Dear America - Letters Home from Vietnam
Starring: Tom Berenger, Ellen Burstyn, J. Kenneth Campbell, Richard Chaves, Josh CruzeDirector: Bill Couturié
Studio: Hbo Home Video
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Running Time: 86 minutes
DVD Release: November 1st 2005
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DVD Review
All the confusion, pain, despair, and even hope of the men and women who served in Vietnam is captured in Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. Read by dozens of actors such as Harvey Keitel, Matt Dillon, and Kathleen Turner, these letters show a more human story of the war than we see in most media outlets and reveal real people in real situations trying to explain or understand. The footage, some newsreel, some shot by the servicemen and servicewomen, reveals a tension between the soldiers' actual experiences and the presentation their loved ones received from television. The soundtrack weaves the songs of the 1960s with the readings to create a compelling aural snapshot of the time, which complements the video exceptionally well. While it's not a "feel-good" movie, the viewer does get a sense of the indestructibility of human dreams. --Rob Lightner
User Reviews
very enjoyable/sad..brings out lots of emotions.. - Rating: 5/5
I really enjoyed this DVD..It's not a movie per say...but a compilation of different stories..that all center around a common theme. The footage was nice because it was real...no cheesy reinactments..and the music was awesome and used at the right times. Worth buying if you like anything related to Vietnam or this era/time in history.
dear america letters home from vietnam - Rating: 5/5
great documentary on life and attitudes during the vietnam war.
excellent documentary - Rating: 5/5
This documentary is for all military historians and buffs alike,very good footage shot from the war, and very good narration. Great music from the era too.
They Walked Like Men - Rating: 5/5
Our great battle in Vietnam was Long Tan, 1968 when a couple hundred Australians and Kiwi artillery, killed 1000 NVA or VC in a rubber plantation. The battle of Long Tan took place during a tropical downpour deliberately used by the enemy to hamper ANZAC defenses.
(Just thought I owed our "Diggers" their due before I begin!)
Dear America does a good job in giving you the "feel" of the war to the average soldier by seperating the "Americans:" the 19 year old boys who've largely never been outside the USA in their lives from "America" with its "falling dominos" foreign policy, that in Sen. Wayne Morse's words, would "lead to the deaths of untold American boys - and for nothing."
The letters home, trace well the shifting mood of these boys; the white poor and minorities, the kids who could not afford to use enrolement in college to avoid the draft. We see them going from their youthful "mugging" on 8mm home movies in the early days to the later TV pictures of exahusted soldiers on patrol in (&2 Dylan's) "Hard Rain," or telling of their confusion, "they say we're fighting for something, but I don't know - I'll be so glad to go home."
Yet, as another soldier wrote, "even though most men thought the war was being fought incorrectly and we would not win....they went out and risked their lives as if they were defending the continental USA."
Aside from the perspective of the individual soldier and the music takes (me at least) back to the 60s era, "Dear America" has the pace and structure of a Hollywood production. In fact "Dear America" is so engrosing that at times you had to remind yourself that this was indeed real! For example the "Grunt's Primer" montage to the Stone's "Gimme Shelter" is in the same league as the Helicopter attack in "Apocalypse Now." And, watch the title sequence for John Fogerty's "Fortunate Son," the "Grunts'" ironic anthem of the war. Personally, I think the words of that song are so telling that they should have gone up on screen as Creedence Clearwater played.
Fortunate Son and the rest of the music the boys listened to and their letters home combine to make Dear America as powerful a statement about war as the 1930 version of "All Quiet on the Western Front."
"Dear America," like "All Quiet," is a well constructed narrative, that brings presence and even urgency to a war now fading into history.
just like it was - Rating: 5/5
I purchased this dvd for my husband who served in vietnam 498th dustoff 67. He said if anyone wanted to know what it was like over there this is the documentary to watch.It was so realistic the only thing that was missing was the stink and the heat.It captures the look of the american soldier that hollywood hasnt been able to reproduce
