For some, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) is the best film made about the Vietnam War: for some it is one of the greatest war/anti-war films ever made. It was certainly a manic, filmic projection of a manic man-eating war. Eight years later Coppola made another film about Vietnam, this one quiet, no napalm, no screaming jets, just the daily, non stop burial of those coming back in boxes, to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and the agonizing grief of those who loved them. Like too many of Coppola’s films, Gardens of Stone, (1987) fell into puzzlement and dismissal and has all but disappeared. It may be worth taking another look at it with another, terribly similar war thrumming in our ears, and the forgetting of the earlier one all but complete.
The story is a simple one. The spit and polish 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment carries dead soldiers and presidents to their graves at Arlington National Cemetery. The Regiment is the public face of the respect and honor given to the military dead. The soldiers are drilled and groomed to an almost unbelievable perfection, and Coppola gives them their full due. As an artist of the technical you can almost see Coppola’s admiration in the repeated shots of precision arms handling, marching, saluting.
Among the soldiers are three, around whom the story is built. James Caan plays Clell Hazard, a very believable top sergeant. Lean and tough, he is taunted for being a “pacifist” because he thinks the war in Vietnam is the wrong war against the wrong people, and being fought the wrong way; in other words — get out. But if it is going to be fought, he believes he should not be with the Old Guard, a “toy soldier,” but should be at Fort Benning training young soldiers to fight and stay alive. [The reasons that he is not allowed to go is one of the weaker parts of the film.]
His superior and good friend, Sergeant Major “Goody” Nelson, is played by James Earle Jones –the Sergeant Major, with more gold on his sleeve than can be lifted, and a sternness in his presence that is entirely convincing. For great military tough guy pyrotechnics you could not have cast better. They go after each other, and anyone in sight with hammer and tongs. Yet, their friendship is real and extends back to the Korean war.
Into the Regiment comes a new recruit, Jackie Willow (D.B. Sweeney) who is regularly called “Dildo” in the eternal male teasing that says if you can deal with this, then you’re a man and we can can trust you. (more…)
