Oliver Stone is skilled in the scheduling of scenes and has a good sense of rhythm, and can capture your interest from beginning to end. He also happily chose the red, white, and blue filters on the American flag and used them alternately to shoot the entire movie, such as red for war, white for dreams, and blue for sentimental scenes. Tom Cruise's performance, I can see that it worked very hard, but I didn't feel it particularly. It is said that Al Pacino had prepared to play this role 10 years ago, but was shelved due to funding problems. If it’s Pacino, I guess I’m going to be heart-stirring with the flashing film again, but I’m fortunate that it’s not him, because the plot setting of the film is really in my opinion...
According to the best-selling biography of real person Ron Kovic, Ron himself and Oliver Stone completed the script and sub-shot writing in a coffee shop in Venice. This Ron classmate (like classmate Stone) is a Vietnam War veteran with the Purple Heart Medal. Formerly a college athlete, he participated in the Vietnam War and was injured and paralyzed his lower limbs. The injuries were serious and the medical conditions of the wounded American soldiers were poor, so he became sick and cynical. Later he became an anti-war activist and successfully disrupted President Nixon's inauguration speech. He considered a political career, but ultimately rejected the Democratic Party’s proposal to let him run for Congress. And Ron, played by the stunning 27-year-old Tom Cruise (born on 1962.7.3), has the following ending: After Nixon, he runs for the president of the United States.
The film is full of the cruelty and perversion of the war, and the suffering and struggle after the war. It looks like another effort by Hollywood to reflect on the Vietnam War. However, comparing Now Apocalypse, Full Metal Jacket, or Platoon directed by Stone, I found that "Born on July 4th" resolutely avoided the nature of the Vietnam War, let alone reflection and criticism. "July 4th" is actually an anthem of Americanism that uses the inspirational story of American personal struggle as the raw material: it is about how the fabulous American people represented by a boy (Ron) full of dreams and sense of responsibility were temporarily The bad government of sex was deceived and exploited, and suffered physical and mental trauma, but in the end it overthrew the government fearlessly and successfully defended the value of the United States. The boy in the story was wounded in the big deception of the macro environment, disabled, incapacitated, and sacrificed for it (Vietnam War) was not recognized by the world, so he fell into the abyss of total value collapse: cursing the United States and God, indulging in childhood In my pain and guilt, I cannot be saved by trying various methods. Finally, he left the ego and devoted himself to the glorious ego of Americanism, defending his way as a selfless hero, and finally teamed up with countless fabulous compatriots to get rid of evil and revive the American spirit. At the same time, he achieved self-realization at the ego level. The focus of the return of value is the precise point at the end of the film: Ron, who was driving to the presidential platform in a wheelchair, told reporters: "I finally feel like home again."
"July 4th" has a weird arrangement. In the rendering of Ron's extreme pain after the war, the strong color lies in his loss of sexual ability due to his injury. Missing the girl who fell in love in the past, the bar seduce the girl to make an ugly, cursed blasphemy late at home, went to Mexico to prostitute... all related to it. This inking point is in line with the West’s emphasis on individualism and physical sensations. If it is replaced by a high-volume inspirational story in our country, the protagonist’s frustration will never be entangled with sexual frustration. However, the solution given by the film does not hesitate to present itself as dedicating oneself to the country and defending the American spirit. In this kind of shining justice, all kinds of impotence, repression, etc. disappear, like small advertisements on telephone poles to cure all diseases. Looking at the confidence and smile on Ron's face, I did feel extremely weird. As a Hollywood ideological propaganda film, such a treatment is really lame, and it is a Chinese model drama with American characteristics (the emphasis on individualism and physical sensation).
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