MORRIS DICKSTEIN
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low- key documentary style Ashby shows th e men ta lking, playing,
gr ipin g. and jo king as well as su fferin g. This li ghten s the mood and
g ives it excepti on a l authenti cit y. From rap sess ions to wh eelcha ir
o lymp ics to you thful sui cide, th e world of th e hosp it al brings the war
home to us with grilly immedi acy, not as an a bstract ho rror o r prize–
winning photograph .
The publi shing world too h as recently given unu sua l accl a im and
a ttenti on to good books of reportage and refl ect ion like Philip Capu–
to 's
A R umor of War
and Michael Herr's
Dispat ches.
SignificanLly,
these books h ave a lso begu n to sell ; but will the larger, more miscel–
la neous movie audi en ce, which is a beller sample o f th e p opul ar mind ,
bu y what Ho ll ywood now has to o ffer ?
If
th e publi c accepts
Coming
Home
it will be buying more tha n the memory o f Vi etn am and its
living wo unded : it will be bu ying back a pi ece of the sixti es.
Th e directo r to ld me in a n int ervi ew tha t he. like so many o th ers,
feds cha ll enged to recapture something of the elusive ch aracter of th e
sixties . and es pec ially th e crucia l year 1968, difficult as th at may be.
(Th e soundtrack is an antho logy of we ll -known sixti es rock numbers,
but it cert a inl y doesn ' t h elp th a t th e songs are lai d down in a way th a t
commcnt s a ll too broadl y on moments of the act ion. ) T hough th e
lvri es of the Ro lling Stones remain quite ex traneous. Vietnam is as
integral to
Coming H ome
a s Ri ch a rd Nixon's 1968 pres identi a l
campa ign was ma rg in a l to
Shampoo,
a good sex comed y which
scared yea rn ed su ch touches o f po liti ca l sign ifi can ce. Ash by's work has
a lways been o ff-b ea t and individu a l. as far back as hi s earl y bl ack
comedy
H aro ld and Maude,
but it has a lso grown mo re deep ly po liti ca l
as Amcri can culturC' in the seventi es has become evcr less so. His las t
film .
Round for Glory,
was a lov in gly detailed po rtra it of troubador
Wood y Guthri e in the
Grapes of Wrath
world of th e thirti es .
It
was a
bea utiful and self-denying mo vi e, so determined to present Woody as
a n exemplary fi gure-drifter, lon er, indi vidua li st (a crea ture o f the
sixti es , really, no t the thirti es)-that it included precious lilli e of wha t
we most wanted , whi ch was hi s mu sic.
T h e same th eme of casu a l, rebelli ou s masculin e individu ality is at
the h eart of Jon Voi ght 's role in
Coming H ome.
When Voight's
inchoa te feelings about the war begin to surface he jo in s n o movemenL ,
tell s no on e, but qui etl y ch ain s himse lf to the gate of a Marine Corp s
pos t in a on e-man rebelli on . H ere we can see th e differen ce between
Coming Home
and th e forti es films on which it's modeled.
In
Th e Men
and
Th e Best Y ears of Our Lives,
the veteran has been marked off and
separa ted by hi s experien ces; th e goal is reconciliation, the rei ntegra-
