A startling and courageous landmark documentary that unflinchingly confronted the United States' involvement in Vietnam at the height of the controversy that surrounded it.
This film recounts the history and attitudes of the opposing sides of the Vietnam War using archival news footage as well as its own film and interviews. A key theme is how attitudes of American racism and self-righteous militarism helped create and prolong this bloody conflict. The film also endeavors to give voice to the Vietnamese people themselves as to how the war has affected them and their reasons why they fight the United States and other western powers while showing the basic humanity of the people that US propaganda tried to dismiss.—Kenneth Chisholm <[email protected]>
This documentary presents both sides of the argument on America's involvement in Vietnam. Included are interviews with several well-known personalities including Gen. William Westmorland, Clark Clifford (who was President Johnson's Secretary of Defense at the end of his Presidency), Daniel Ellsberg, and Walt Rostow among others on their views of the war. The documentary came out in 1974 before the fall of Saigon and the North's victory over the South a year later. For some, the US 'victory' is all that matters while for those who were opposed to the war, there is no justification. A third group provide an equally important view: the Vietnamese themselves, who have a less than sympathetic view of America's role in the conflict.—garykmcd
Many times during his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson said that ultimate victory in the Vietnam War depended upon the U.S. military winning the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people. Filmmaker Peter Davis uses Johnson's phrase in an ironic context in this anti-war documentary, filmed and released while the Vietnam War was still under way, juxtaposing interviews with military figures like U.S. Army Chief of Staff William C. Westmoreland with shocking scenes of violence and brutality.—Jwelch5742
A startling and courageous film, Peter Davis's landmark 1974 documentary Hearts and Minds unflinchingly confronted the United States' involvement in Vietnam at the height of the controversy that surrounded it. Using a wealth of sources-from interviews to newsreels to footage of the conflict and the upheaval it occasioned on the home front-Davis constructs a powerfully affecting picture of the disastrous effects of war. Explosive, persuasive, and wrenching, Hearts and Minds is an overwhelming emotional experience and the most important nonfiction film ever made about this devastating period in history.
