Film Echoes the Present in Atrocities of the Past

New York Times ^ | August 9, 2005 | David M. Halbfinger

[Interesting Times]

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 8 - Like a live hand grenade brought home from a distant battlefield, the 34-year-old antiwar documentary "Winter Soldier" has been handled for decades as if it could explode at any moment.

Now, the 95-minute film - which has circulated like 16-millimeter samizdat on college campuses for decades but has never been accessible to a wide audience - is about to get its first significant theatrical release in the United States, beginning on Friday at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. (Other bookings, including Chicago, Detroit, Hartford and Minneapolis, can be found at www.wintersoldierfilm.com.)

Its distributors say that the war in Iraq has made the Vietnam-era film as powerful as when it was new, and its filmmakers are calling it eerily prescient of national embarrassments like the torture at Abu Ghraib.

Seldom has a film seen by so few caused so much consternation for so many years.

[snip]

When one of the veterans - John Kerry, who was seen on screen for less than a minute - ran for president last year, the old film turned up as propaganda on both sides of the partisan divide: Mr. Kerry's friend, the filmmaker George Butler, used footage from "Winter Soldier" to lionize him in a biographical film underwritten by Democrats called "Going Upriver." His political enemies on the right, meanwhile, created a Web site called Wintersoldier.com and made a film of their own, "Stolen Honor," to assail him as a traitor and a fraud.

[ncountylee]

"Whoever had the most ears, they would get the most beers,"

The Clintoons have a similar system.

[R. Scott]

Unfortunately this is a good time for the leftists to push the film. It’s been over 30 years since we were active in Viet Nam. The average age in the US is about 35.5 years – nearly half the population wasn’t even alive during the Viet Nam War, and many were too young to actually remember much about it. All of their information comes from our “esteemed” media – Hollywood and the evening news.
The young and impressionable will associate Viet Nam with Afghanistan and Iraq.
I hope it doesn’t become a case of “Here We Go Again”.

[R. Scott]

That doesn't count. Just ask any journalist.

[R. Scott]

Gee .. what will the 60's hippie crowd come up with next

21st Century pot is far better than the weed available in the 60’s. If enough of them breakout their old bongs they might not do much of anything – hopefully.

[E.G.C.]

BTT!!!!!

[Randy Papadoo]

While Jane Fonda and the nuts will try to have a field day with this, Horribillery won't touch it with a ten-foot pole. It's too conclusively anti-war, and H now says she supports the Iraq war effort (doesn't she?).

If the film creates a lot of attention, someone could ask her what she "feels" about it. She'll have to down it or risk losing all her careful efforts to be seen "in the middle". She could become the film's biggest critic.

[Northern Yankee]

How about the millions that died from Pol Pot after the U.S. withdrawal?

[johnny7]

(Other bookings, including Chicago, Detroit, Hartford and Minneapolis...)

Maybe we can get some FReeper's to be present for these showings?

[eddie willers]

or Warren Beatty in REDS

Good one!

[kabar]

LT ping. It is depressing to think we have to go thru this shite again.

We should welcome the showing of the film. It is an opportunity to get the truth out about the VVAW and the whole sordid mess. The Left likes to use the Vietnam analogy every time US forces are in action. It is a two-edged sword because of what happened after we left. If there is one lesson to be learned from Vietnam, it is to stay the course.

[Misterioso]

Gee .. what will the 60's hippie crowd come up with next?

How about "You're So Wrong, My Sweet Neo-Con" by Mick Jagger? It looks like the Left/Libs are desperate to sustain what has to be the world's longest death rattle.

[Interesting Times]

Unfortunately this is a good time for the leftists to push the film. It’s been over 30 years since we were active in Viet Nam. The average age in the US is about 35.5 years – nearly half the population wasn’t even alive during the Viet Nam War, and many were too young to actually remember much about it. All of their information comes from our “esteemed” media – Hollywood and the evening news. The young and impressionable will associate Viet Nam with Afghanistan and Iraq.

I hope it doesn’t become a case of “Here We Go Again”.

Good points. This is an information war, just like the one 35 years ago. The other guys still have the NY Times as a reliable propaganda machine, but we have some new tools that weren't available back then. Ask John Kerry whether having control of the old media is enough to guarantee that your side of the story is believed...

[R. Scott]

Ask John Kerry whether having control of the old media is enough to guarantee that your side of the story is believed...

Hanoi John thought it was enough.