Blast from the past

Twenty years after the Cannes selection committee rejected it, Oliver Stone’s Platoon got a special screening at the world’s premier film festival last week, writes Vikramdeep Johal

YOU just can’t keep a classic down. Twenty years after it was rejected by the Cannes selection committee, Oliver Stone’s Platoon got a special screening at the world’s premier film festival last week. Its new DVD, featuring the film’s digitally re-mastered version, was also released. Ironically, the DVD is being distributed by MGM, which was one of the big studios that baulked at producing Stone’s "feel bad" film two decades ago.

Several Vietnam War films have preceded or succeeded Platoon, but this movie is special because it was made by someone who himself experienced the "hell" — up, close and personal.

A Yale dropout, Stone volunteered to fight for his country against the Viet Cong and served for 14 months with the 25^th Infantry Division. He got wounded twice and received the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. In 1975, as Saigon was falling, he wrote a script expressing his disillusionment and despair.

Stone won the best screenplay Oscar for Midnight Express (1978), but even this success didn’t help him find backers for his dream project.

In the mid-eighties, when Stone was trying to establish himself as a director, an independent film company, Hemdale, agreed to produce his first major movie, Salvador. This James Woods starrer, which denounced US involvement in the El Salvador Civil War, failed at the box-office. Despite the losses, Hemdale took the risk of funding Stone’s next film — Platoon.

"The first casualty of war is innocence" — the film’s poster punchline says it all. It is the story of Chris Taylor, a na`EFve soldier who gets sucked into the maelstrom of war. He realises painfully that there is no place for heroism here — it’s all about survival. His superiors, instead of being role models, are frustrated and depraved men who fight among themselves or kill innocent civilians. Confronted with harsh realities, Chris finds it hard to convince himself that this war is worth fighting for. In the process, he gets emotionally scarred for the rest of his life.

Platoon’s brilliance lies in putting the viewer bang in the middle of a battle zone. Indeed, few war films have been able to match it in terms of atmospheric authenticity. It’s easy to empathise with the troubled protagonist, played with sincerity by Charlie Sheen, who narrates his tale a la his father Martin Sheen in another Vietnam War epic, Apocalypse Now (1979).

Tom Berenger is unforgettable (and thoroughly unlikable) as the maniacal sergeant who sees the war as a power game he has to win at any cost. Willem Dafoe is superb, too, as a disillusioned sergeant who takes drugs to alleviate his agony.

Released in 1986, this anti-heroic, anti-authority film struck a chord with American audiences, though the scenes showing atrocities committed by US soldiers were too disturbing for some viewers. Though it was snubbed at Cannes, Platoon grossed about $ 138 million at the US box-office and won four Oscars — for best picture, best director, best sound and best editing. In the best screenplay category, Stone earned nominations for both Salvador and Platoon, but it was Woody Allen who walked away with the Oscar for Hannah and her Sisters. Both Berenger and Dafoe were nominated in the best supporting actor section, but they lost to Michael Caine (Hannah and her Sisters). Surprisingly, Charlie Sheen’s poignant performance was ignored.

Platoon was the first film of Stone’s Vietnam War trilogy. The hypercharged Born on the Fourth of July (1989) starred Tom Cruise as real-life war veteran and anti-war activist Ron Kovic. Heaven and Earth (1993) featured Hiep Thi Le as a Vietnamese woman caught between two cultures. Of these three, Platoon is regarded as the most successful and fully realised work. (It is one of the best in Stone’s oeuvre, second only to the mind-blowing JFK). Rather than getting dated, it has become quite topical in view of the post 9/11 events.

During his Oscar acceptance speech in 1987, Stone hoped that "it (Vietnam War) would never, ever in our lifetime happen again". Unfortunately, it has happened again — in Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan. The whirlwind of history might have blown away Stone’s words, but the stunning images of Platoon will continue to haunt mankind and remind the (super)powers that be of their tragic blunders.

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