The late 70s and 80s in American cinema can be called the period of anti-war films, the main theme of which was still fresh in the memory of Americans, the US military company in Vietnam. Despite the fact that most films of this kind condemned the war, they can not be called agitation for peace. They do not seek to denigrate the government of the United States, but to dig much deeper, into a more complex and dark world, into the consciousness of a man who has gone through Vietnamese hell. Perhaps apart in these belts are three films released each other from 1978 to 1979, namely: “Hal Ashby’s Return Home”, “Deer Hunter” by Michael Cimino and “Apocalypse Now” by the genius of Coppola. Despite the fact that these are completely different films, each of them very skillfully immerses the viewer in the dark corners of the human essence. We can safely say that these are not films about war, but films about people whose souls were wounded by war.
The first of them was the film Homecoming, which, unlike the others, does not show us Vietnam at all, but concentrates on people who became victims of this war both literally, i.e. soldiers, and figuratively, i.e. people close to them. The main character of the film Luke Martin (John Voight), a paralyzed U.S. Army sergeant below the waist, disillusioned in his country and overgrown with a considerable dose of cynicism, is in the hospital for soldiers like him - victims of the war. Once in his life, Sally (Jane Fonda), the wife of a U.S. Marine captain, appears, who is eager for war, and therefore leaves his wife alone. However, Sally does not want to put up with life alone, and finds in separation from her husband an opportunity to change something in her life. One of these changes, motivated by the altruism of the heroine, is the admission to work in the very hospital where the main character is located. Then everything is logical, they get acquainted, penetrate each other, feelings are formed between them. Here history can go in a cliché, with overcoming oneself, one finds his place in the world and miraculously rises to his feet, the other finds his true love in it and they, overcoming all difficulties together, find their happiness. However, the story turns in a completely different direction, much more like real life.
This is still a story about overcoming yourself, but this is not the main character with a disability, but the heroine Fonda, who, having escorted her husband to the war, abandoned the typical military life for her wife and decided to change, including finding herself in help to the soldiers who suffered in the war. She wants to support her transformation, especially given the situation of women in those years, but having reached what seemed to be a peak, she has doubts peculiar to many women in her position, which will lead her to unexpected actions for me. Ultimately, it is her decisions that will determine the end of this story.
Voight’s character gets a less diverse story, we are not shown how the same wound happened, even his time spent in the hospital is swallowed quite quickly, throughout the film the most important events in his history, which in any other film would have become a real trigger to big plot twists, pass rather everyday, but his story does not get worse. On the contrary, it is this behavior of the hero that best depicts the drama of a man who survived the horrors of war. In his soul, there is less room for emotions and that is why his romance with Sally does not make a revolution in the hero, but simply becomes the happiest episode of his life after the war, but it is thanks to him that Luke gives out the most emotional scene in the film in the final.
Speaking of the heroes, it is impossible not to mention Bruce Dern, who played Captain Bob Hyde - Sally's husband. His role is small in comparison with the two main characters, but very characteristic, reflecting the other side of the man who arrived from the war. He is not devoid of emotions like Luke, on the contrary, he is looking for an opportunity to throw them out, but his transformation sobers the viewer’s attitude to the war perhaps even more than Luke’s cynicism. Bob’s mood swings make the character unpredictable, but at the same time very vulnerable, because of which he begins to empathize no less than the main characters and it is his final scene that leaves the biggest questions.
The filmmakers managed to convey a very human story about people in war without showing the war itself. You don’t see it, but you are well aware of its impact through brilliant acting and simple storytelling in a difficult way. It is thanks to all this that the breath of war is felt to the last in this story.
"... I do not participate in the war, the war participates in me ..."
This film is often called overrated, like to compare with “Deer Hunter” and “Born on the Fourth of July”. In my opinion, the comparisons are wrong - these are films about different things. Formally, they are united by the theme of the Vietnam War and its crippling effect on human souls. In "Born" this is the only topic raised. “Return” is not only about this, the war is only the background for the relationships of the heroes.
Bob is a golden boy who has decided to play patriotism. The unpleasant truth of life breaks his soul; but it could also be broken by any other misfortune, just Vietnam being the first truly bad thing that happened to him.
Sally is a typical professional housewife who is bored with her ideal life. Wanting to do something "real", he volunteered at a hospital for veterans. Her past life did not prepare her for what she saw there. Hard physical work, constant emotional stress, a sense of powerlessness - to Sally's credit, she copes with all this well.
Luke is just a good guy, the kind of guy who goes forward no matter what. Unlike Tom Cruise’s character (they play the same character), Jon Voight’s character doesn’t believe that life ends with a disability. Paralysis interferes with his everyday life, he is shy and worried with women - but he does not have the hysterical doom that Cruz brilliantly played. Thanks to this, “Return” looks like an easier film than “Born” – the audience has a feeling that Luke will be fine in life, he will cope. Unlike Ron, whose inner troubles cannot hide the seemingly optimistic ending of the film.
This isn't a war movie. It’s a movie about growing up (I know it sounds funny considering everyone is 30+). We see Bob, Sally and Luke as they transition from a serene, thoughtless life to pain and despair. And it is overcoming this mental pain, trying to learn to live with it - and this is the main content of the film.
Homecoming is the first full-length drama about the consequences of the Vietnam War, not counting Elia Kazan’s chamber thriller The Visitors, shot a year before Coppola’s Apocalypse Today and eight years before Stone’s Platoon, along with Path to Glory, is the second all-dramatic film in Ashby’s work without the slightest admixture of comedy. Some viewers believe that in comparison with Stone’s film “Born on the Fourth of July”, also based on the memoirs of a war invalid, this picture is too politically correct and smoothed, but we will be primarily interested in how the aesthetics of “New Hollywood” and its main themes are refracted in it.
In the 1970s, the anti-militarist line was extremely strong in Hollywood, although the topic of the Vietnam War was feared to be covered, but the pacifism of the counterculture reigned in Hollywood of those years undivided and was reflected even in such a conservative genre, such a stronghold of right-wing ideology as the Western, it is enough to recall Nelson’s films “Soldier in Blue Uniform” and Penn’s “Little Big Man”. Ashby tries to film a drama about human relationships, disfigured by war, to contrast humanism and humanity with the brutal militant ideology of the “frontier”.
"Homecoming" demonstrates how from an embittered war veteran born politically active, meaningful, ready to protest and defiance citizen of his country. Rather, the film shows two evolutions: one is the evolution of John Voight’s hero from anger in humanity, the other is Jane Fonda’s heroine: from the conservative, patriarchalized position of a woman raised under man and even not sexually satisfied with a free, emancipated woman who takes responsibility and is ready to resist social evil.
Heroes educate each other, and their love becomes the main lever of transformation from submission to protest. Ashby in this film absorbed not only anti-militarist, but also all the socially protestive intentions of the counterculture, which called on people in those years to develop, resist the puritanical morality of the “white Protestant majority”. So the disabled hero turns out to be a bigger man than the healthy husband of the heroine Fonda precisely because he respects her freedom, he unobtrusively, in love, develops the will to social resistance in her, while the husband tries to strangle it in her with patriarchal, gender pressure.
“Homecoming” accumulates the main protest motives of “New Hollywood”, taking its aesthetics to a new level, making it socially active, Ashby again demonstrates himself as a significant figure not only of “New Hollywood”, but also of the counterculture as a whole, representing its main conceptual models. Rock and roll, sounding behind the scenes, as always with Ashby, is designed to convey the authenticity of the social message of his film, to strengthen his protest message, but only in his last film, shot in the 70s, “Being there” the director was able to express himself on political topics in a parable, allegorical way, summing up his directorial achievements, creating a swan song of “New Hollywood”.
The Vietnam War is perhaps the saddest and most shameful chapter in U.S. history. Thousands of men under the illusion of imaginary patriotism agreed to become murderers of innocent people for the whims of a government obsessed with the military race during the Cold War. Millions of innocent souls were destroyed and disfigured both inside and outside. This problem became the source of further plot in the psychological drama “Homecoming”.
Synopsis After that, Sally Hyde’s husband, Bob, volunteers for the war in Vietnam, she, in need of funds, settles in a hospital for veterans, where her friend Violet works. In the hospital, she meets a friend of her youth, Luke Martin, who also once fought in Vietnam, and is now confined to a wheelchair. Between Sally and Luke flashes real feelings that they can not contain.
Game of actors It is worth starting with the fact that the picture involves a stunning cast, which will amaze the viewer with its endless talent and ability to get used to images. Jane Fonda plays a quiet and humble girl who has to survive in a cruel world away from her husband, who can be killed at any moment. She helps to cope with all this Luke performed by John Voight, embodied on the screen the image of a hardened person who, despite his shortcomings, continues to live as he wants. In the life of both heroes, Sully’s husband, Bruce Dern, who returned from Vietnam, suddenly appears, who played the classic victim of Vietnam, who survived, but did not understand why she was sent there.
Directorship First of all, I want to assure potential viewers that Homecoming is by no means a war drama or a tearful melodrama. This is a psychological drama about people who have become victims of deception and trying to cope with the consequences of this lie and suppress the bile and bitterness for those who can no longer return. I was impressed by how the director showed on the screen the relationship between the characters. He didn't try to prove that there was real love or burning passion between them. It was rather a mutual healing from the suffering they had endured.
Screenplay The central character of the picture is the main character Sally Hyde. Her husband, Bob, who has always been a fan of war as a volunteer, leaves for Vietnam, confident that all these sacrifices are good for the country. From this moment, the main character begins a black stripe, because her husband can be killed, there is no one to support her and besides she needs funds. And here in her life appears Luke, a war veteran and now disabled. And if Sally had previously helped Luke, now Luke is helping her heal her inner pain. In general, the plot of the film, of course, unusual, but still throughout the film I did not leave the feeling that something is missing, perhaps some additional intrigue.
"Homecoming" - without a doubt, a very strong movie, which is unlikely to leave indifferent even the most "unsentimental" viewer. Although the film will seem boring or protracted, which, in fact, can not argue, nevertheless, I strongly advise everyone to watch it, because it highlights one of the most important issues in the history of the United States, which is relevant to this day.
9 out of 10
I may not think it’s right, but I still think it’s primarily for Americans because the Vietnam War is an integral part of their story. The film tells the story of two people: a woman, Sally (Jane Fonda), whose husband Bob (Bruce Dern) has gone to war, and a paralyzed man, Luke (John Voight), who has already returned from Vietnam. Luke's friendship changes Sally. She becomes more liberal in her views, while Luke becomes kinder under her influence. There is also a romantic line, but it is not very important.
The main idea of Homecoming is to show the viewer the horror of war. This movie is a protest. Protest against the fighting in Vietnam. Who wanted this war? What started it? How did it end? What did you do? The answer is simple: no one and nothing. This is shown in the lives of ordinary Americans. Bob and Luke are leaving for Vietnam. In a short time they return to the States. What did they achieve? Nothing. Lost what? A lot of things. There is a lot of aggression against the government. The war in Vietnam began through the fault of politicians. Its causes are unclear and confused, and the consequences are monstrous. It is through the fault of the US government, according to the authors, largely to blame for the Vietnam massacre, ordinary citizens suffer.
Many people will not like this movie for purely political reasons. Some will not like the fact that the Americans look like martyrs, because they are not the only ones who have had a hard time. Others will not like the strong patriotism. There are plenty of reasons not to like the film, but this movie is designed not to collect a cash register, but to show the brutal military realities. Although Homecoming is not so relevant now, thanks to the clarity of the depiction of reality and believable acting, this film can be considered one of the best about the monstrous influence of the Vietnam War.
10 out of 10