Vietnam War (1 Viewer)

[SaintsInDome2006]

Old thread.

The documentary movie "Hearts and Minds:" currently on TCM.

Terrific breakdown of the run-up to that terrible tragedy.

 

[Doctor Detroit]

 

[Eephus]

Hearts and Minds is an interesting documentary in part because it was made in 1974 while the wounds from the war were still bleeding. There's virtually no historical perspective or objective distance. There was no time to reflect on how the war changed the two combatant countries. The filmmakers assembled some incredible footage and strung it together in a non linear fashion that somehow amplifies the power of the raw material.

The film still works 40 years but not so much as a documentary about the war--Its point of view is unabashedly partisan and was made for an audience that largely thought the same. It seeks to inflame more than inform. It's much more objective and revealing as a documentary of early 70s America and how the country felt at that moment in time.

 

[Johnnymac]

The Vietnam war has always fascinated me and I loved this doc. Recently I went to youtube and looked up interviews with Vietnam vets and there are several that are very compelling. I have always felt so bad for those guys. So many of them just kids out of high school sent there to fight. I admire all of them and detest the way they were treated when they came home.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I've always though that the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the following resolution was just about the most outrageous run up to a war. It should be a scandal to this day, and what actually happened still seems confused. But even if true it never justified a war, but of course it wasn't true, nothing happened as far as I can tell.

 

[Gopher State]

Old thread.

The documentary movie "Hearts and Minds:" currently on TCM.

Terrific breakdown of the run-up to that terrible tragedy.

Good stuff

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

The USA is back in Cam Ranh Bay

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36356695

(and oh we are now again an arms supplier to the Vietnamese government....)

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I just thought this was interesting, or nice:

- Vietnam has the highest opinion of the USA of any nation in the world.