The urgency of Hearts and Minds, its anger and its articulation, its insistence that effects of war be visible, and its cogent analysis of connections among politics, media, and the military, all seem apt lessons for today.
Hearts and Minds (1975)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:29
Fresh:28
Rotten:1
Average Rating:8.3/10
Consensus: A powerful, unflinching exploration of the Vietnam War, with first-person stories from both sides of the conflict, Hearts and Minds still hits the mark decades after its release.
Runtime: 1 hr 55 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
US Box Office: $0
Synopsis: A landmark in documentary feature films, this Academy Award-winning documentary is an insightful critique of the US's cataclysmic involvement in Vietnam. The film exposes the duplicitous nature of... A landmark in documentary feature films, this Academy Award-winning documentary is an insightful critique of the US's cataclysmic involvement in Vietnam. The film exposes the duplicitous nature of the American government, obsessive in its quest to squelch Communism and advance its own imperialist agenda, documented here in a media-savvy trail of propaganda ranging from archival footage, excerpts from press conferences, newsreels, and clips from jingoistic Hollywood war pictures. Director Peter Davis also uses damaging interviews (including disturbingly racist comments from US soldiers and General William Westmoreland), pop music from the period, and material he shot himself in Vietnam to create an indelible visual essay against war. Eschewing narration, the film has a cinema verite style, which gains its power from juxtaposition and the severity of its images. Released only two short years after the January 1973 agreement that brought home U.S. troops, the film stands as one of the strongest films condemning the war and the America's involvement in it. HEARTS AND MINDS's title derives from a now-infamous speech given by former President Lyndon Johnson in which he stated, "The ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live there." [More]
Starring: Clark Clifford, George Coker, Daniel Ellsberg, J.W. Fulbright
Starring: Clark Clifford, George Coker, Daniel Ellsberg, J.W. Fulbright, William Westmoreland, George S. Patton, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Milhous Nixon, Brian Holden, Robert Muller
Director: Peter Davis
Director: Peter Davis
Producer: Bert Schneider, Peter Davis
Studio: Rainbow Films
Reviews for Hearts and Minds
Davis's film seems as much a prosecution of the present as it is of the recent past; only the names and geographies have been changed.
Now more than ever. The time has never been more appropriate for a re-screening of this Oscar-winning documentary about America's involvement in Vietnam.
If you were ultimately disappointed by the agitprop entertainment of Fahrenheit 9/11, then check out its older, wiser brother to see how a real documentary is made.
A definitive anti-war documentary which won an Academy Award in 1974 and has been restored for release in theaters.
Elicits a palpable emotional and intellectual effect...strikes the same sad note of discord thirty years later.
Hearts and Minds is a tough film but it is no mere rehash of sad events. It is always aware of the primacy of man when man's given even half a chance.
A masterful documentary, one of the most unsettling discussions of Vietnam and its aftermath ever to appear in any medium.
We're bludgeoned by the point of view, we don't like the feeling of manipulation we get. Yet there are scenes here of incredible power, even for a nation which watched this war on television every evening.
It is a carefully structured yet highly emotional argument against the war in Vietnam.
Watching this documentary almost thirty years after it was made, Hearts and Minds is still filled with emotion and conveys what the great silent majority wanted to say: End the war!
has not lost its power to provoke and challenge our conventional understanding of patriotism and the necessity of war
A reminder of how the best documentaries can resonate years after their release.
Still shocking, still powerful, still prudent. What is it they say about the more things change?
Hearts and Minds is an essay told in a voice of thinly controlled moral outrage, which sometimes dribbles over into seething hate.
Even after three and a half decades this film still will be controversial and still has a real impact.
Ahead of the pack, filmmaker Peter Davis illustrates the human toll on 'victor' and 'vanquished.'
An ambitious attempt to explain American involvement in Vietnam and its consequences
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