Vietnam: Cameras and Conflict
After forty years , it is easy to look back on it as just another product of the Cold War: it was merely a tragic tale of America’s gung-ho attitude to the prevention of the spread of communism. Yet in so many aspects the Vietnam War was the first truly modern war. Though the scale of destruction had been far greater in the two world wars, the way the war was depicted back in America had become far more negative. Even the word ‘Vietnam’ conjures up images of marches, protests, hippies, and tremendous films made by politically motivated directors at the height of their powers. For this war was one of the first clear examples of propaganda being used to depict negative images of a war, which did not seem to have a genuine cause. Governments were distrusted and censorship was fast becoming a taboo word. Freedom of speech and the liberal press enjoyed its finest hour during this bloody conflict and its influence can still be seen in the media today.
There are some fundamental reasons why the propaganda turned against the war effort. Though it would be unwise to go into the political and moral questions that war raises, the Vietnamese conflict had some obvious flaws to it. For one, unlike Japanese expansion in the Second World War, Vietnam posed no immediate threat to America. Indeed, as late as 1961, Vietnam was in the background of the American political agenda with Cuba seen as a far more potent threat. Many could not understand the point of sending thousands of troops to their deaths in a foreign country when the outcome did not directly affect them. A sense of moral superiority pervaded Americans when it came to post-World War Two conflicts too, and learning about various American war crimes, including the Mai Lai Massacre, haunted the national consciousness. If they were not liberators, then they were invaders and with the growing power of the student movement in the sixties, this would not have gone unnoticed.
The sense of American involvement being negative was greatly enhanced by a few famous photographs at the time, many of which are the most disturbing images captured on camera. The picture of a naked girl, with her clothes burnt off, running away from a burning village in pure terror is one in which many of us are probably aware of. The image, taken by Nick Ut, captured the results of an American bomb accidentally being dropped on the village of Trang Bang. This photograph reflected not only the brutality of war and the way it could rip apart families but it also showed the Americans as ‘the bad guys’. Something that many Americans found difficult to deal with. It is admittedly difficult to calculate how influential a photograph is, but when such a photo wins the Pulitzer prize and results in several documentaries about the girl in the picture, it has to be recognized as iconic.
Equally famous is the picture by Eddie Adams that depicts a South Vietnamese General about to shoot an unarmed and handcuffed North Vietnamese prisoner at point blank range. Taken in 1968, it is seen as one of the first pictures to definitively change perceptions of the war. Even post-Vietnam, it has become a symbol for the inhumanity of war and the power of the still photograph. Eddie Adams himself said of the picture “The General killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them; but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths… What the photograph didn’t say was, ‘What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American people?” This shows a genuine cultural shift in general attitudes to war at the time. While these photographs may have just been black and white still images, their profound impact on the psyche of Americans left many feeling that war itself, never mind a futile one, was in essence, an inhumane practice. Distrust of government pervaded the Anti-war movement seeing the war as some absurd ideological stand against communism. These famous photographs defined the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans and the million plus Vietnamese for a war that, seemingly, did not achieve anything.
The conflict occurred during a fertile and significant time for American cinema. ‘The Movie Brats,’ who included Francis Ford Coppolla and Martin Scorsese, made some of the most important films of the era. Naturally, a sensitive issue like the Vietnam War was one that they wanted to explore and each director’s style bought a new perspective to the war. Scorsese, for example, was one of the more experimental directors and explored the haunting aftermath of the war on one veteran in Taxi Driver. Though there are no war scenes and it is set in New York, Vietnam cloaks every scene. Travis Bickle is an insomniac, who doesn’t know where he stands in the world and is increasingly resentful of those he sees around him. Bickle is mentally unstable and commits acts of extreme violence. This is the ultimate film for the lonely man, who cannot fit into society. Scorsese is reflecting the experiences of Vietnam veterans who found it difficult to adapt to normal life upon their return to America.
An even more potent symbol of the brutality of war can be seen in Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter, which uses Russian roulette as a metaphor. The acclaimed critic, Roger Ebert, said “Anything you can believe about the game, about its deliberately random violence, about how it touches the sanity of men forced to play it, will apply to the war as a whole.” Considered controversial at the time, due to its depiction of North Vietnamese soldiers as barbaric (there is no proof the game was ever played), the sequences have become widely associated with the Vietnam War and have been regarded as an effective postscript to the conflict. As with Taxi Driver, the film touches upon the struggles of returning soldiers to adapting to life in America, whether it was due to the harrowing loss of friends or that they were unable to connect with people they had left behind. While the war’s iconic photographic images were evidence of the realities of the brutality in Vietnam, these films were equally effective in displaying the mental consequences of war for its soldiers.
The history of negative propaganda was relatively brief prior to the Vietnam War. In World War Two, there was uproar at a Daily Mirror cartoon, which showed a sailor adrift on a raft in the ocean with the caption, “The price of petrol has increased by one penny.” Upon seeing the cartoon, Churchill threatened to close down the Mirror, arguing its unpatriotic sentiment could have deeply damaged the war effort. However, in general, there was very little opposition to the war in Britain, probably because it was seen as a necessary measure. In terms of film, David Lean, Powell and Pressberger, each made several nationalist films during the war that typified the fighting spirit of the nation at the time and were usually considered great films on an artistic level too. In Germany, propaganda was vital, allowing Hitler control over his people although not immune from criticisms. The Edelweiss Pirates were a group of students that listened to Jazz (considered ‘negro music’ by the Nazis) and handed out leaflets that argued the War and the Nazi party were destroying Germany. Most people involved were swiftly executed, concluding one of the few instances where ordinary people attempted to influence the totalitarian governments at the time.
What made Vietnam different was that freedom of speech had become something to be celebrated by this time. It could have partly been a backlash against the McCarthyism of the 1950s that saw many Hollywood writers blacklisted for being Communists and created a witch hunt among all stratas of American society. Or it could have been that it was just natural progression in culture and outlook. Either way, the Vietnam War was the first widespread hostility from the American people against the government’s handling of a foreign conflict.
The legacy of the Vietnam War can still be seen in culture today. In Hollywood, films like ‘Apocalypse Now’ are considered to be masterpieces that explore the national consciousness of a disturbed people. The photographs still shock when viewed today, and have expanded to symbolize not just the brutality of Vietnam but of war itself. The general public felt it should have the ultimate say on the running of the war and even whether the country should be at war at all. This has become a trend in all Western nations since then. Vietnam ultimately reminded governments that they could not succeed in a war that the public did not wholeheartedly approve of. Ironically, in a conflict that first used helicopters and first used napalm on a large-scale, the most devastating weapon that the Americans would come up against was a camera.
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This is a really good read for people like me who have little prior knowledge of the subject. I really liked the point about “Taxi Driver” as it links in well to a problem we have in Britain now with soldiers returning from Helmand who can’t settle back down into normal life.
I could have sworn the Vietnam war started in the 50s though? The article reads like it didn’t start until later, but maybe that’s just me reading it wrong. Also, I wouldn’t use the same image twice.
Really enjoyable article all in all.
Hi Josef,
Thanks for your response. Firstly, your point about the Vietnam War starting. I was concerned here mainly with the American involvement in the war and this is very difficult to pinpoint its beginning. We chose to say “40 years on” because the war was nearing its height in the early seventies.
Also, about the pictures. The photography I discussed in the piece is quite graphic and for unsuspecting clickers of the article, they might not want to see them. I think repeating the same picture twice was just an error though really.