Head Tale

In my RIP Robin Williams post yesterday, I mentioned that I wrote an essay while a student in England about Williams’ role in “Good Morning Vietnam”.

I don’t think I’ve posted any of my undergrad work on this blog ever but given yesterday’s events, now’s as good of time as any.  Oh, and feel free to pick apart my limited knowledge of Christian theology if you want – I still wonder why in the hell I took a class on Film & Theology in the first place!  (Actually I know – the American Studies class I wanted to take was full.)

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM: AN UN-WAR WAR MOVIE

Most movies dealing with wars prior to the Vietnam War were straight forward.  Everyone knew that John Wayne and Ronald Reagan played the good and honourable American soldiers, fighting for a just cause against evil Nazis and diabolical Japanese.  But after the Vietnam War, the rules for war movies changed.  Americans were no longer sure that their cause was always right, that wars were always glorious, and that soldiers were always heroes.  Instead of stating good versus evil as an absolute, war movies began to question right and wrong.  This new viewpoint was first seen in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 movie, Apocalypse Now and continued in such recent films as Full Metal Jacket and The Deerhunter.  Oliver Stone is one director who has especially made an effort to show the effects of Vietnam with his unofficial trilogy of Vietnam movies, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, and Heaven and Earth.

Good Morning Vietnam, directed by Barry Levinson, is another film that continues the trend of questioning what happened in Vietnam, the ethics of war, and making the viewer question who the good guys really were.  Most people would class this movie as a comedy first and a war movie only as an afterthought.  In their review of Good Morning Vietnam Sight & Sound wrote, “within its genre (and by now Vietnam films must be considered a genre), Good Morning Vietnam is a fine film.” (p.212).  Good Morning Vietnam succeeds as a war movie by breaking the conventions of the war movie.

Good Morning Vietnam tells the story of Adrian Cronauer, a popular Army DJ who is transferred from Greece to Vietnam where the army radio station has been playing a mixture of Lawrence Welk and Loretta Lynn.  Cronauer immediately switches to a loud rock and roll format for his show then proceeds to increasingly challenge authority by making jokes about the army and government, reading censored news, doctoring a tape of Richard Nixon so it appears that the Vice President is answering questions about his testicles’ size rather than the Vietnam people (“they’re small, wrinkled, and harmless”).  The climax of the film occurs when a local GI hangout called Jimmy Wah’s is bombed and Cronauer is saved moments before the blast by a Vietnamese boy he has befriended.  The news item is censored at the radio station but Cronauer, seeing the effect of the war first-hand for the first time, reads it anyway.  “Today, officially nothing happened.  A bomb did not explode at Jimmy Wah’s.  No one was officially killed and dozens of men were not wounded.  Once again, officially there was not…”  His superiors pull the plug at this point and Cronauer is suspended for blatantly disregarding regulations.  But the men in the field have grown to love Cronauer’s irreverent commentaries on life in Vietnam and his attacks on the government and army.  Cronauer doesn’t want to return to the radio but when his friend and apprentice, Garlick, takes him to meet soldiers in the field, Cronauer decides he has a duty to them.  Cronauer proposes another radical idea – broadcasting field interviews with the troops.  His superiors, still trying to get rid of him, agree and send him into the field on an unsecured road.  His and Garlick’s jeep hits a land mine and Cronauer is once again rescued by Tuan, the Vietnamese boy.  When his superiors find out Cronauer’s been fraternising with a known communist, a general who’s been friendly to Cronauer can no longer save him.  He arranges a quiet, honourable discharge for him instead.  The last shot of the movie shows Cronauer’s jet flying into the sky as a farewell tape played as voice-over has Cronauer quoting the Wizard of Oz: “There’s no place like home.  There’s no place like home!”

One characteristic of war movies is their focusing on one main character who is somehow changed by their experiences in war.  In this aspect, Good Morning Vietnam is faithful to its genre.  Monthly Film Bulletin says the movie “might be Cronauer deciding whether he owes more to himself or his countrymen; personal salvation or transcendence” (p.302).  Cronauer begins the movie as a money-spending, woman-chasing hedonist.  He is absorbed by the war but not effected [sic] by it.  But as the bureaucracy of the army begins to weigh on him and especially after the bombing of Jimmy Wah’s, Cronauer becomes a changed man, suddenly aware of the toll the war is taking.  This is reinforced by the montages shown over the music Cronauer plays.  Before the bombing, these montages show smiling soldiers building foxholes, riding down rivers, and playing volleyball in their compound.  After the bombing, the montages show what Cronauer has realised – there’s a war going on that’s killing people and destroying lives.  The music of Louie Armstrong’s emotional ballad, “What a Wonderful World”, is juxtaposed with images of Vietnamese protesters, women being beaten, riots, arrests, soldiers grimacing in the mud, terrorism.

If the main character in a war movie dies, his spirit is passed on.  Although Cronauer doesn’t die, after he is discharged we hear Garlick rebelliously introducing Cronauer’s farewell tape and we feel that his spirit has indeed been passed on to Garlick who will continue spreading Cronauer’s message.

But unlike other popular war movies, Good Morning Vietnam succeeds mainly by breaking war movie conventions.  The most obvious difference between this film and most war movies is that it’s a comedy. Director Barry Levinson uses humour the way other war movie directors use violence.  Graphic violence is war movies is intended to shock the viewer, to hit them with the realities of war.  The humour of this movie serves a similar purpose but in an understated rather than overstated fashion.  Sometimes the situation gets so bad for a person that there’s nothing they can do but joke.  And that’s what Cronauer is forced to do when he’s dropped in the hell of Vietnam.

Another convention of war movies that this movie breaks is that it has no actual scenes of combat.  Cronauer is situated in the middle of a war zone but by not actual seeing combat, the numbing effect of the war on Cronauer is heightened and the viewer shares his feeling of helplessness.  This feeling of helplessness is most effective in the one scene which is closest to a battle sequence.  After the climactic bombing of Jimmy Wah’s, Cronauer is shown kneeling amidst strewn dead and bleeding bodies, smoke billowing around him, the bar owner crying in shock, soldiers beating passers-by, fires burning.  The scene moves in slow motion and concludes with a close-up of Cronauer helpless among the carnage.

There are three main categories for theological concepts – liberation, God, and humanity.  Good Morning Vietnam deals mostly with themes within the “Humanity” category. As with most films about Vietnam, one main theme is the question of what is right and wrong.  Vietnam is the first war where the Americans didn’t win and where technology allowed mothers and fathers to see their sons being defeated in the comfort of their own living rooms.  The clear distinction between good and bad of older war movies has become a question of right and wrong.

Another main issue is the nature of humanity.  Are the Vietnamese people evil sub-humans (like the Japanese stereotype in old war movies)?  Or are they human beings like everyone else?  Good Morning Vietnam, through the character of Cronauer, says that human beings are all the same – some are good and some are bad but its individual, not racial, differences which exist.  The Vietnamese characters of this movie enjoy baseball and telling jokes, love their families and their country, and can even befriend an American. Cronauer deals with the Vietnamese people as human beings – teaching them English and treating them to dinner.  But in a film which says war is useless and human beings are the victims, Cronauer is equally affected by the young American soldiers.  He talks to them on a highway and does some improvised comedy for them, realising that these young men are going into the jungle and may not return.  To humanise them, he asks them their names.  “Take care of yourselves.  I won’t forget you,” he tells them.  Near the end of the film, the sameness of the two races is highlighted.  Cronauer has one promise to fulfil before the MP’s take him to his plane.  A pick-up game of softball is played by the Vietnamese, the MP’s, Cronauer, Garlick – all together, all friends.  “Thank-you for being so kind.  We are so different.” says the Vietnamese girl Cronauer has fallen in love with.  “I say tomato, you say komat,” he replies illustrating that their differences are nothing more than words.

There is much evidence to support the idea of Cronauer as a Christ-figure.  In the movie, Cronauer manages to boost solider [sic] morale, attack authority, and befriend the locals.  As the Sight & Sound reviewer said, “This isn’t a DJ; he’s a saint.” (p.212)  Cronauer acts as a “voice of God” to the masses of soldiers, who like Christians, listen to him preach and absorb his beliefs. When Cronauer takes Trinh’s family to the theatre, there are twelve people including the Judas-figure, Tuan.  He comes to the hellish jungles of Vietnam from the paradise of Greece.  When he leaves, his jet is shown flying into the Heavens as his voice is heard talking of “going home”. But although he is gone, through the farewell tape, Cronauer and his message is “resurrected”.

If Cronauer is a Christ-figure, the parallels extend to the other characters.  General Taylor is an exasperated Pontius Pilate.  He wants nothing to do with the situation.  He feels sorry for Cronauer and doesn’t want to punish him; only to do what the people want (“If the men want him, I want him!”).  Lieutenant Hauk and Sergeant Major Dickerson are jealous Pharisees, anxious to stop the growing popularity of Cronauer.  They appeal to General Taylor, “He’s subversive.  If we don’t stop him now, what’re we going to do when he’s ten times as popular?”  Tuan, the Vietnamese boy is Judas.  He befriends Cronauer only to betray him by being a North Vietnamese sympathiser.  Garlick is a disciple of Cronauer who will continue spreading his word after he’s gone.

Good Morning Vietnam is a war movie that succeeds by not being a war movie.  It uses humour as a substitute for the usual violence.  It shows no combat to heighten the viewer’s sense of helplessness.  And Good Morning Vietnam is a theological movie that succeeds in retelling the story of Christ’s betrayal without being overtly religious.