esteemed friend from japan
as i have stated before, i am a relatively uneducated layman when it comes
to film philosophy, but i have a tremendous education in southeast asian war
games. i was there two years and wounded once. so at least i can offer you
a perspective of a soldier, and how the term zen movie might be apply in
that context.
please remember, i am only offering my best guess as to what the author
truly intended. a dangerous gamble at best. smiles.
assuming you have seen the movie, as well as some of the other more visceral
examples that specific genre has to offer, you might note that the majority
of these war movies strive, either consciously or unconsciously, to achiever
a sort of surrealistic or dreamlike quality in their presentation of
violence, which might be more clearly communicated by the use of the
metaphor, 'fog of war,' if you are familiar with that term.
in my two years in vietnam, i remained in an inverted state that allowed me
to love to kill.
as abhorrent as that may sound, it is quite necessary, at least for those in
the most forward combat areas.
in such a high threat situation, where on a regular basis, you are exposed
to a lethal enemy fire...imagine what has to take place mentally if you are
to continue to exist.
for example, if you were on the ground there right now in the jungle, at
night, with pit vipers, leeches, mosquitoes, and nothing but black tree
trunks all around, under triple canopy jungle....no lights at all...only
jungle sounds...even animals...how would this affect your mind? might it
not be akin to a nightmare, or at least a radical alteration in your state
of consciousness?
such is the quality i believe the movie platoon and others of its ilk
attempt to simulate.
most of them, sadly, seem to fall far short, at least according to the
elitist community of vietnam veterans that i am familiar with.
and how so? because the writer or director or producer...or all three in
the case of oliver stone...fail to achieve that most unique and induplicable
of cinematic products...the truly deranged mindset of the common
footsoldier.
oliver stone is the only one to have been wounded in combat i believe and
this accounts not only for the zen like quality in his films, with their
nightmarish sense of disjointedness, but his liberal use of cocaine, if that
gossipy fact is indeed true...can you see the connection between the two?
the pure combat environment produces insanity. how can one coolly take
another life? but remember, is that not the crowning achievement of both
zen and the samurai code? cool calm killing?
again, i offer all of this as very subjective commentary from someone
penultiamtely disqualified to be speaking about the true intent of the
producer, writer, director, in the pursuit of their craft. so let the buyer
beware. smiles.
for even now, after thirty five years, i still have trouble sorting out what
actually happened over there from my nightmare imaginings ever since. i
dream too much. smiles.
so the correlation to zen is founded on the tacit assumption of meditation
resulting in an altered state of consciousness.
war results in the same thing. how else can you explain the paradoxical
combing of opposites that seppuku achieves...compassionate self murder?
in bushido...you can see how radically a normal person can depart from
waking consciousness...into the readiness to behead. e.g., yukio mishima.
so a zen movie, to my mind, is a war story in which all normal values are
inverted, and the whole flat montage of pure raw violence, is presented at
an emotional distance devoid of normal human reactions. i am sure i am
confusing you. i better shut up. smiles.
best to you and all
sayonara
----- Original Message -----
From: "Takako MATSUI" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 12:33 AM
Subject: zen film
> Now I'm reading a biography of Johnny Depp, and found the word "zen
> film" that I don't understand. (I'm a Japanese.) The word is used as
> one of description of the film "Platoon." Would anyone tell me the
> definition or whatever, or explain the concept?
>
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