No, he was not. With his voice shaking, the veteran said hebelieved in his cause while he was fighting for it, but 10 years ofstudying the war had convinced him that America was in the wrong. Hetook a letter out of his pocket and presented it to one of theVietnamese. It was a letter of apology for invading their country.
That was on the first day of one of the most extraordinary weeksof my life, at this year's Hawaii International Film Festival,sponsored by the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii. Dayafter day, movies were shown about the war in Vietnam - Hollywoodmovies like "Platoon" and "Apocalypse Now," and Vietnamese movies youhave never heard of, like "When the Tenth Month Comes" and "Brothersand Relations." In the afternoons, I ran a symposium in which weanalyzed Hollywood's images of the war. In the evenings, theVietnamese showed their new films. The audiences included all sortsof people - a cross-section of Honolulu, including film lovers,filmmakers, people of many races and large numbers of Americanveterans of the war.
There were moments like this one. I showed the scene from "TheDeer Hunter" in which American prisoners of war are tortured by theirViet Cong captors by being forced to play a deadly game of Russianroulette. The room was hushed, all except for the soft whisper ofJohn Charlot, an intrepreter from the East-West Center here, who wastranslating the scene into French for Dinh Quang, a film and dramateacher from Hanoi.
If you have seen the scene, you have not forgotten it. AVietnamese puts a bullet into a gun and hands it to John Savage, whoplays one of three young Americans from Pennsylvania who have beentaken prisoner. Savage is ordered to put the gun to his head andpull the trigger. He is shaking with fear. His buddy, played byRobert De Niro, tells him to pull the goddamn trigger, because he hasno choice - if he doesn't, he'll be put in water up to his neck inrat-infested dragon cages.
This scene of a wartime atrocity was the central image of "TheDeer Hunter," and was hotly debated when the film played on AmericanTV and allegedly inspired some viewers to experiment with Russianroulette themselves. When the lights came on, we discussed it - andthen Dinh Quang came to the front of the room.
"What," he asked, "is Russian roulette? How is this gameplayed?"
Charlot, the interpreter, explained that the game was unknown inVietnam, and was certainly not inflicted by the North Vietnamese upontheir prisoners of war.
"Furthermore," Dinh Quang added, "the so-called Vietnamese inthe film were all Chinese actors, and they were speaking Chinese."
He did not go on to say that all Asians look alike and soundalike to Westerners. He did not need to. But what could you say tohis main point - that the most important scene in "The Deer Hunter,"a film which won the Academy Award as the year's best film, was acomplete fiction? There were film students in the room, who got upto say that the Russian roulette provided a "compressed image" that"stood for" the experience of Americans in the war. Others asked whya fiction film was supposed to be historically accurate. These weregood arguments. I had some sympathy with them myself. But DinhQuang was a man who had flown thousands of miles to see a film thatlooked to him like racist propaganda. What could we say to him? Howwould we explain that the libel against his country was a "centralmetaphor"?
As it turned out, Ding Quang, a relaxed, quiet man of 60, hadthe saving grace of humor, which helped him during the week. He hadnot seen "The Deer Hunter" before, he said, but he had seen "RamboII," which was very popular on videocassette in Vietnam. "We say thatthe mistake of the Americans was to send too many men," he said."Three Rambos would have been enough to win the war."
For five days the discussions went on, and there were othermoments, moments like this one:
An American veteran of Vietnam stood up and asked me what Ithought about the film "Hanoi Hilton." I gave him my opinion andasked him what he thought.
"Well," he said, "I was a prisoner of war. And the film was anaccurate portrayal of some of the conditions that prisoners facedover there. It was a lot more accurate than most of the movies yousee. But I didn't think it was very entertaining, and it dragged inplaces. I could spot some of the big scenes coming a mile away."
You see what happened there, in the length of one short answer?He turned from a Viet vet into a film critic. The film was accurate,all right, but as a moviegoer, he didn't get his money's worth. Hedidn't have a good time. And so it went, day after day, thenever-ending debate between movies that entertain and movies thateducate.
During one afternoon session, I showed a group of scenes aboutwar atrocities on both sides - not only the Russian roulette scenefrom "The Deer Hunter," but also two shocking scenes in "ApocalypseNow" - one where American helicopters destroy an village simply sothat the insane colonel in charge of the mission (Robert Duvall) cancapture a beach that's good for surfing, and another where Americanson a gunboat use a machinegun against unarmed peasants on a fishingsanpan.
The first of those scenes inspired the divided comments thatwere typical of the whole week. Everyone agreed that it was one ofthe greatest war scenes - probably one of the greatest scenes of anykind - ever filmed. But did it bend accuracy for the sake ofsatirical exaggeration, as in Duvall's famous line, "I love the smellof napalm in the morning"?
After the second scene, some members of the audience, whichincluded a good many Asian-Americans, argued that it was racist -because the machinegunner in the atrocity was a black man. Yes, Isaid, but he was responding to a perceived threat - the woman wasrunning to get something, and he thought it was a gun (it turned outto be a puppy). Seconds later in the same scene, I pointed out, awhite character (Martin Sheen) murders that woman in cold blood,rather than delay his mission so she can be treated for her injuries.Why was a black man, doing the job he was trained to do, perceived asa racist image, while a white man committing murder was overlooked?
You could almost assume it was because the white man's skincolor was invisible - was overlooked by the audience. He was simplya character, while the black man was a symbol. By the same token,the Viet Cong in the movies were seen by the visiting Vietnamese aspresenting an image of their nation. The hard, cold fact seemed tobe: When minority groups see members of their race in the movies,they fear that a negative portrayal will "stand" for the whole race.Whites simply do not care - all except for one gray-haired veteranwho stood up and asked rhetorically, "Has anyone in this room everseen a modern war film in which the white commanding officer wasportrayed as anything but a sadistic villain?" That stumped us.
Many of the most striking moments during the week came whencombat veterans shared their experiences. We showed a scene ofnighttime combat from "Platoon," a film that has been praised becauseits battle scenes were more realistic than most. Oliver Stone, whodirected the film, was a Vietnam infantry veteran who knew that mostmovie battle scenes made too much sense and lasted longer than thereal thing. In the scene in "Platoon," Americans and Viet Congengage in a wild,confusing, terrifying exchange of fire at night, and nobody knowswhere to shoot or what is happening.
"Even that scene is inaccurate," Patrick Duncan stood up andsaid. Duncan is a combat veteran who directed one of the Hawaiifestival's most interesting films, "84 Charlie Mopic," a fiction filmmade in the style of a documentary.
"Combat is even shorter, and more confusing. Usually it's overbefore you know it's begun. Even in making my film, I found that bythe time you choose the camera setups and block out the action,you're analyzing an event that happens without any analysis. Youwant to know the typical combat situation in Vietnam? Nothinghappens for days and days, and you're bored out of your mind, anddemoralized and exhausted, and then you're walking down a path andsuddenly the guy next to you is dead and the combat is already over."
One of the things we all observed, as we viewed the war filmsfrom both sides, is that the enemy is curiously elusive. You willget no clear picture of the Viet Cong from the American films, andalmost no view at all of Americans in the Vietnamese films. Idiscussed that with another of the visiting Vietnamese, Dang NhatMinh, director of "When the Tenth Month Comes." This is a film thatwas shipped unofficially and semi-legally from Hanoi to last year'sHawaii festival, where it won the Jury Prize and helped bring aboutthis year's official exchange. It tells the simple story of asoldier at the front, who writes home every week to his mother. Theletters are read to the old lady by the soldier's fiancee. Then thesoldier is killed, and so the fiancee continues to write and readfictitious letters from the son, so the mother will not learn of thedeath. But how long can this go on? And what about the fiancee, whohas her own life to lead?
One of the strangest things about "Where the Tenth Month Comes"is that the enemy is never mentioned in the film. There are noAmericans, no U.S. troops, no Yankee imperialists. I asked Dang NhatMinh about that.
"We do not often name the enemy in our films," he said. "We havebeen at war for many years, with France, with feudal China, with theUnited States. Why name the enemy? We are friends of the Americans,the French, the Chinese. We saw the TV reports of U.S. anti-wardemonstrations. We knew many Americans did not support the war. Wewere only at war with the government and the policies of thosetimes."
The official line, and yet when I asked him why Vietnamese filmshardly ever seemed to depict scenes of combat (while the Americanfilms were built around them), he answered thoughtfully: "The war wasfought many thousands of miles from your homeland, so perhaps theAmerican people needed to see the battles. We have lived in war formany years. Why bring up old memories?"
Yes, but it was perhaps also the case that the Vietnamese had noclear image of Americans, and we had no clear image of "Charlie,"that elusive collective myth of an enemy who lived in tunnels,subsided on a few grains of rice a week, and was nowhere andeverywhere at the same time. During the week at Hawaii, looking ateach other's films, the fog seemed to lift a little on both sides.
One of the more dramatic moments of the week came when anactress named Kieu Chinh stood up to speak. She is a beautifulVietnamese woman in her 40s, who was the top movie star of SouthVietnam in the days before its fall. Now she lives in the StudioCity section of Los Angeles. Although she was the "Doris Day ofVietnam," she now finds that when she goes to auditions, most of theTV and movie roles are for prostitutes, bar girls and madams. Shecannot take them - "I discussed it with my daughter, and I know thatI cannot take off my clothes to play in a movie" - but in any eventher Vietnamese accent is held against her. She said the roles oftengo to Asian-Americans of other ethnic groups - Chinese, Japanese,Korean - who speak better English. "All Asians look the same toHollywood," she said, repeating the familiar theme.
During the week, the Vietnamese delegation invited Kieu Chinh toreturn home - to visit Hanoi, where she was born, and where herbrother still lives. "Five years ago, I would have been afraid togo," she said. "They saw me as a traitor. Now, they say I will bewelcome, and I think maybe I will go. The difficult thing is, if Igo, I will not be popular with the Vietnamese in America, the emigresin Orange County. Now I will be a traitor to them. But perhaps I amsupposed to be a messenger. Perhaps it is time."
Perhaps it is. In the last hour of the last day of our longcollective march through the film images of Vietnam, we played theclosing scene of "The Deer Hunter." That's the one where all the oldfriends return to the bar that was their hangout before the war.They have just buried their friend (Christopher Walken, killed byRussian roulette), and now they sit wearily around a table in theotherwise empty saloon. They feel stiff in the good suits they woreto the funeral. One of them goes into the kitchen to scramble someeggs, and then he starts singing a song, out of key and under hisbreath. It is "God Bless America."
Slowly, shyly, the others start to sing, and then their voicesgrow and they sing it all the way through. Well, we have all heard"God Bless America" over and over again. But in that film - and atthe end of the week we had all spent looking at images of the war -it created an extraordinary effect in the room. There were sometears. And we realized that it was not a song of war. It was a songof hope. And it was a prayer.
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий