Platoon: Stone the new Riefenstahl? By John R. Saul
Platoon: A film which confirmed its director, Oliver Stone, as the legitimate heir to Leni Riefenstahl. As in Triumph Of The Will, false mythology is created making nonsense of reality without seeming to use manipulation or propaganda. Platoon presented itself as the first attempt to reconcile Americans with what had happened in Vietnam by telling the everyday truth of how soldiers experienced the war. It was indeed constructed to heal the still suppurating wound inflicted on the greatest nation in the world by its defeat in open combat at the hands of a small, poor, third world country. Stonešs method was built upon deceptively simple dramatic conflict. His platoon was made up of a young, naive and well-intentioned officer who commanded young, well-intentioned soldiers, including the naive hero, Chris. The source of power in the group was a blondish, pale, beautiful, gentle yet strong and wise sergeant. These people all believed in the American dream and saw themselfves as victims of injustice. The source of power in the company was also a sergeant-a senior staff sergeant. However, he was dark-skinned, cynical, scarred and cunning. The first represented the American ideal; the second was the devil. To be more exact, the second represented a constant in American history-the traitor, Benedict Arnold in modern dress, the man who believes that men of principle are weak, the force of evil within each person and therefore within the nation. His cynicism and crude interpretation of reality enable him to trick others into temporarily betraying the American dream. The film rises through two successive apocalypses. The first ends with the Christ sergeant being abandoned to a swarm of Viet Cong while the company rises above him in helicopters in the care of the devil sergeant. It is a false resurrection. A betrayal. We last see the good man who died for them on his knees with his arms out as if on a cross. In its final culmination of apocalyptic violence-a confused night of smoke, explosion, light and sound-the platoon is defeated without the Viet Cong becoming visible. They remain vague shadows in the trees. They can not appear. In Stonešs mythology American is neither fighting Vietnam nor defeated by it. America is struggling to defeat the enemy within itself. The great and good people are attempting to cast out the devil. The early morning reveal a wasteland of bodies , some half-alive. One is the devil sergeant, another the naive hero. He executes the devil, thus freeing America The film ends with his rising from the disaster, again in a helicopter. In voice-over, Chris reflects as he is evacuated:
Looking back, we did not fight the enemy, we fought
ourselves-and the enemy was within us... The war is
over for me now, but it will always be there-the rest of
my days... Be that as it may, those of us who did make it
have an obligation to build again,to teach to others
what we know and to try with whatšs left of our lives to
find a goodness and meaning to this life.
This is the true resurrection. Stone has vaporized the defeat by converting it into the caricature of a morality play about a civil war. The would of defeat was converted into a cathartic experience in which the American dream persisted. Art heightens memory. As Riefenstahl demonstrated, propaganda can erase it , as well as any sense of ethical reality. Stonešs visual manipulation literally exorcised the publicšs memory of failure and of . In the aftermath of Platoon, other films , such as The Hill, were made, reflecting this new perception, and slowly the general manner in which the whole war was treated softened and became positive.
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