156 Hearts and Minds

[HerrSchreck]

I don't think anyone in the US really would give a shit if the Taliban regrouped and stayed in power forever-- so long as they kept to within their borders and repressed their own people and didn't allow it to turn into what it turned into. The US never gave much of a crap about the abuses of the Talibs prior to 9/11.

The situation is enormously complicated because of the international intentions of the Taliban. It's a shitty, dangerous, expensive, unpleasant reality that nobody wants to have to deal with. But it's far different from Iraq. Indeed, one of the shittiest things about Iraq was how much it drained from the neccessary and correct operations in Afghanistan and the true culprit of 9-11, bin Laden.

[Murdoch]

Plus, even if the Taliban are somehow ousted there is still the enormous amount of problems within Afghanistan that have been around since before the mujahideen days. The country has ethnic warfare, lack of infrastructure (I think they only have one established roadway, although I may be misinformed on that), very little arable land, etc. The taliban represent only one facet of a country in complete ruin where their borders are largely meaningless and there is little Afghan national identity outside of the Pushtun majority which remains largely fractured itself.

If the taliban do disband or evaporate - not that I see this happening anytime this decade or the next - there may be another fundamentalist group that takes their place. The country has never had a government that actually represented its citizenry and the multiple clans that hold actual power undermine the government with their strong code of Pushtunwali emphasizing blood revenge and manhood. The only two established state institutions are the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and the military, and those are hardly without their flaws.

The taliban are the US's biggest problem in the country, but the country itself has so many problems of equal and greater magnitude than extremist groups maintaining their violent hold of control that it's unlikely the will be able to rise above such constraints in any of our lifetimes.

Ugh, it's just so fucked up and the continued massacres, non-representation of Afghan minorities, and Pakistan's fueling of the Taliban machine just make it worse and worse.
Anyway, hoping for the best, expecting the worst...

[Antoine Doinel]

Peter Davis takes a look back at the film.

[Minkin]

DVD Beaver

[Tom Hagen]

It probably doesn't bode well for the current state of DVD that Beaver is resorting to reviewing eight-year-old Criterions that they hadn't gotten around to yet.

[colinr0380]

It is nice that they are filling in the gaps, but it might perhaps have been more appropriate to have run this review in a few months to coincide with the BBS box set, since this is another BBS film. In particular wasn't it also one of the few BBS produced films that won at the Oscars? On a brief check of imdb I can only find The Last Picture Show's two acting honors to add to Hearts & Minds' Best Documentary Feature Oscar.

Not to put pressure onto DVD Beaver but I would really like to see them compare the Criterion (which I have) with the UK disc, which came out a year or so later with a different commentary where Peter Davis talks with critic Nick Bradshaw. Here's the DVD Times review of the UK disc. I'd be especially interested to find out whether there are many differences in material that might feature between the two commentaries.

[Tom Hagen]

Bert Schnieder produced Days of Heaven for Paramount, which won for Almendros' (but controversially not Wexler's) cinematography.

[bamwc2]

It probably doesn't bode well for the current state of DVD that Beaver is resorting to reviewing eight-year-old Criterions that they hadn't gotten around to yet.

Gary lets me review whatever I feel like reviewing at any given time. I wanted to get all of the missing spines cleared out over the next few weeks. It actually says a lot more about my battle with OCD, then anything going on with the website. Anyway, it's going to have to wait awhile, because I just got a box of newish discs from Artificial Eye about an hour ago...

Oh, and Colin, thanks for the info about the UK disc. I knew that they released it, but I had no idea that it had a new commentary. I'll definitely see if I can get my hands on it.

[bamwc2]

To posted on my Beaver review:

Well folks, I goofed. Shortly after Gary posted my reviews for these five Criterions, I began receiving notification that the pictures were not representative of the video quality of the releases. Although I initially defended my captures, I recently realized that when I took the screen captures, the software that I use to do this was incorrectly configured. Fortunately these are the only reviews of mine that were affected. I will redo the captures as soon as possible, but since they are currently in storage roughly 300 miles away from me, it will likely take a week or two before I can get that done. I apologize for the difficulty and I assure you that I will take every step in the future to ensure that this won’t happen again. I’ll end by reiterating for those who are considering purchasing these discs, THE IMAGE ON THE DISCS LOOKS BETTER THAN WHAT IS CURRENTLY DISPLAYED.

[bamwc2]

The pics have all now been fixed.

[domino harvey]

Upgrade coming

High-definition digital restoration, supervised by director Peter Davis and cinematographer Richard Pearce, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Audio commentary featuring Davis
A collection of over two hours of never-before-seen outtakes from the film, including interviews with presidential adviser George Ball, broadcast journalist David Brinkley, French journalist and historian Philippe Devillers, political activist Tony Russo, and General William Westmoreland
PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by Davis, film critic Judith Crist, and historians Robert K. Brigham, George C. Herring, and Ngo Vinh Long

[Gregory]

General William Westmoreland

I can't wait to see if he has any other pearls of wisdom about the Vietnamese people.

[manicsounds]

dvdbeaver

[manicsounds]

blu-ray.com review gets a surprisingly low 3.0 movie score, but high on tech specs and extras.

[Gregory]

What "finger-pointing" and "dangerous half-truths"? With no examples given, these claims are completely unconvincing. I also get tired of the "propaganda" criticism of political documentaries, because of the implied deception in that term. As if the objection is bias, then one is faced with the very dubious premise that anyone could assemble a neutral, objective film about a topic like war—in this case a war of aggression in which civilians were routinely killed, and so many American draftees ending up killed, maimed, and psychologically affected by the horrors that were going on. That's a bit different from choosing to show a scientific viewpoint in Cosmos (a scientific film by its nature) and not being bound to present the "other side of the issue"—creationism. In a film about something like the Vietnam War, no matter what a director chooses to show, it will be seen as confirming one or another viewpoint. Documentaries that give the appearance of keeping their hands clean of any partisanship whatsoever are just more disingenuous about the ways in which they sidestep moral and political questions that are crucial to understanding the subject.

All of the interviewees are allowed to freely express their opinions – Davis never interrupts them with provocative questions or annoying remarks – but the documentary is very carefully edited to create contrasts that slowly yet effectively undermine the arguments of the pro-war supporters. Especially during the second half, where there is an abundance of graphic footage, the strategy becomes painfully obvious.

As in many documentaries, this tactic can be thought of as letting people speak their piece and, in doing so, they're given enough rope to hang themselves with. If the war supporters' views end up undermined, that's probably because their claims were at odds with the reality on the ground, or with viewers' moral convictions that people in different countries are equally human beings, and so generalizations about "the Orientals'" alleged lack of value for human life and dignity, to use the infamous Westmoreland example, just don't fly. If he said it on camera and the statement was not misleadingly edited, then why is it a dirty trick to include it in the film just because he comes out looking bad to those who don't share his racism?

Anyway, Emile De Antonio's In the Year of the Pig... now that's a real propaganda (agit-prop) documentary (and it's great).

[Tuco]

I saw Emile De Antonio at San Francisco State back around 76-78, at a retrospective showing of POINT OF ORDER, MILLHOUSE and IN THE YEAR OF THE PIG. Naturally, he was asked about HEARTS AND MINDS. "Heartless and Mindless," was his judgement.

I had seen the film at the L.A. County Museum of Art, and though outraged at what Vietnam had become for our country at the tender age of 18 (The Littlest Leftie), was nonetheless more than a little shocked to hear about half of the audience cheering at the sight of a B-52 going down in flames, since I figured there might be a few Americans on it...

Have only revisited the film once, probably in the early 80's, but found it a bit smug. No denying De Antonio's POV, of course, but thought his approach to the war carried more, uh, conviction? Will need to revisit H&M - if anybody is related to Ho, Johnson or Nixon, my apologies. Well, maybe not Dick...

[flyonthewall2983]

blu-ray.com review gets a surprisingly low 3.0 movie score, but high on tech specs and extras.

Peter Davis' Hearts and Minds is a carefully constructed propaganda film which should appeal primarily to folks whose political views are identical to those of its creator.

Says more about the reviewer than the movie itself.

[domino harvey]

I thought this part was particularly telling

I liked some of the interviews and stuff but man it was no The Green Berets amrite

[domino harvey]

Actually, I see it was written by our ol' (former) post-signing member Pro-B. He weighs in with this in their forum for the title:

4. This film won an Oscar Award for Best Documentary in 1975. It does not work as such because it is clearly constructed to manipulate the viewer's opinion of a number of different events. The end result is this: It only supports the political agenda of its creator.

I am now interested in what his doctorate is in, because it (hopefully) can't be film studies. If you think any documentary is required to be an objective article (or that such a thing can exist), well, maybe just stick to taking screencaps and save the insights for those capable of making them?

Though it could be worse: Another member of the Blu-ray forum criticizes the film with no irony for not mentioning the atrocities that took place in Vietnam once the US withdrew in 1975, a full year after the film was released!

I can't believe it's really gotten to the point where people are trying to earnestly reclaim the Vietnam war as a success, Jesus! I feel like Michelle Williams in Land of Plenty after being told the US won the war: "You mean metaphorically?"

[EddieLarkin]

His Blu-ray.com reviewer profile states:

Dr. Atanasov worked in the European film distribution system in the early 90s before committing to academic research. Music and media are both his hobby and profession. He is a regular contributor to the IDRS journal, IMDB, as well as a number of overseas publications. He holds a Doctorate in Music from Indiana University-Bloomington and specializes in European cinema.

[domino harvey]

Well, at least his claim to being a "Professional Bassonist" checks out

[Gregory]

The generally very selective use of the term "propaganda" to condemn something that puts something like U.S. foreign policy in less than a glowing light is interesting, and of course the film has been dismissed that way since it came out, along with all kinds of other films of the time that allowed "anti-establishment" types to have a voice (see "False Art of the Propaganda Film" by Walter Goodman, New York Times, 3/23/75). Throughout the war up until the Tet Offensive, nearly all commentary and coverage about it was extremely biased toward it being a noble and heroic anticommunist crusade that we were going to win, and after Tet the mainstream discussion shifted to a narrow range of debate in which the "opposition" view allowed was limited to concerns that the war was a well-intentioned mistake but an unfortunate strategic error, not worth the cost in American lives, etc. None of that was deemed "propaganda" except by the radical fringe.

Virtually nowhere in the mainstream discourse did anyone state the "radical" position that the war was utterly indefensible on all kinds of basic moral and legal grounds and that massive killings of civilians were taking place routinely, etc. So when a film comes along that simply allows views like that to be voiced — such as by one of the veterans, who accurately uses the word "criminality" to describe some of what U.S. planners and policymakers had done — then obviously that's "propaganda," and so Columbia refused to even distribute the film. (When a government presents its own slanted view of reality, that's known as "making a statement," and when the mainstream media echoes the official truth, that's "public information" and "commentary.")

[mfunk9786]

His Blu-ray.com reviewer profile states:

Dr. Atanasov worked in the European film distribution system in the early 90s before committing to academic research. Music and media are both his hobby and profession. He is a regular contributor to the IDRS journal, IMDB, as well as a number of overseas publications. He holds a Doctorate in Music from Indiana University-Bloomington and specializes in European cinema.

Pretty hilarious quote from his review of, of all things, the new Rob Zombie concert film on Blu-ray:

The crowd is having a terrific time throughout the entire show. It is also worth mentioning that an unusually large number of women of different ages are frequently seen flashing their breasts.

So glad we're getting such insight into the films being reviewed instead of just video/audio/supplement overviews. Great work as always, blu-ray.com.

[CSM126]

Yes, but are those breasts seen in a "new approved by the Canadian director transfer"?

*Seriously, does anyone else get irked every time they post a review with that wording? Is it so hard to write "new transfer approved by the director"? Fuck, it's like they write their articles in French and then run them through babelfish.

[movielocke]

Stunning film throughout, I cannot wait to dive into some of those interviews.

One thing that particularly struck me and made me sit up from the beginning of the film was the squirming evasiveness of the gentleman who does not want to answer a question about how the war began. He attempts to dodge the question multiple times and insults the intelligence of the filmmakers for asking him the question. Eventually, his answer is that the war began with Sputnik.

Wow.

part of why that bit struck home for me is that after Forrest Gump came out, I started asking questions about Vietnam. My parents (arch conservatives both, but born late fifties, so my dad wasn't draftable), refused or couldn't answer my questions about how the war began, or why we went to war or what we were fighting for or against. When told "communism," I could not understand how communism in Vietnam was a threat to the United States, just look at a map, or play Risk, obviously not a threat. I understood Pearl Harbor, Assassination of Arch Duke, Fort Sumter etc, but no one ever had a reply for me for what started the Vietnam war. I asked teachers and never got a reply. Textbooks all throughout my schooling either skipped over--literally, it sometimes felt like an entire chapter had been ripped out--the Vietnam war or were every bit as evasive in print as all the adults that lived it were to my direct questions. And yet the Vietnam war was everywhere on TV, in the movies, sometimes in my parents old music, and of course in the political discourse, particularly in some of the draft dodgey things I heard about Bill Clinton all the time (it seemed to me he was pretty smart avoiding it). Vietnam permeated and touched every cultural institution I encountered growing up in the 90s and yet no one would ever give me a straight answer on how and why and what happened to embroil us in the war, much less what we fought for. The encylcopedia I remember being not much help, I didn't think to look for other books from the library and there wasn't any internet accessible to me, not that I even knew what a search was at the time. An elementary school teacher read the class aloud the Land I lost, but that just confused me more since the vietnamese were clearly fighting villainous French colonial overlords and they were fighting for independence, they weren't fighting the united states, and in any event, we would obviously support people trying to win independence because that's what we did with the british.

And there you have it, in the opening minutes of this documentary in an interview from 73 or 74, the pattern starting. Refuse, belittle, evade and shame people who ask questions about the war. Even the most basic of questions about the war. It's impressive that it stretched that far back, that ignorance of the war was so highly prized, so enthusiastically defended.