Platoon

Plot introduction

The story is narrated in the form of a letter written by an American soldier, Chris Taylor, to his grandmother. In 1967, 19-year-old Chris Taylor was still a childish college student. He gave up his studies and flew to Saigon on a C-130 transport plane with other American soldiers participating in the war.

After arriving in Vietnam, he was organized into an infantry platoon and performed tasks in the tropical jungle adjacent to the Cambodian border. There are various people in Taylor's infantry platoon, and the ones who have the greatest influence on Taylor are Sergeants Barnes and Elias. The two of them are good friends and have fought side by side on the Vietnam battlefield for many years, but their views on the war are completely different. Due to dealing with death every day, Barnes' heart became extremely cold and he almost became a crazy killing machine. Elias, on the other hand, did not lose his mind. He believed that even in a cruel war, necessary codes of conduct should be observed and innocents should not be killed indiscriminately. Both of them influenced Taylor with their own ideas, and Taylor hovered between the two, trying to figure out what the war was about. The film specifically shows the four fights that Chris Taylor participated in. Taylor's first patrol was one night when they were ambushed by Vietnamese troops. Seeing a new recruit fall next to him, Taylor was stunned with fear. Early the next morning, when they entered a Vietnamese village, they saw an American soldier hanging from a tree. The entire field platoon went crazy. After entering the village, he killed everyone he saw. Chris also pointed his gun at the feet of a Vietnamese who was stunned with fear and fired a row of bullets. Barnes ordered the entire village to be burned down with flamethrowers, killing the villagers frantically. Elias remained calm and tried his best to dissuade Barnes from committing violence. The two got into a fight because of this, and the relationship became very tense. Barnes becomes even more resentful because Elias reported the situation to his superiors.

Once, the platoon encountered a Vietnamese army ambush in the dense forest. Elias rushed into the enemy's rear alone, and Taylor and another soldier provided fire cover. After a fierce battle, Barnes came over after hearing the sound and ordered Taylor to retreat with another injured soldier on his back. However, he sneaked into the jungle, aimed his gun at Elias, and fired two shots. When Barnes walked out of the jungle, he was I bumped into Taylor who was coming back. Taylor asked about the whereabouts of Elias, and Barnes hurriedly covered it up, picked up Taylor and rushed straight to the rescue helicopter. When the helicopter slowly took off and passed through a jungle, Taylor suddenly found Elias, covered in blood, running through the jungle, with dozens of Vietnamese soldiers chasing after him. Elias finally died of his injuries. He fell to the ground and died. Taylor turned his head to look at Barnes in pain, and Barnes quickly turned around and looked out the window. In a larger battle, the US military position was lost. The U.S. Air Force strafed and bombed the lost positions. Barnes wanted to take advantage of the chaos to kill Taylor and silence him. At this moment, a bomb fell and both of them lost consciousness. When they woke up, Barnes ordered Taylor to find a military doctor. Taylor pointed his gun at Barnes and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

The battle was over, and both sides suffered heavy casualties. The injured Taylor left the battle by helicopter. At this moment, his thoughts were confused, as if he had just woken up from a nightmare.

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One sentence comment

"Platoon" has gone beyond the scope of a movie and makes people feel like they have been to the Vietnam battlefield. And I never want to go there again.

—— Steven Spielberg

What’s good about it is that it tells us that movies are not always keen on escaping reality or distorting history. Sometimes it also reflects the truth.

-- "The Boston Globe"

A remarkable film.

——Woody Allen

Film background and comments

"Platoon" is the famous work of the famous American director Oliver Stone. The film won four awards at the 59th Academy Awards in 1987, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, and Best Sound. In addition, "Platoon" also won 3 Golden Globe Awards for Best Picture, Director and Actor. The film's box office revenue reached $100 million in three months. To achieve such benefits and response was something neither the production company nor the director himself expected.

"Platoon" was created by Oliver Stone based on his own personal experience. After the film came out, it was generally welcomed by all walks of life. Many people believe that this film truly reflects the actual situation of the Vietnam War. This sense of reality is undoubtedly due to Oliver Stone's war experience and his faithful review of this experience. The plot of "Platoon" is very simple. Oliver Stone did not preach or resort to the very popular movie stunts at the time, but just allowed the film to realistically recreate the wartime scenes. Here, the director's use of film techniques is outstanding.

The film unfolds the story in the first person of Chris. At the beginning of the film, the photographer's unique handling of light places the audience in the dazzling and scorching environment of Vietnam. When the helicopter landed, the air flow blew away the plastic sheet on the ground, revealing the bodies of American soldiers lined up below; a bomb fell, and the man who was talking and laughing suddenly lost an arm, but his smile was still there. On the face….

Oliver Stone truly recreated the scenes during the Vietnam War, giving people an immersive feeling. In order to achieve real effects, in addition to carefully arranging the film's language, Oliver Stone also put forward requirements for the actors. The film was shot in the Philippines and completed within 7 weeks at a total cost of US$6 million. To give the actors a realistic feel, Stone subjected them to two weeks of rigorous military camp life in the Philippine jungle. After personal experience, the actors' performances were very realistic and vivid. The audience even felt as if they were actually there when the film was being screened. Realism is one of the reasons for the film's success, but another great aspect of the film is that it relentlessly depicts the madness and chaos of the war and how it can make people lose their minds. Other Vietnam war films often have strong story implications, but in front of Oliver Stone's camera, Vietnam is a killing place full of painful memories. The Vietnam War left Americans with huge physical and mental harm, and Oliver Stone opened up this scar mercilessly. This is a painful reflection. The center of the film is not actually the horrific mutual killing between Americans and Vietnamese, but the killing between brothers and comrades-in-arms. This gives the film a more profound introspective meaning.

"Platoon" won the Oscar for Best Picture, and Oliver Stone also won the Best Director crown. To him, it was well deserved.

[Edit this paragraph] Behind the scenes production

About the movie

"Platoon" is the famous work of the famous American director Oliver Stone. The film won four awards at the 59th Academy Awards in 1987, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, and Best Sound. In addition, "Platoon" also won three Golden Globe Awards for Best Picture, Director and Actor from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Shortly after the Vietnam War ended, Stone struggled to raise funds to make Platoon. Too many studios refused to invest in the film on the grounds that it was "too brutal" or "too depressing." A few years later, although the film was completed with funding from the British Hemdali Production Company, Hollywood still did not take it seriously. Even the company that released it, Olean, was not sure about its success: it was too much like a movie. It's a documentary, and there isn't a big star in the show. At the beginning, "Platoon" was only shown in 6 cinemas. Unexpectedly, after the premiere of the film, it aroused a strong response, with the audience talking about it and various newspapers introducing it. A month and a half later, the number of theaters increased to 600, and the theaters were full. The box office revenue also reached 100 million US dollars in 3 months. Achieving such benefits and response was something neither the production company nor the director himself expected. Stone spent years of hard work in exchange for one sentence: "Platoon" is the best Vietnam War film to date.

Perspective and Theme

"Platoon" tells the story of a naive recruit who is organized into an infantry unit. In the process of performing tasks with other soldiers, he quickly Then I understood a cruel reality: the only reason to fight is to find ways to survive. The film is based on Oliver Stone's own personal experience, without any preaching or resorting to popular movie stunts. It just allows the film to truly reproduce the wartime scenes. The film unfolds the story in the first person, and a lot of film language is given to the picture: when the helicopter landed, the air flow blew away the plastic sheet on the ground, revealing the bodies of American soldiers placed underneath; bombs fell from the sky, and people who were talking and laughing suddenly disappeared. He lost an arm, and the smile was still frozen on his face... The creepy realism made this film possible. Many viewers, especially veterans who participated in the Vietnam War, believe that the film truly reflects the actual situation of the Vietnam War.

The film does not focus on exaggerating the destructiveness of war like "Apocalypse Now", nor does it focus on portraying superhuman heroes like "First Blood", but it has a strong sense of introspection. The war makes people lose their minds. The most terrifying thing is not the killing between Americans and Vietnamese, but the killing among comrades. Regarding the Vietnam War, the film concludes that Americans defeated themselves, or that the contradictions of American culture itself led to the failure of this war.

When he revisited "Platoon" at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Stone couldn't help but be filled with emotion: Although the war in Iraq was still going on, this film had won the Best Picture Award and the Director Award. The film that won 4 Oscars has been forgotten by many people. In an interview with The Associated Press, Stone said: "It's really humbling, because when you make these films, you hope that people will be more aware of what war is. This film did that and made people aware of the war at the time. The whole world was shocked. This film changed our careers. However, 20 years later, to be precise, only 10 or 15 years later, people's views on war began to change again, and people forgot. After experiencing the disasters of the war, they looked at the problem from a militaristic standpoint... until the Iraq War broke out."

Actor

Starring Charlie Sheen became a blockbuster with "Platoon". , it’s a pity that he had bad luck. Not long after he became famous, he was involved in a scandal for allegedly soliciting prostitutes. After that, he was isolated from the role of good guy in Hollywood and could only make comedy films such as "The Condor" and "The Big Boss". Although they were blockbuster Confined to the comedy route.

It was not until recent years that he gained mainstream recognition again with the TV series "Little People".

Willem Dafoe, another star of the film, has almost never been a first-line star, but he is known as the "Man with a Thousand Faces". The films he has participated in include "Born on the Fourth of July", "The Last Temptation of Christ", "Into the Wild", "Wild at Heart", "The Body Proof", "The English Patient", "Speed ??2" ", etc., is known as "the actor who plays the most unexpected roles in the most unexpected roles." Perhaps it is because he has always hovered between the mainstream and the fringes that he has played so many roles with very different personalities.

"Vietnam War Trilogy"

"Platoon" is the first and most successful part of Oliver Stone's "Vietnam War Trilogy". The other two are "Born on the Fourth of July" and "Heaven and Earth." In 1989, Stone won the Oscar for Best Director for the second time with "Born on the Fourth of July" and won an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for starring Tom Cruise, although he ultimately lost to "My Left Foot" Daniel Day-Lewis, but Cruise successfully got rid of the vase status of the cream niche. The 1992 "Heaven and Earth" was scored by Kitaro, and the film's music is certainly outstanding.

In order to truly reproduce the scenes during the Vietnam War, Oliver Stone's requirements for the actors were simply harsh, allowing them to spend two weeks in a rigorous military camp life in the Philippine jungle. A veteran led them to dig trenches, climb up cliffs with ropes, sleep in a bunker that could only accommodate two people, and change posts every two hours at night... After personal experience, the actors' performances were naturally very vivid, and the audience There is also an immersive feeling. You can almost feel the unbearable heat, mud, mosquitoes, rats, and poisonous snakes in the jungles of Southeast Asia, and experience the fear of the soldiers and the hysteria of war.

[Edit this paragraph] Highlights

· Geno Reeves refused to play the role of soldier Chris Taylor.

·Director's guest appearance: (Oliver Stone) An officer in the bunker was killed by a desperate guy.

·The film unfolds through the narration of Charlie Sean, as if to echo his father, Martin Sean, in another Vietnam War film "Apocalypse Now" (1979). narration.

·Before filming begins, all actors must endure 14 days of arduous military camping training in the Philippines. The actors all had military haircuts and lived in tents just like their characters. They could only eat food rationed by the army, were not allowed to bathe, slept in the jungle, and were even required to stand guard in shifts at night.

·At the request of Oliver Stone, some special Marlboro cigarettes--cherry red packaging--were manufactured specifically for the film. This is to be closer to the background of the late 1960s.

·In the scene where half the soldiers in Elias' platoon are smoking narcotics, the actors did smoke marijuana. Unfortunately, when the scene was set up and they started filming, everyone felt dizzy and terrified.

·In many courses for American military leadership, the character of Army Captain Wolfe is used as an example of how timid it is to be a junior officer.

·Johnny Depp said that he was 22 years old when he went to the Philippines to shoot this movie. This was the first time in his life that he had left the United States.

· During the opening credits of the film, Big Harold falls and rolls down a hill. Forest Whitaker said it was true and that the wrestling was not intentional.

·The budget of the film was only six million US dollars, which was only a fraction of the investment in most of Oliver Stone's subsequent films.

·Movies are almost always shot in sequence. So once the characters they played in the film were killed off, the actors immediately went home. Sean's sadness in the helicopter scene near the end of the film was completely honest because he would be the last one to go home.

·The actors were warned not to drink water from the river to avoid contracting malaria. During the filming, Dalf felt thirsty and drank water from the river. He later discovered the carcass of a dead pig floating down the river. He was ill for 24 hours but luckily did not contract malaria.

·The movie poster shows Elias with his hands in the air, a parody of a 1968 photo by Art Grispan.