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Date Posted: Mon, June 27 2005, 12:15:50
Author: Lisa Elliott
Author Host/IP: 24.21.73.178
Subject: Re: movies of VietNam
In reply to: Tom Leonard 's message, "Re: movies of VietNam" on Sat, June 25 2005, 20:10:43

I do love John Wayne. I love El Dorado and The Quiet Man and Hatari and any movie pretty much he's ever done. Because he's a cowboy, a swaggering fighter, or he's the Col./Capt./Lt./Sgt./Maj. inspiring men to follow his brave lead . . . in every case, he is the "Man's Man." And his characters fit well into the themes they were placed . . . except this one. Vietnam is not the kind of setting one would envision the Duke. I think because the Duke is a character of strength in clear lines drawn of what is right and wrong, and the stories we like to see him in are the kind we can root on the good guy and boo the bad guy . . . and even that is up for speculation if one happens to be a Native American.
But Vietnam does not seem at all to be the kind of black and white situation the Duke sits comfortably in.

If indeed the booby traps exhibited in that film were realistic, it did grab me in that sense. I had never heard of or seen a representaion of punji sticks and they were everywhere in that film.

So it seems like a rallying film. Calling upon John to lead the populous troops to the good cause, when perhaps, as you say, at the time, there was more going on, and no cowboy could simply make sense of it all, but it may have been comfort film, because that's how I feel about John Wayne. As though he were a protector and a champion of justice, but the whole time I watched the Green Berets, I kept thinking how he was just like every other cowboy or serviceman he'd ever played, and how strangely he did not fit . . . as though he were wearing chaps the entire movie.

One of the men in my class did a thoughough critique of the film and the book Hamburger Hill. Unfortunately we never got to see each other's papers. I would have liked to have read it.

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