Hearts and Minds (film)

Last updated
Hearts and Minds
HeartsandMindsDVD.jpg
Criterion Collection DVD Cover (first edition)
Directed by Peter Davis
Produced by Bert Schneider
Peter Davis
Cinematography Richard Pearce
Edited by Lynzee Klingman
Susan Martin
Production
company
Distributed byRainbow Releasing
Release date
  • 1974 (1974)
Running time
112 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1 million

Hearts and Minds is a 1974 American documentary film about the Vietnam War directed by Peter Davis. The film's title is based on a quote from President Lyndon B. Johnson: "the ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there". [1] The movie was chosen as the winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary at the 47th Academy Awards presented in 1975. [2]

Contents

The film premiered at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. Commercial distribution was delayed in the United States due to legal issues, including a temporary restraining order obtained by one of the interviewees, former National Security Advisor Walt Rostow, who had claimed through his attorney that the film was "somewhat misleading" and "not representative" and that he had not been given the opportunity to approve the results of his interview. [3] Columbia Pictures refused to distribute the picture, which forced the producers to purchase back the rights and release it by other means. The film was shown in Los Angeles for the one week it needed to be eligible for consideration in the 1974 Academy Awards.

In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." [4] [5] [6]

General William Westmoreland, United States Army Chief of Staff Gen William C Westmoreland.jpg
General William Westmoreland, United States Army Chief of Staff

A scene described as one of the film's "most shocking and controversial sequences" shows the funeral of a South Vietnamese soldier and his grieving family, as a sobbing woman is restrained from climbing into the grave after the coffin. [7] The funeral scene is juxtaposed with an interview with General William Westmoreland—commander of American military operations in the Vietnam War at its peak from 1964 to 1968 and United States Army Chief of Staff from 1968 to 1972—telling a stunned Davis that "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient." After an initial take, Westmoreland indicated that he had expressed himself inaccurately. After a second take ran out of film, the section was reshot for a third time, and it was the third take that was included in the film. [8] [9] Davis later reflected on this interview stating, "As horrified as I was when General Westmoreland said, 'The Oriental doesn’t put the same value on life,' instead of arguing with him, I just wanted to draw him out... I wanted the subjects to be the focus, not me as filmmaker." [10]

The film also includes clips of George Thomas Coker, a United States Navy aviator held by the North Vietnamese as a prisoner of war for six and a half years, including more than two years spent in solitary confinement. [11] One of the film's earliest scenes details a homecoming parade in Coker's honor in his hometown of Linden, New Jersey, where he tells the assembled crowd on the steps of city hall that, if the need arose, they must be ready to send him back to war. [12] Answering a student's question about Vietnam at a school assembly, Coker responds that "If it wasn't [sic] for the people, it was very pretty. The people there are very backwards and primitive and they make mess out of everything." [9] [13] [14] In a 2004 article on the film, Desson Thomson of The Washington Post comments on the inclusion of Coker in the film, noting that "When he does use people from the pro-war side, Davis chooses carefully." [9] Time magazine's Stefan Kanfer noted the lack of balance in Coker's portrayal, "An ex-P.O.W.'s return to New Jersey is played against a background of red-white-and-blue-blooded patriots and wide-eyed schoolchildren. The camera, which amply records the agonies of South Vietnamese political prisoners, seems uninterested in the American lieutenant's experience of humiliation and torture." [15]

The film also features Vietnam war veteran and anti-war activist Bobby Muller, who later founded the Vietnam Veterans of America. [9] [16]

Daniel Ellsberg, who had released the Pentagon Papers in 1971, discusses his initial gung-ho attitude toward the war in Vietnam. [17]

Former Captain Randy Floyd as he appears in Hearts and Minds. Randy Floyd.jpg
Former Captain Randy Floyd as he appears in Hearts and Minds.

The concluding interview features US Vietnam veteran Randy Floyd, stating "We've all tried very hard to escape what we have learned in Vietnam. I think Americans have worked extremely hard not to see the criminality that their officials and their policy makers exhibited." [18]

The film includes images of Phan Thị Kim Phúc in sections of a film shot of the aftermath of a napalm attack which shows Phúc at about age nine running naked on the street after being severely burned on her back. [9]

List of Interviewees

The following list excludes second appearances, and people who are uncredited: the latter include various presidents (Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, etc.) and Bob Hope:

Critical reception

Hearts and Minds has attracted widely polarized opinions from film critics since its release. Reviewers commonly consider it either a masterpiece of political/documentary filmmaking or a propagandistic hatchet job on the Vietnam War, with some viewing it as both. [19] [20] A mixture of mostly contemporary film critic reviews on the review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 90% of the 40 film critic reviews they tallied were positive with an average critics score of 8.31 out of 10. [21]

Vietnam War films from the 1960s to the 1970s reflected deep divisions at home over the war. Some reflected pro-war sentiments and vilified anti-war protesters, while others stood at the opposite end and criticized government officials and policies. Hearts and Minds was one of the first of the latter to be produced and released before the war's end in 1975. [22]

Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film an "epic documentary ... [that] recalls this nation's agonizing involvement in Vietnam, something you may think you know all about, including the ending. But you don't." [17] Canby included the film among his ten best of 1975, calling it a "fine, complex, admittedly biased meditation upon American power" and a movie "that will reveal itself as one of the most all-encompassing records of the American civilization ever put into one film." [23] Desson Thomson of The Washington Post described it as "one of the best documentaries ever made, a superb film about the thoughts and feelings of the era, the whole festering, spirited animus of it." [9] Rex Reed called it that year's "best film at the Cannes Film Festival" and stated that "[t]his is the only film I have ever seen that sweeps away the gauze surrounding Vietnam and tells the truth." [24] World Movies, the Australian subscription TV channel, included Hearts and Minds in its 2007 series of 25 Docs You Must See Before You Die. [25]

Other reviewers have criticized the movie for bias. Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun Times wrote in his three-star review: "Here is a documentary about Vietnam that doesn't really level with us ... If we know something about how footage is obtained and how editing can make points, it sometimes looks like propaganda ... And yet, in scene after scene, the raw material itself is so devastating that it brushes the tricks aside." [26] Walter Goodman of The New York Times in an article titled False Art of the Propaganda Film, pointed out Davis' technique of showing only one side of the interview, pointing out that Walt Rostow's response may have been in response to "some provocation, a gesture, a facial expression, a turn of phrase" from his interrogator. He also criticized Shirley MacLaine's The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir , and Haskell Wexler's Introduction to the Enemy . [27] Shirley MacLaine rejected the criticism in a published rejoinder. [28]

David Dugas of United Press International, in a 1975 review printed in Pacific Stars and Stripes , said that "Davis' approach clearly is one-sided and is not likely to impress Vietnam hawks. But his film is brilliantly assembled, biting and informative." [3]

M. Joseph Sobran, Jr. of the conservative magazine National Review , writing in 1975, called the film a "blatant piece of propaganda ... disingenuously one-sided ..." and went on to show the cinematic techniques used by the producers to achieve this effect. [29]

Stefan Kanfer of Time magazine noted in 1975 that "Throughout, Hearts and Minds displays more than enough heart. It is mind that is missing. Perhaps the deepest flaw lies in the method: the Viet Nam War is too convoluted, too devious to be examined in a style of compilation without comment." [15]

In 2002, David Ng wrote in Images: A Journal of Film and Popular Culture wrote: "The documentary is clearly anti-war in both tone and content." [30]

Academy Award

After Columbia Pictures refused to distribute the picture, producer Bert Schneider went to Henry Jaglom to purchase back the rights and released the film in March 1975 through Warner Bros. A planned December 18, 1974, opening in Los Angeles, California was canceled after the production company had been unable to pay the $1 million needed to buy the rights from Columbia Pictures. [31] The film was ultimately shown in Los Angeles for the one week it needed to be eligible for consideration for the 1974 Academy Awards.

During his acceptance speech for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, Feature, on April 8, 1975, co-producer Bert Schneider said, "It's ironic that we're here at a time just before Vietnam is about to be liberated" and then read a telegram containing "Greetings of Friendship to all American People" from Ambassador Dinh Ba Thi of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (Viet Cong) [32] delegation to the Paris Peace Accords. [33] The telegram thanked the anti-war movement "for all they have done on behalf of peace". [22] Frank Sinatra responded later in the evening by reading a letter from Bob Hope, another presenter on the show, which said: "The academy is saying, 'We are not responsible for any political references made on the program, and we are sorry they had to take place this evening.'" [34]

Legacy

The Academy Film Archive preserved Hearts and Minds in 2000. [35]

Michael Moore has cited Hearts and Minds as the one film that inspired him to become a filmmaker, calling it "not only the best documentary I have ever seen...it may be the best movie ever". [1] [36] Many of the cinematic techniques used in Hearts and Minds are similar to Moore's 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 . [19]

Colin Jacobson wrote in his review of the movie for the DVD Movie Guide: "Probably the biggest criticism one can level at [Hearts and Minds] stems from its editorial bent. Without question, it takes the anti-war side of things, and one could argue it goes for a pro-Vietnamese bent as well....In the end, Hearts and Minds remains a flawed film that simply seems too one-sided for its own good." [37]

In their 2014 book Cinematic Cold War: The American and Soviet Struggle for Hearts and Minds, the authors observe that Hearts and Minds, by accusing the U.S. of committing genocide in Vietnam, was among the films of that era that "challenged Cold War shibboleths head-on." [38]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vietnam War</span> War in Southeast Asia from 1955 to 1975

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina Wars and a major proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. Direct US military involvement greatly escalated from 1965 until its withdrawal in 1973. The fighting spilled over into the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viet Cong</span> Revolutionary organization active in South Vietnam and Cambodia from 1960 to 1977

The Viet Cong (VC) was an epithet and umbrella term to refer to the communist-driven armed movement and united front organization in South Vietnam. Formally organized as and led by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and nominally conducted military operations under the name of the Liberation Army of South Vietnam (LASV), the movement fought under the direction of North Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and United States governments during the Vietnam War. The organization had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized and mobilized peasants in the territory the VC controlled. During the war, communist fighters and some anti-war activists claimed that the VC was an insurgency indigenous to the South that represented the legitimate rights of people in South Vietnam, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of North Vietnam. It was later conceded by the modern Vietnamese communist leadership that the movement was actually under the North Vietnamese political and military leadership, aiming to unify Vietnam under a single banner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Westmoreland</span> 25th Chief of Staff of the United States Army (1914–2005)

William Childs Westmoreland was a United States Army general, most notably the commander of United States forces during the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968. He served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1968 to 1972.

<i>The Atomic Cafe</i> 1982 documentary film

The Atomic Cafe is a 1982 American documentary film directed by Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader and Pierce Rafferty. It is a compilation of clips from newsreels, military training films, and other footage produced in the United States early in the Cold War on the subject of nuclear warfare. Without any narration, the footage is edited and presented in a manner to demonstrate how misinformation and propaganda was used by the U.S. government and popular culture to ease fears about nuclear weapons among the American public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phan Thi Kim Phuc</span> Vietnamese-Canadian activist; subject of the famous 1972 Vietnam War photo

Phan Thị Kim Phúc, referred to informally as the girl in the picture and the napalm girl, is a South Vietnamese-born Canadian woman best known as the nine-year-old child depicted in the Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph, titled The Terror of War, taken at Trảng Bàng during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ron Kovic</span> American activist and writer (born 1946)

Ronald Lawrence Kovic is an American anti-war activist, author, and United States Marine Corps sergeant who was wounded and paralyzed in the Vietnam War. His best selling 1976 memoir Born on the Fourth of July was made into the film of the same name which starred actor Tom Cruise as Kovic, and was co-written by Kovic and directed by Oliver Stone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Creighton Abrams</span> United States Army general (1914–1974)

Creighton Williams Abrams Jr. was a United States Army general who commanded military operations in the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1972. He was then Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1972 until his death in 1974.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeremiah Denton</span> US Navy admiral and politician (1924–2014)

Jeremiah Andrew Denton Jr. was an American politician and military officer who served as a U.S. Senator representing Alabama from 1981 to 1987. He was the first Republican to be popularly elected to a Senate seat in Alabama. Denton was previously a United States Navy rear admiral and naval aviator taken captive during the Vietnam War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hearts and Minds (Vietnam War)</span> 1960s US strategy popularised under President Lyndon B. Johnson

Hearts and Minds or winning hearts and minds refers to the strategy and programs used by the governments of South Vietnam and the United States during the Vietnam War to win the popular support of the Vietnamese people and to help defeat the Viet Cong insurgency. Pacification is the more formal term for winning hearts and minds. In this case, however, it was also defined as the process of countering the insurgency. Military, political, economic, and social means were used to attempt to establish or reestablish South Vietnamese government control over rural areas and people under the influence of the Viet Cong. Some progress was made in the 1967–1971 period by the joint military-civilian organization called CORDS, but the character of the war changed from a guerrilla war to a conventional war between the armies of South and North Vietnam. North Vietnam won in 1975.

Berton "Bert" Jerome Schneider was an American film and television producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Thomas Coker</span> United States Navy commander (born 1943)

George Thomas Coker is a retired United States Navy commander who was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism as a prisoner of war (POW) during the Vietnam War. An Eagle Scout, he is noted for his devotion to Scouting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">47th Academy Awards</span> Award ceremony for films of 1974

The 47th Academy Awards were presented Tuesday, April 8, 1975, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California, honoring the best films of 1974. The ceremonies were presided over by Bob Hope, Shirley MacLaine, Sammy Davis Jr., and Frank Sinatra. Before ABC, the ceremony's current broadcaster, acquired the U.S. broadcast rights, this was the last ceremony to air on NBC.

<i>The Quiet American</i> (1958 film) 1958 film by Joseph L. Mankiewicz based on the 1955 novel

The Quiet American is a 1958 American drama romance thriller war film. It was the first film adaptation of Graham Greene's bestselling 1955 novel of the same name, and one of the first films to deal with the geo-politics of Indochina. It was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and stars Audie Murphy, Michael Redgrave, and Giorgia Moll. It was critically well-received, but was not considered a box-office success.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Davis (director)</span> Filmmaker, author, journalist (born 1937)

Peter Frank Davis, is an American filmmaker, author, novelist and journalist. His film Hearts and Minds, about American military action in Vietnam, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1974.

Samuel Alexander Adams, known as Sam Adams, was an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He is best known for his role in discovering that during the mid-1960s American military intelligence had underestimated the number of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army soldiers. Although his opinion was challenged, he pushed the case for a higher troop count. The issue under debate was called the Order of Battle (O/B). His efforts in 1967 met strong and persistent opposition from the Army which, in the short-term, prevailed against him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cao Văn Viên</span> South Vietnamese general (1921–2008)

Cao Văn Viên was a four-star army general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He rose to the position of Chairman of the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff. Considered one of "the most gifted" of South Vietnam's military leaders, he was previously called an "absolute key figure" and one of "the most important Vietnamese military leaders" in the U.S.-led fighting during the Vietnam War. Along with Trần Thiện Khiêm he was one of only two four-star generals in the entire history of South Vietnam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tiana Alexandra</span> Vietnamese-American actress

Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant is a Vietnamese-American actress, filmmaker and activist. She is best known for her 1992 documentary From Hollywood to Hanoi, the first American feature documentary filmed in Vietnam by a Vietnamese-American. The film examines the aftermath of the Vietnam War and explores themes of reconciliation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alcatraz Gang</span>

The Alcatraz Gang was a group of eleven American prisoners of war (POW) held separately in Hanoi, North Vietnam during the Vietnam War because of their particular resistance to their North-Vietnamese military captors. These eleven POWs were: George Thomas Coker, USN; Jeremiah Denton, USN; Harry Jenkins, USN; Sam Johnson, USAF; George McKnight, USAF; James Mulligan, USN; Howard Rutledge, USN; Robert Shumaker, USN; James Stockdale, USN; Ron Storz, USAF; and Nels Tanner, USN.

<i>Introduction to the Enemy</i> 1974 American film

Introduction to the Enemy is a 1974 American documentary film about Vietnam, filmed and directed by Haskell Wexler. Shot in the spring of 1974 and released before the end of the year, the film examines the human costs of the Vietnam War. The camera follows American actress Jane Fonda and her husband Tom Hayden, already known in their home country for antiwar activism, as they make inquiries regarding the war's effects and legacy among Vietnamese people from all walks of life.

<i>The Vietnam War</i> (TV series) 2017 documentary television series

The Vietnam War is a 10-part American television documentary series about the Vietnam War produced and directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, written by Geoffrey C. Ward, and narrated by Peter Coyote. The first episode premiered on PBS on September 17, 2017. This series is one of the few PBS series to carry a TV-MA rating.

References

  1. 1 2 Schwartz, Larry. "Inside the body of a war zone", The Age , September 13, 2007. Accessed August 11, 2008.
  2. "NY Times: Hearts and Minds". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . 2009. Archived from the original on 2009-02-25. Retrieved 2008-11-15.
  3. 1 2 Dugas, David via United Press International. "Viet War Film Late, Or Maybe Just in Time" [ permanent dead link ], Pacific Stars and Stripes via Newspaper Archive, February 25, 1975. Accessed August 15, 2008.
  4. "'Jurassic Park,' 'The Shining,' and 23 Other Movies Added to National Film Registry". NPR .
  5. "National Film Registry Turns 30". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-10-13.
  6. "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-10-13.
  7. Dittmar, Linda; and Michaud, Gene. From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film, Rutgers University Press, 1990 via Google Books, p. 273. ISBN   0-8135-1587-4.
  8. Jackson, Derrick Z. (July 22, 2005). "Derrick Z. Jackson: The Westmoreland mind-set". International Herald Tribune . Retrieved January 26, 2008.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Desson Thomson (October 22, 2004). "'Hearts And Minds' Recaptured". The Washington Post . Retrieved 2007-12-23.[ dead link ]
  10. Katz, Sarah (January 2008). "An Interview With Peter Davis". Center for Social Media. Archived from the original on 2008-03-02. Retrieved 2010-04-03.
  11. Return With Honor Transcript Archived 2017-03-24 at the Wayback Machine , PBS. Accessed August 11, 2008.
  12. Anderegg, Michael A. (1991). Inventing Vietnam: The War in Film and Television. Temple University Press. ISBN   978-0-87722-862-2 . Retrieved 2008-01-10.
  13. Lane, Anthony (2004-11-01). "Aftermaths: Enduring Love, Hearts and Minds". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2008-07-29.
  14. "Terror and trauma". The Guardian . London. November 18, 2005. Retrieved 2008-01-27.
  15. 1 2 Kanfer, Stefan. "War-Torn', Time (magazine) , March 17, 1975. Accessed August 11, 2008.
  16. "Scores of Reasons to See These Silent Films" [ dead link ], The Washington Post , October 15, 2004. Accessed August 6, 2008.
  17. 1 2 Canby, Vincent. "'Hearts and Minds,' a Film Study of Power", The New York Times , March 24, 1975. Accessed August 6, 2008.
  18. Monaco, James. (Summer 2003). "Hearts & Minds". Cineaste . Archived from the original on February 24, 2009. Retrieved November 15, 2008.
  19. 1 2 Wilder, Carol (2005). "Separated at Birth: Argument by Irony in Hearts and Minds and Fahrenheit 9/11". Atlantic Journal of Communication. 13 (Summer 2005). The New School: 57–72. doi:10.1207/s15456889ajc1302_1. S2CID   144554601. Archived from the original on 2008-12-03. Retrieved 2008-06-25. What can the striking similarities and differences of these pictures tell us about the media environments of their respective times? What do they reveal about the architecture of cinematic argument? About the eternal verities of war rhetoric?
  20. O'Callaghan, Paul (March 11, 2015). "10 great Vietnam War films". British Film Institute. Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  21. "Hearts and Minds". Rotten Tomatoes .
  22. 1 2 Schulzinger, Robert D., "A Time for Peace: The Legacy of the Vietnam War", page 155, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 2006
  23. Canby, Vincent. "FILM VIEW; The Ten Best Films of 1975", The New York Times , December 28, 1975. Accessed August 14, 2008.
  24. Reed, Rex. "A film Americans nay not see" [ permanent dead link ], Independent Press-Telegram , via Newspaper Archive, August 18, 1974. Accessed August 15, 2008.
  25. "25 Docs You Must See Before You Die". World Movies. Archived from the original on January 11, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2008.
  26. "Hearts and Minds". Chicago Sun Times . January 1, 1974. Retrieved 2022-11-16.
  27. Goodman, Walter. "The False Art of the Propaganda Film", The New York Times , March 23, 1975. Accessed August 14, 2008.
  28. MacLaine, Shirley. (April 6, 1975). "'Propaganda' is What You Don't Agree With". The New York Times . Retrieved November 15, 2008.
  29. Sobran Jr., M. J. (1975-06-06). "Heartless and Mindless". National Review . 27 (21). via EBSCO: 621. ISSN   0028-0038.
  30. Ng, David. (2002). "Images: A Journal of Film and Popular Culture" . Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  31. "Documentary on Vietnam Fails to Open; 'Somewhat Misleading", The New York Times , December 19, 1974. Accessed August 11, 2008.
  32. Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, p. 275.
  33. Robinson, George. Sometimes A Thank You Isn't Enough", The New York Times , March 4, 2001. Accessed May 29, 2008.
  34. Efron, Eric. " The World: Acting Out; At the Oscars, a Cause and Effect", The New York Times , March 30, 2003. Accessed May 29, 2008.
  35. "Preserved Projects". Academy Film Archive.
  36. Kennedy, Lisa. "Hearts and Minds run has new appeal", Denver Post , November 9, 2004. Accessed August 11, 2008.
  37. Jacobson, Colin (1974). "Hearts and Minds: Criterion (1974)". DVD Movie Guide. Retrieved 2008-06-24.
  38. Shaw, Tony; Youngblood, Denise Jeanne (2010). Cinematic Cold War: The American and Soviet Struggle for Hearts and Minds. University Press of Kansas. p. 173. ISBN   978-0-7006-1743-2.

Bibliography