Platoon: The Dissolution of Good and Evil

There is a large part of Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) that is concerned with moral ambiguity and I don’t think that I’m sensing the presence of such a concern as a mere residual effect of similarly examining Blue Velvet a couple of weeks ago. The two films share quite a bit in common: their thematic material, their technical construction, and the values that they seek to subvert. In an overly simplified manner of comparison, the two pursue the dissolution of dichotomies like good and evil through both murky narrative content and cinematography that is dream-like or literally obscured; and this assertion of ambiguity functions to interrogate Americans’ impetuous complaisance with national ideals like the American Dream and patriotic, ideological wars.

In fact, I believe that Irena Makarushka’s analysis, “Subverting Eden: Ambiguity of Evil and the American Dream in Blue Velvet,” is nearly as relevant to Platoon as it is to David Lynch’s film. Lawrence W. Lichty and Raymond L. Carroll’s “Fragments of War: Oliver Stone’s Platoon,” on the other hand, is an article with which I have a few discrepancies. While Lichty and Carroll offer a number of dependable assertions regarding Platoon as they note that, compared to most previous war films, it was not propagandized and it was a marked improvement in authenticity; I do think that some of their observations are limited to the surface-level: they are preoccupied with the degree of the film’s validity and the relationship between the production of war films and their final product. Lichty and Carroll mistake Platoon as being a film that is obligated to adhere to reality when, in fact, the film is still an artist's depiction (albeit an artist with first-hand experience) -- complete with creative decisions like the design of the film’s aesthetic and the license to establish symbolism.

As a point of negative criticism, Lichty and Carroll remark: “Unfortunately, this scene [in which a wounded Elias flees in front of enemy soldiers as they fire upon him] looks as though it is staged, rather than a natural part of the film’s action, and it tends to reduce the credibility of the rest of the film” (398). Of course it feels staged: this is a realistic depiction but not reality. This particular scene purposefully details a symbolic image -- an image, that I will comment on shortly, that I find relevant to the film’s moral ambiguity. Even if the symbolism weren’t applicable to one of the film’s large intentions (which I believe it to be), Lichty and Carroll address, and thus undermine, their own criticism when they acknowledge: “War here is depicted from the perspective of the individual, not from the group or from a national perspective. The film effectively reveals Taylor’s confusion and disorientation from beginning to end” (398). It is the duality of comments like these two contradictory quotes that make me apprehensive about the article as a whole because it acknowledges that the film is supposed to have a disorienting quality, that it is an artist’s creation (“All artists manipulate history, and Platoon, as art, can be freely interpreted” (400).), and that these features are representative of the hell that was Vietnam War; but the two critics still penalize the film with an “Unfortunately” for it not having reached the degree of realism that they desired -- a threshold that they never really make clear. A film can be held accountable for botching the consistency of its symbolism or for it having shallow symbols, but admonishing a film’s technical use of symbolism is not a fair assessment when examining cinema.

Platoon is a film about moral ambiguity -- not just in Vietnam but in all of human nature. The film portrays the actuality of moral ambiguity by depicting exaggerated representations of good and evil (Sgt. Elias and Sgt. Barnes, respectively), and then it subsequently dissolves this dichotomy with its treatment of these two characters. Blue Velvet might have ridiculed black-and-white binaries from its very artificial beginning -- setting out to determine that they don’t even exist -- but Platoon takes another route to demonstrate the more realistic presence of ambiguity: good and evil do exist in the film -- they’re merely inferior to more ambiguous characters like Charlie Sheen’s Chris Taylor, or at least just as mortal as the next guy.

As L&C note, “Stone’s film has succumbed to the temptation of a Coppola-like treatment of a universal madness personified in an individual” as “Staff Sergeant Barnes is the manifestation of man’s most ignoble instincts unchecked” (401). It isn’t difficult to see this allusion to evil in Barnes -- his sinister scar alone could give it away. It’s a little more difficult to extract benevolence from Sgt. Elias, but I believe him to be representative of good. He isn’t afraid to report Barnes for his atrocious execution in the village, his appreciation for drugs seems inherently hedonistic, and even his smiles (like the one he gives Barnes before he is shot) seem knowing like they are given from a person looking downward -- especially when paired with his almost angelic death as he sends his arms skyward and the viewer is to think benevolence from this signifier of crucifixion. Unlike L&C’s assertion that the “flaw in the direction of literary allusion and symbolism is all the more regrettable because the totality of the war’s madness, and what it does to the human beings who populate the platoon, is so finely drawn and credibly conveyed,” (401) I don’t think that these symbolic characters are demeaning to the film for the reasons I’ve already given (that, in addition to its increased authenticity, this is a symbolic film -- symbolism and authenticity are not mutually exclusive). Because concrete morality like good and evil is present, their removal makes the reality of ambiguity all the more adamant. “Chris Taylor… seems to be characterized by both perceptiveness and indecisiveness. He is neither good nor bad. He is neither held up for admiration nor reviled for his conduct” (L&C 401). Chris Taylor removes the complete evil by killing Barnes, and substitutes his gray morality within the vacancy. One might argue that the film is still advocating the superiority of evil over good since Barnes removes Elias, but this isn’t the film’s agenda as Elias endures to be killed by a more ambiguous enemy and Barnes doesn’t escape with his life. These representations are even made clear in the last few moments of the movie as Taylor wraps up his narration and says “I’m sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for … ‘possession of my soul.’ There are times since then I’ve felt like a child born of those two fathers” (L&C 398).

Lastly, the film endorses ambiguity even through its technical aspects. The opening shot of the film is a cloudy view of the landing zone as a plane, carrying fresh troops, blows dust and dirt into the frame. The entire film obscures the camera’s view like this: the jungle thicket is always covering one corner or edge of the frame, the frequent pans are dizzying, the cuts are rapid and endanger continuity, the camera always seems to face characters so that we only see their reactions and not their focus (meaning: we see them get hit by bullets and spray at the enemy, but it is unusual for us to get a good view of their targeted enemy or even their comrades). The platoon’s operation is in an ambiguous area as the location given by the film reads “Somewhere near the Cambodian border.” And there even seems to be inconsistency in Taylor’s letters (and narration) to his grandmother, or at least a certain sparsity. He expresses to his fellow soldiers that he has stopped writing to his grandmother, and his final narration seems directed to a wider audience than the ones at the beginning of the film. All of these elements work together to elucidate the disorientation, the ambiguity, and the disillusionment that these soldiers experience. Chris Taylor starts off as a patriotic volunteer, fighting for his country in a supposedly ideological war. The film quickly dismantles this attitude and this ideology, and exposes polarized morals like good and evil for the artificiality inherent in such a dichotomy.

Disclaimer: If some of my comparisons between Blue Velvet and Platoon are seemingly cut short or my analysis of subverted American values seems like a dropped thread, it’s only because I’m establishing some points to commence my final paper’s synthesis.