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Jovan GastelumHowellFilm Analyses, Period 4 January 25, 2009Change After WarWhy is it that war always changes people? Some of the times people changephysically and they lose or brake body parts, get bullet wounds, or other kinds of wounds. But, most of the time, people change mentally and they think and feeldifferently because they go through a lot of life changing things. The movies

Platoon,

directed by Oliver Stone, and

Deer Hunter,

directed by Michael Camino,have a lot of life changing events that occur during the Vietnam War. These moviesstrongly show that war not only affects people physically but also mentally.In the movie Platoon, what we first see in the character Chris is that he is apushover who seems to not have any experience with war or violence. In one scene,all the soldiers were in the jungle getting their rest. Everyone slept except Chris whowas left as a lookout. As everyone was asleep the Vietcong surrounded them andwere going toward all the sleeping soldiers. As they were approaching, Chris wokeup and slowly was going toward a detonator which would set of some kind of explosions and would wake the other soldiers up. The Vietcong was getting closerand Chris was not at all near the detonator. Luckily, someone else was awake andstarted shooting. All the soldiers woke up and also began shooting. Eventually theykilled all the Vietcong that surrounded them. After this small battle everyoneblamed the surrounding of the Vietcong on Chris because supposedly he should’vebeen the lookout. Chris didn’t say anything because he knew that no one wouldbelieve him for being one of the new soldiers. This thing, about being a new soldier

and people not believing Chris, made him mentally think that he needed to try toearn more respect from the soldiers and do anything that he could to accomplishthis.Later on in the film, while in a little Vietnam village, the soldiers show a lot of frustration toward the Vietnamese villagers because they cant seem to figure out if they are either helping or if they are soldier of the Vietcong. They start findingpeople hiding and hidden weapons and they get more frustrated. As their frustrationbuilds, they start getting mad at each other for no apparent reason. Two of Chris’scommanding officers get into a physical fight because Barnes (one of thecommanding officers) shot an innocent villager. The director, Oliver Stone, shows usthat Chris is also getting very frustrated and scared because he is yelling andscreaming to everyone. The soldiers burn the village and leave. In a monologueChris says “I can’t believe we’re fighting each other, when we should be fightingthem.” This quote shows that Chris is mentally insecure of who he is fighting againstbecause everyone in his platoon seems like they want to fight each other.Afterwards the soldiers were attacked in the jungle and Elias (the othercommanding officer) went of in the jungle by himself to try to keep the Vietcongaway from the soldier’s only way to safety. Barnes went of in the jungle and foundElias and shot him and then went of to a helicopter and told everyone that he sawElias get shot so they left him. While they were in the sky they saw Elias alive andrunning away from the Vietcong but they eventually shot him. Everyone includingChris knew that Barnes lied to them and they got into a fight back at the campsite.We can easily see that Chris is now fighting two battles, the battle with the Vietcongand the battle within his platoon. Later on, in another battle in the jungle with theVietcong, Chris got knocked out and when he woke up there was no guns fired or

anything. He got up and started walking and found Barnes. Barnes went at him witha knife and they were fighting for a while but finally Chris shot and killed him. Wesee the mental change that Chris goes through and we see that he got a lot moreconfident in himself.In Deer Hunter, the three main characters, Michael, Nick and Steven, seem tonot take anything seriously and like to fool around and drink most of the time. Onthe day of Stevens wedding, after getting out of work we see that everyone is goofyand fun while they get in the car and speed and crash the car onto the side, withoutcaring, making their way to the bar dangerously. At the bar we see everyonedrinking and singing and having fun, even Steven who is drunk and hours awayfrom his wedding. After the wedding everyone went to the reception which was notonly a wedding reception but also a going away party for Michael, Nick and Stevenwho were leaving to the war at Vietnam. All the guys continued their partying at thereception except Michael who seemed shy, unlike Nick who was the life of the partyand was drunk and wild. The next day everyone went hunting and while they werehunting we can see that hunting is a very important thing in their lives, especially inMichael’s life. Michael seems the most passionate about hunting because he is veryserious while he hunts and isn’t fooling around like everyone else. Michael was theonly one who killed a deer. This proves even more his passion for hunting becausewhile everyone was drunk and having fun he was of in his own world focusing onlyon hunting. This eventually will mentally change the way that Michael feels abouthunting. The transition from Pennsylvania to Vietnam is really fast. All we see is thatMichael is in a village with a lot of dead people. He reacts quickly when he sees aVietcong soldier and he grabs a flame thrower and burns the soldier to death. Then