The failings of authors and popular culture are almost excusable given that the military itself until recently often underestimated the human dimension of war.
Nov 26, 2022·edited Nov 26, 2022Liked by David Swindle 🟦
Thank you, Mr. Carafano. I enjoyed this.
I grew up on old movies which used to be shown 24/7 during the 50s and 60s in the New York area. I recognize the name of the war movies you mention, but never had much interest in them. Or war itself. My father was a medic in WWII and assisted in the liberation of at least one concentration camp, but he never spoke about it, neither haunted by the experience nor celebrating it. He was more interested in moving along with the post-war opening of America and it golden promises. War was a distant backdrop, and I was born after the dust had settled.
However, the war movies I did see -- the big commercial blockbusters -- were hero-making bios like "Laurence of Arabia," or sweet, patriotic fanfares like "Since You Went Away" and "Mrs Miniver," which like "Gone With the Wind" were about life on the home front, far from the grime and fatigue you bring to life in your piece.
The recent "Dunkirk," however, was terrific, and conveyed the minute-by-minute tension of being stranded in harm's way through the use of a stark, stripped-down soundtrack that seemed no more than a relentless metronome building with menace. Not quite the grit and grim of real war but two hours of unrelieved tension, so inescapable and insistent that it become finally numbing, as must happen during war.
And then there is the phantasmagoria that is "Apocalypse Now," transparently Vietnam as a bad acid trip, where ordinary things are over-vivid and unfamiliar, the whole experience sickening rather than illuminating. "Apocalypse"begins with the main character having a psychotic break in a steamy, sub-tropic hotel room. War as a psychotic break. And so on. This romanticizes war as a personalized state of anxiety, as a burden of the mind, a rarefied madness for the wise-up guy who sees in the whole of life a cynical design.
Vietnam, unlike the Nazis gobbling up of Europe, was not an existential threat, despite the routine war propaganda of the time. It was the optional war, and thus opens itself to something as personalized as a psychotic break, rather than a do-or-die mandate. I read the Michael Herr book, "Dispatches," which informed "Apocalypse Now" (Herr was one of the screenwriters). His book -- with its clean, terse, balanced prose -- was a work of beautiful writing. In such work, war is made aesthetic and as you point out miles away from the filth and shit of the foul trenches.
Thank you, Mr. Carafano. I enjoyed this.
I grew up on old movies which used to be shown 24/7 during the 50s and 60s in the New York area. I recognize the name of the war movies you mention, but never had much interest in them. Or war itself. My father was a medic in WWII and assisted in the liberation of at least one concentration camp, but he never spoke about it, neither haunted by the experience nor celebrating it. He was more interested in moving along with the post-war opening of America and it golden promises. War was a distant backdrop, and I was born after the dust had settled.
However, the war movies I did see -- the big commercial blockbusters -- were hero-making bios like "Laurence of Arabia," or sweet, patriotic fanfares like "Since You Went Away" and "Mrs Miniver," which like "Gone With the Wind" were about life on the home front, far from the grime and fatigue you bring to life in your piece.
The recent "Dunkirk," however, was terrific, and conveyed the minute-by-minute tension of being stranded in harm's way through the use of a stark, stripped-down soundtrack that seemed no more than a relentless metronome building with menace. Not quite the grit and grim of real war but two hours of unrelieved tension, so inescapable and insistent that it become finally numbing, as must happen during war.
And then there is the phantasmagoria that is "Apocalypse Now," transparently Vietnam as a bad acid trip, where ordinary things are over-vivid and unfamiliar, the whole experience sickening rather than illuminating. "Apocalypse"begins with the main character having a psychotic break in a steamy, sub-tropic hotel room. War as a psychotic break. And so on. This romanticizes war as a personalized state of anxiety, as a burden of the mind, a rarefied madness for the wise-up guy who sees in the whole of life a cynical design.
Vietnam, unlike the Nazis gobbling up of Europe, was not an existential threat, despite the routine war propaganda of the time. It was the optional war, and thus opens itself to something as personalized as a psychotic break, rather than a do-or-die mandate. I read the Michael Herr book, "Dispatches," which informed "Apocalypse Now" (Herr was one of the screenwriters). His book -- with its clean, terse, balanced prose -- was a work of beautiful writing. In such work, war is made aesthetic and as you point out miles away from the filth and shit of the foul trenches.
Appreciations for your thoughtful comment, John. Best wishes with your writing and your substack! My fiancee Sally and I are doing a movie series in our podcasts that you might enjoy: https://godofthedesert.substack.com/podcast https://godofthedesert.substack.com/p/the-9-installments-so-far-in-sallys
Mmm… word salad… [drool]