MORRIS DICKSTEIN
633
of an evcn morc violenl script aboul a Victnam \CI called
Holling
Thllndf'T.
wrotc Ihat "the war is still too closc to mosl Americans for
Ihem sufficienlly
10
detach Ihemselves.... One must work in mcta–
phors
for
th f' moment. ...
Give it anolher five \'cars. Ihough , maybe
less. and films will be SCI in Vietnam. "
Schradcr's predinion has come true
to
the minulc. BUI on the basis
of
Coming Homf'
it would bc wrong to attribute ll ollywood's sudden
inieresl in "i clnam solely to Ihe hl'aling
pa~sage
of time. True. the
agonies of war and the furies of domestic division havc abaled; so have
Ihe energies of conscience and protesl which wne Ihc war's only decent
bv-producl. The makers of
Comin.!!; flomf'
had no inlerest in exp loit–
ing this calm, or using Vietnam itself as Ihc sClling for a good old–
fashioned movie yarn. What clearly agilated Ihem is Ihe silence itself,
the graveyard calm. the mood of nalional forgctflilness Ihal is one of
lIlt' hallmarks of the scvcntics. Our callous Ircalmcnl of Ihe unwclcomc
\'('teran is pari of our avoidance of Ihe memory of thc war ilself. and
\\'l'
ma\' be condemned
10
repeat it unless we' re willing finally
10
face il. I
don 'I know whel her
Coming H omf'
and its successors poi nt toward a
grealer nalional wi llin gness to come to tClms with Vielnam and the
legacy of the sixties. nm can I guess how Ihc public will take to these
films. But Ihc faci Ihal at long last they're being made-and in Ihe case
of
Coming I-10mf'.
made well-can only be laken as a hcallhy symptom
of the return of the repressed.
