girl who'll break his heart
eventually. The scenes of Massapequa, New York are scenes of a safe home,
where the greatest danger is Mom finding a Playboy in teenaged Ronny's room.
As a teenager, Ronny is a driven idealist who goes into the Marines right
after graduation. The action jumps ahead three years, and we see Sargeant
Kovic, an almost-hardened soldier. Almost immediately, there's shooting and
death, and within fifteen minutes of the film's arrival in Vietnam, there's
the awful scene of Ron Kovic going down fighting, followed by five minutes of
hell in the field hospital. I couldn't watch most of the field hospital
sequences; it was some of the most gruesome stuff I'd ever seen. But it was
never gratuitous. The audience is as numbed by the gore as Ron Kovic was.
The next sequences in the Bronx VA hospital are so outrageous that they
can only be true. Kovic pushes himself, and pushes some more, and eventually
is forced to realize that he'll never walk again. He never really accepts
that, or his experiences in Vietnam, and sinks into alcoholism after he
returns home to Massapequa.
A lot goes on in the 2-1/2-hour running time of this movie. His
conversion to a militant pacifist and vet against the war happens pretty
quickly near the end of the movie. But Tom Cruise really makes us believe that
Ron Kovic spent the first few years of his physical paralysis as a sort of
emotional spastic. A person who let the world go on so long as he could drink,
and would only occasionally let the rage show.
The supporting cast, particularly the actors who play Kovic's parents, are
all fine. Willem Dafoe has a great turn as a drugged-out paraplegic Kovic
meets in Mexico.
As much as I like the movie, I noticed the following problems with it:
1. The movie has an awful sense of time, and only intermittently tells
the viewer what year it is.
2. Vietnam looked too much like Mexico. That's because Stone shot
the Vietnam portions in Mexico. Then he chose almost IDENTICAL
opening shots (incredibly yellow aerial shots of sand dunes) to
establish both locales (Kovic goes to Mexico for some R&R).
3. Kovic has a major falling out with his parents. So they disappear
from the movie completely when he goes to Mexico. That doesn't
make a lot of sense, since his family had been such a big part
of his life up till that point. Even to see a shot of Mrs.
Kovic crying when her son appears on TV at the '72 Republican
National Convention would have been fine.
4. Same problem with Donna. The movie strongly implies that she's
gotten married, and she introduces Kovic to anti-war protests.
She also completely disappears from the movie.
5. I didn't think the sex scene (which is detailed in this month's
Premire magazine) worked all that well. I understand that it
wasn't supposed to be all that erotic, but it just felt
rather muddled.
6. The movie could have been trimmed by about another five minutes with
no damage done, particularly the murky scene after the very
dramatic disruption of the Republican National Convention.
7. The last shot of the movie shows Kovic about to officially
address the Democratic National Convention in 1976. It would
have been terrific to show the real Ron Kovic addressing the
the crowd under the credits.
/*I'm a woman by nature, a mother by choice. ** Capitalist for choice!
Laurie Mann ** harvard!m2c!jjmhome!lmann ** lmann%jjmhome@m2c.m2c.org
Work: Stratus Computer ** Home: Northboro, MA ** lmann@jjmhome.UUCP */skrenta@cbmvax.commodore.com (Rich Skrenta) (01/19/90)
BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY
A film review by Rich Skrenta
Copyright 1990 by Rich Skrenta
I just saw BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY. I can't find fault with any of the
film's messages. Its scenes held together okay. Technically it was fine.
However, I did not find the film entertaining, and it did not emotionally
involve me very much. It seemed to be more of a collage of scenes from the era
than a story. The film's one message -- that the Vietnam war was a mistake --
was beaten until it was dead. I kept waiting for something to *happen*. For
the development of any one of the other characters. His brother. Charlie in
Mexico. His father. His high school sweetheart. One of his friends.
Unfortunately, Ron was the only character who we see throughout the film.
His character development consisted of his change from blind patriotism to his
disillusionment with the government. Very simple, we see it coming, it's no
big surprise when it happens.
I haven't read the book the movie's based on; perhaps they follow it
faithfully, which I suppose is a good thing. However, there's a couple of
things I would like to have seen in the movie:
- It would have been nice to see his vocal denouncement of
the war have an effect on somebody. Anybody. He repeats his
speech many times: in the bar, to his parents, to an anonymous
reporter. However, we don't see a single effect from his
words.
- Ron was the only character that received any development in
the film. I would like to have seen a more complex change
take place in him than the binary switch from Yes-I-Like-My-
Country to No-I-Think-the-War-is-Wrong.
- I thought the scene in the Wilsons (?--the parents of the
American soldier he shot) living room was distressingly
shallow. I was expecting him to realize that perhaps his
CO wasn't an evil monster for not telling the boy's parents
the truth. Why did he have to shatter the story of their
son's death? Was it necessary? Perhaps it was, but I was
upset that Ron didn't even consider that perhaps he was doing
the wrong thing by telling them.
Individually, I thought the scenes were well done and powerful. However,
I wish they would have been tied together into a stronger story. The film came
off as little more than highlight's of Ron's life and the Vietnam era. I left
the theater with the feeling that I'd already seen the whole movie in the
preview and the video on MTV. I wish it would have had a more complex message.
Rich