Oliver Stone names the two best Vietnam War movies he didn’t direct: “I liked both enormously”
Few names in cinema split opinion quite like Oliver Stone.
A deeply problematic figure, his unabashed support for Vladimir Putin and his views on Russia’s actions in Ukraine have made him persona non grata among many in the movie realm. He’s also been accused of promoting dangerous conspiracy theories, particularly those surrounding the assassination of John F Kennedy.
Then, from a purely technical standpoint, however, he’s made some exceptional movies; you don’t win ‘Best Director’ at the Oscars twice by being a complete novice.
One of his most personal projects has got to be Platoon. This star-making experience for Charlie Sheen was based on Stone’s personal experiences in the Vietnam War, where he served as an infantryman in his early 20s. He was wounded multiple times and was awarded numerous honours for his service, with Platoon making him the first Vietnam veteran to direct and write a major Hollywood motion picture.
The response to the movie was overwhelmingly positive, and Stone’s personal connection to the war allowed him to take a more realistic, less sugar-coated view of the events that played out on screen. This was not a propaganda piece, but rather a harrowing examination of a bloody and morally dubious campaign, winning four Oscars, including the coveted ‘Best Picture’, and was praised by everyone from Stanley Kubrick to other Vietnam vets.
Of course, Platoon is far from the only film made about this war and is also far from the only one to receive strong critical backing. Author George Hickenlooper addressed this fact when he spoke to Stone for his book, Reel Conversations: Candid Interviews with Film’s Foremost Directors and Critics. When naming other great movies about Vietnam, Hickenlooper offered up Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter.
“I liked both enormously as films,” Stone said in response, “They were powerful pictures made by great filmmakers, but they really didn’t have anything to do with the struggle that I saw or experienced, or what many of the other vets I talked to felt in Vietnam.”
Both Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter came out in the late 1970s, just a few years after the war itself had come to an end. The former is a heavily stylised interpretation of not just Vietnam, but war in general, and as for The Deer Hunter, that’s more of a character piece than an exploration of the actual fighting. Neither of them are bad, they have the awards and Rotten Tomatoes scores to prove it, but they lack the insight that made Stone’s effort so brutally effective.
Stone, Coppola, and Cimino’s approaches to the same subject matter prove just how versatile film is as a medium. All three movies take a very different approach to telling stories about Vietnam, and all three are regarded as some of the best films of all time, with each one bringing something new to the table, but if it’s hyper-realism you’re after, then perhaps Platoon is your best bet.
