Hearts and Minds (1974)
One of the film’s “most shocking and controversial” scenes shows the funeral of a South Vietnamese soldier and his grieving family, as a sobbing woman is restrained from climbing into the grave after the coffin.
Westmoreland: Life is Cheap in the Orient
The funeral scene is juxtaposed with an interview with General William Westmoreland—commander of American military operations in Vietnam War at its peak from 1964 to 1968 and US Army Chief of Staff from 1968 to 1972—noting: “The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient.”
Westmoreland later said that he had expressed himself inaccurately. The section was reshot for a second and third time, and it was the third take that was included in the film.
Davis later reflected: “As horrified as I was when General Westmoreland said, ‘The Oriental doesn’t put the same value on life,’ instead of arguing with him, I just wanted to draw him out… I wanted the subjects to be the focus, not me as filmmaker.”
The film also includes clips of George Thomas Coker, US Navy aviator held by the North Vietnamese as a prisoner of war for 6
years, including more than 2 years spent in solitary confinement.
One of the film’s earliest scenes details homecoming parade in Coker’s honor in his hometown of Linden, New Jersey, where he tells the crowd that, if the need arose, they must be ready to send him back to war.
Answering a student’s question about Vietnam at a school assembly, Coker responds that “If it wasn’t [sic] for the people, it was very pretty. The people there are very backwards and primitive and they make mess out of everything.”
Time magazine’s Stefan Kanfer noted the lack of balance in Coker’s portrayal, “An ex-P.O.W.’s return to New Jersey is played against background of red-white-and-blue-blooded patriots and wide-eyed schoolchildren. The camera, which amply records the agonies of South Vietnamese political prisoners, seems uninterested in the American lieutenant’s experience of humiliation and torture.”
Bobby Muller, Founded of Vietnam Veterans of America
The film also features Vietnam war vet and anti-war activist Bobby Muller, who later founded the Vietnam Veterans of America.
Daniel Ellsberg, who had released the Pentagon Papers in 1971, discusses his initial gung-ho attitude toward the war in Vietnam.
The concluding interview features US Vietnam veteran Randy Floyd, stating “We’ve all tried very hard to escape what we have learned in Vietnam. Americans have worked extremely hard not to see the criminality that their officials and their policy makers exhibited.”
The film includes images of Phan Thị Kim Phúc, shot at the aftermath of a napalm attack. Phúc, at about age nine, is running naked on the street after being severely burned on her back.
Interviewees
Clark Clifford, aide to Truman 1946-50, Sec. of Defense 1968-69
John Foster Dulles – Secretary of State 1953-59
Georges Bidault – French Foreign Minister 1954
Lt. George Coker – Vietnam PoW 1966-73
Walt Rostow – aide to Johnson and Kennedy
Senator J. W. Fulbright – chair of Foreign Relations Committee
Former Cpt. Randy Floyd
Jerry Holter and Charles Hoey – USAF pilots
J. Edgar Hoover
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy
Former Cpl. Stan Holder
Former 1st Lt. Bobby Muller (now wheelchair-bound)
Kay Dvorshock – Bobby Muller’s girlfriend
Daniel Ellsberg – former aide Defense Dept. (Rand Corporation)
General William Westmoreland, Commanding, 1964-68
Nguyen Van Toi – Vietnamese man
Vo Thi Hue and Vo Thi Tu – Vietnamese sisters
Father Chan Tin of Saigon
Diem Chau – editor of Trinh Bay magazine
David Emerson of Concord, Massachusetts – father of dead pilot
Mui Duc Giang – Vietnamese coffin maker
Former Specialist 5 Edward Sowders – army deserter
Mrs Lora Sowders – mother of Edward Sowders
Barton Osbern – former Army Intelligence Officer, CIA
Sgt. George Trendell of Fort Dix New Jersey
Thich Lieu Minh of the An Quang Pagoda, Saigon
Former Sgt. William Marshall of Detroit
Colonel George Patton IV
Duong Van Khai – refugee
Nguyen Ngoc-Linh – chairman of Mekong Conglomerate, former Cabinet Minister in South Vietnam
Mike Sulsana – amputee
(voice of) I. F. Stone – journalist
Senator Eugene McCarthy
Senator Robert F. Kennedy
Ngo Dinh Diem – President of South Vietnam 1955-63
General Nguyen Khanh – President of South Vietnam 1964-65
General Maxwell Taylor – ambassador to South Vietnam 1964-65
Nguyen Thi Sau – former political prisoner (F)
Ngo Ba Thanh – political prisoner
Mary Cochran Emerson – mother of dead pilot
