But there is no celebration. In fact, there is an anti-celebration that Eastwood never allows to be build to any sort of triumphalism. By retaining the gestures of triumph, but hollowing them out, Eastwood condemns the whole notion of the invasion.
What comes across is the real cost in life of pretend wars. It is also oneof hos more erotic films in terms of imaging/imagining the male body (an interesting contrast is made with Kubrick's FULL METAL JACKET of the following year which plays away from the erotic nature of boot camp bonding. Sam Fuller hated the film, saying it was a recruitment ad for the Marines).
> One interesting case to me is Apocalypse Now, which I've seen several
hundred times. Liberal or conservative?
Liberal after Coppola's fashion. Another film where the script of a conservative is undermined by the mise en scene (and script changes) of a liberal. Coppola's shifting from reality to mindscreen and back again derranges Milius' ideas. As with most of Coppola's films, the lure of R/romanticism is both offered and critiqued from within (Hitchcock was the other master of this approach).
Brian