Arts
By Noel Murray
Dir.: Peter Davis
R, 112 min.
In his book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind cites the Academy Award-winning 1974 documentary Hearts & Minds as a triumph for producer Bert Schneider almost as much as for director Peter Davis. Schneider's Hollywood sojourn was marked by decadent parties, radical political activism and some of the best movies of the early '70s, but his backing of Hearts & Minds marked the only time that he really combined all his talents. It's a phenomenal, persuasive film, and it gives off the kind of contact high that comes from hanging around disreputable sorts with secrets to tell.
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Hearts & Minds covers the history of the Vietnam conflict and its attendant protest movement right up to the waning days. It's a two-hour cine-collage, zipping from the front to the home front, showing wartime atrocities, pontificating politicians, student marchers, army recruiters and the cross-continental damage wrought by the domino theory of geopolitics. The title refers to President Johnson's contention that the war in Vietnam wouldn't be won until the U.S. and its allies swayed the country's citizens to the inherent rightness of capitalism and democracy. Davis' film works the other side of the street, picking apart the arguments of the war's architects by showing the compassion of the allegedly ruthless Vietnamese, and painting American culture as militaristic right down to its high school pep rallies.
It would be overstating the case to say that Hearts & Minds actually changed the world. By the time the documentary got U.S. distribution in 1975, the war was over, Nixon had resigned, and public sentiment had long since turned against the whole endeavor. When Schneider accepted his Oscar by reading a congratulatory telegram from Vietnam's provisional government, the old Hollywood squares who booed him looked hopelessly out of touch. Nevertheless, the film stands as a cogent distillation of the argument that raged 30 years ago. It's an artful sketch of fevered times.
Similarly, a decade from now the political impact of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 will have faded, but the agitprop documentary's kaleidoscopic snapshots of what American life was like at the beginning of the 21st century will still be valuable. And whatever its rhetorical weaknesses, Fahrenheit 9/11 brought in $100 million worth of business because audiences had the sense that Michael Moore, a man not obliged to any media conglomerate, might just tell them the truth. People don't seem to mind agendas, so long as they aren't hidden.
The documentary is in a strange place right now in this country—more popular than ever, but increasingly cheapened by shallow showmanship and suspicious one-sidedness. That can be laid at Moore's feet to a large degree. Even documentarians with something relevant to say lose a lot of their moral weight by excluding dissenting opinions from their films. Hearts & Minds, by contrast, is an enduring example of how to agitate properly, in a model that Moore follows more than his pale imitators realize. The film's bias is plain, but Davis lets his opponents speak, even if only to use their words to hang them. Hearts & Minds is impressive even now, because the filmmakers were so sure of their message: they weren't just selling an opinion; they were selling righteousness.