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big stationary hurricane
Saturday, January 26 2008
This evening over vegan lasagna, Gretchen and I watched Born on the Fourth of July, a film made by Oliver Stone back in 1989. It's a Thomas Cruise vehicle and serves as a reminder that you don't have to be sane to be a brilliant actor. Both he and his hair follicles do an amazing job.
Parts of the movie seemed distinctly ahead of their time, such as the use of time dilation and the depictions of random lethality in the filming of the battlefield sequences (here you can find all the innovations some credit to Spielberg in Saving Private Ryan). Still, the movie suffered from the same problem all Vietnam movies suffer from, and this problem comes, I think, from the war itself. Because nothing of value was achieved (or could be achieved) in that war, it was nothing but a big stationary hurricane, and the people who passed through it were inevitably more damaged than changed. It's troubling, but not in a way that brings new insight to the human condition. Somehow I sat through the whole movie, but I can't say I particularly enjoyed it.
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