When I was younger, I was very taken with the films of Oliver Stone. I would go so far as to say his films have had a tremendous impact on my attitudes towards cinema, politics, and life itself. I saw Platoon after having seen other Vietnam War-films like Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, and right away it felt different. There was an edge to it and a feeling of authenticity, even if some aspects could now be regarded as melodramatic. It still stands as a major film and one that has stuck in my mind ever since I saw it. A big part of the attraction for me I think was the idea that Stone himself had served in an actual war and more or less lived a life long before he made a name for himself as a controversial director of star studded films.
A few years later, I saw JFK. I take the content of the film with a grain of salt, but find it to be an absolutely thrilling piece of cinema that continues to inspire me, from its brilliant editing and cinematography to its colorful characters personified by a monumental ensemble cast. I’ve grown to love some of his other films such as Nixon, Alexander, The Doors and Natural Born Killers, not to mention his screenwriting work on films such as Midnight Express and Scarface, and still consider him an inspiration as one of the most unique voices in mainstream cinema. It is despite my clear admiration for Stone that I had yet to see his short student film Last Year in Viet Nam.
His teacher was none other than a young Martin Scorsese. With long black hair that covered his eyes and an apparently endless energy, Scorsese had at this point completed his own feature length debut Who’s That Knockin’ At My Door, but was between projects, taking up the gig of teaching at his old stomping grounds of NYU. Just like Scorsese’s own teacher Haig Manoogian, he championed a personal approach to filmic storytelling more closely aligned with the art cinema of Europe. Stone and his classmates participated in numerous filmic attempts performing various duties as writers, directors, cinematographers, editors etc. Stone himself disregarded most of these attempts later in life and set out to make something truly personal to him, and thus devised a film about his own experiences feeling alienated from his country upon his return from his tour of duty in Vietnam. The result was his 1971 short film Last Year in Viet Nam, a film that at times feels like a prototypical artsy student film from the 70s, but in the same breath, displays a promising young talent who would go on to produce great things in the future.
Put very simply, the film deals with an unnamed protagonist, the first of many self-inserted alter egos found throughout Stone’s work, appropriately played by Stone himself. It concerns Stone’s return from the war and all that comes with it. Something that became clear to me early on were the numerous shots focusing on the young man’s body. My interpretation of this choice was to further symbolize the main character’s internal struggles. Externally he’s the same as when he left, but internally his soul has violently been torn. And whilst it may appear as typical pretentious “young filmmaker” mode to have the narration be performed in French, there is still a personal connection there. Stone’s mother was French and he was fluent in the language, spending part of his childhood in France. It could still be cynically disregarded as a cheap attempt to appear “artistic” but I think there’s more to it here in this film. Now the copy I saw contained no English subtitles, and my own French is very rusty so I could not make out what was being said. Regardless of this obvious language barrier, I still walked away from the film with a decent understanding of what Stone was trying to say. Vietnam is a state of mind that will remain with you all throughout your life. But don’t let it wear you down, because then it will have control over you and you can’t take the next step to move on. A valuable lesson, especially to and coming from someone who’s just been to war. It’s possible Oliver Stone made the film just for himself to help heal, but that tends to be what art is all about at the end of the day, and in that respect, Oliver Stone is a true artist.
Last Year in Viet Nam can be tacky at times and obviously far from perfect as most student films generally are. But I find myself in agreement with Scorsese (who loved the film, gave Stone the highest possible grade in class and proclaimed “here’s a filmmaker” after the screening in class), there is a poetry and a deep-seated emotion to be found in this film. And it was the world’s very first introduction to one of the most controversial and talked-about Hollywood filmmakers of all time.
A Fistful of Film 