It's a Criterion Christmas! I'll be using Meeting the Criterion as a convenient way of reminding you of many of the Criterion Collections great releases from the last year. Whether your Criterion Collection is organized by spine number, title or director there's a good chance you'll see some releases that are bound to end up on your must remember to get list.
Older documentaries about war are easy to dismiss as old news, or bland history lessons. Indeed the endless spate of politicized docs makes it difficult for any film to rise above the white noise or do more than preach to the choir these days. But neither the passage of time or the now obvious point of view espoused by Peter Davis' Hearts and Minds has diminished its power. The winner of the 1974 Academy Award for Best Documentary offers a heartbreaking contextualization of how our country was led into and came to accept the folly of the Vietnam War, masterfully deconstructing the notion of citizenry and the way it morphed into a grotesque macho nationalism.
Hearts and Minds relevance in today's world, the urgency with which it can continue to speak to us, is palpable. By taking his camera out into the heartland as well as the battlefield, from small town parade to military hospital and ravaged countryside, Davis not only lifts the veil off nationalism but shows the racism and "othering" that has always been appealed to by men in power as they strive to work out their own power mongering agendas using their citizens as canon fodder. In short he brings the conflict home, literally. We are at war with ourselves, struggling to maintain an over-inflated sense of self-importance, allowing ourselves to be blind to the rest of the world, to the idea of "others" as anything other than a threat, something to subjugate or the sake of ill-defined idealogy. In Peter Davis' Hearts and Minds bravery has been replaced with heartlessness and mindlessness.
Besides the Audio commentary featuring director Peter Davis the Blu-ray also includes a collection of over two hours of Davis's unused footage, including excerpts from interviews with presidential adviser George Ball, broadcast journalist David Brinkley, French journalist and historian Philippe Devillers, and political activist Tony Russo; additional excerpts from General William Westmoreland's interview; additional audio excerpts from presidential adviser Walt Rostow's interview; and scenes from a funeral and a military hospital in South Vietnam
A booklet features essays by Davis, film critic Judith Crist, and historians Robert K. Brigham, George C. Herring, and Ngo Vinh Long
Not the most joyous of Christmas offerings but one that would be appropriate for any lover of documentary or military history cinema. It has been digital restored in high definition supervised by director Peter Davis and cinematographer Richard Pearce, and offers an uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Hearts and Minds. Spine number 156 available in dual format Blu-ray AND DVD with all extras included on both.