Š-DR-BORN ON 4th OF JULY de Oliver Stone (1989) p5

19/07/2014 10:27 par tellurikwaves

Haunting and disturbing, but ultimately redemptive
10/10
Author: Dennis Littrell from United States
23 October 2003

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)

I avoided this when it came out in 1989 having seen Coming Home (1978) and not wanting to revisit the theme of paraplegic sexual dysfunction and frustration. I also didn't want to reprise the bloody horror of our involvement in the war in Vietnam that I knew Oliver Stone was going to serve up. And Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic? I just didn't think it would work.

Well, my preconceptions were wrong.

First of all, for those who think that Tom Cruise is just another pretty boy (which was basically my opinion), this movie sets that mistaken notion to rest. He is nothing short of brilliant in a role that is enormously demanding--physically, mentally, artistically, and emotionally. I don't see how anybody could play that role and still be the same person. Someday in his memoirs, Tom Cruise is going to talk about being Ron Kovic as directed by Oliver Stone.

And second, Stone's treatment of the sex life of Viet Vets in wheelchairs is absolutely without sentimentality or silver lining. There are no rose petals and no soft pedaling. There was no Jane Fonda, as in Coming Home, to play an angel of love. Instead the high school girl friend understandably went her own way, and love became something you bought if you could afford it.

And third, Stone's depiction of America--and this movie really is about America, from the 1950s to the 1970s--from the pseudo-innocence of childhood war games and 4th of July parades down Main street USA to having your guts spilled in a foreign land and your brothers-in-arms being sent home in body bags--was as indelible as black ink on white parchment. He takes us from proud moms and patriotic homilies to the shameful neglect in our Veteran's hospitals to the bloody clashes between anti-war demonstrators and the police outside convention halls where reveling conventioneers wave flags and mouth phony slogans.

I have seen most of Stone's work and as far as fidelity to authentic detail and sustained concentration, this is his best. There are a thousand details that Stone got exactly right, from Dalton Trumbo's paperback novel of a paraplegic from WW I, Johnny Got His Gun, that sat on a tray near Kovic's hospital bed, to the black medic telling him that there was a more important war going on at the same time as the Vietnam war, namely the civil rights movement, to a mother throwing her son out of the house when he no longer fulfilled her trophy case vision of what her son ought to be, to Willem DaFoe's remark about what you have to do sexually when nothing in the middle moves.

Also striking were some of the scenes. In particular, the confession scene at the home of the boy Kovic accidentally shot; the Mexican brothel scene of sex/love desperation, the drunken scene at the pool hall bar and the pretty girl's face he touches, and then the drunken, hate-filled rage against his mother, and of course the savage hospital scenes--these and some others were deeply moving and likely to haunt me for many years to come.

Of course, as usual, Oliver Stone's political message weighed heavily upon his artistic purpose. Straight-laced conservatives will find his portrait of America one-sided and offensive and something they'd rather forget. But I imagine that the guys who fought in Vietnam and managed to get back somehow and see this movie, will find it redemptive. Certainly to watch Ron Kovic, just an ordinary Joe who believed in his country and the sentiments of John Wayne movies and comic book heroics, go from a depressed, enraged, drug-addled waste of a human being to an enlightened, focused, articulate, and ultimately triumphant spokesman for the anti-war movement, for veterans, and the disabled was wonderful to see. As Stone reminds us, Kovic really did become the hero that his misguided mother dreamed he would be.

No other Vietnam war movie haunts me like this one. There is something about coming back less than whole that is worse than not coming back at all that eats away at our consciousness. And yet in the end there is here displayed the triumph of the human will and a story about how a man might find redemption in the most deplorable of circumstances.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!"

Š-DR-BORN ON 4th OF JULY de Oliver Stone (1989) p4

19/07/2014 04:08 par tellurikwaves

• Aller au cinema (French)
• AllStars
• BioscoopAgenda (Dutch)
• Box Office Mojo
• Cinefacts (German)
• CINeol (Spanish)
• Film in America
• Filmhai - info (German)
• IMCDb.org: cars, bikes, trucks and other vehicles seen in this production
• Indiemoviez (Spanish)
• MattFind.com - Reviews, trailer, pics, info
• MovieMeter (Dutch)
• MovieNet (Swedish)
• New Video-DVD Film-Lexikon (German)
• Official Born on the Fourth of July Fanlisting
• RopeofSilicon
• SoundtrackCollector - Soundtrack Information
• Spotlight [Adrienne Papp] (Sept. 25, 2009)
• Stopklatka.pl (Polish)
• tvfilm (Hungarian)
• U.S.A. Movies
• Virtual History
• WestsideToday [Adrienne Papp] (9/24/09)
• Wikipedia
• Zelluloid.de (German)

Photographs

• Ace Photos - photo gallery
• CINeol - Image gallery
• elFilm.com - Image Gallery
• Film.Com.Tr - Synopsis and Pictures (Turkish)
• MoviesCorner.Net - Wallpapers
• Poster - Italian
• Video.olympus.ru - Pictures
• Virtual History
• carteles.metropoliglobal.com
• elFilm.com - Posters
• filmposter-archiv.de - German movie poster
• MoTechPosters
• MoviePosterDB.com
• Theatrical Movie Poster

Š-DR-BORN ON 4th OF JULY de Oliver Stone (1989) p3

19/07/2014 04:03 par tellurikwaves

Happy Birthday and Happy Fourth of July!
10/10
Author: TC-LeonK from Arlington, Virginia, USA
4 July 2012

First, Happy Fourth of July to everybody! Second, this movie is probably the best thing Oliver Stone ever directed along with the amazing collaboration of Vietnam veteran and anti-war activist Ron Kovic and super star Tom Cruise. Born on the Fourth of July is a documentation of the horrors of the Vietnam war and its impact on the American society throughout the 60s and 70s when Communism was perceived as a threat to liberty.

Ron Kovic was a naive and patriotic young man whose devotion to his country caused him to pay a heavy price after being paralyzed for life, he eventually began to fight against the government that betrayed him and his fellow soldiers into going to Vietnam. Tom Cruise's performance was brilliant and he was able to reflect Kovic's anguish and pain as a paraplegic. He should've won an Academy Award for his role.

Š-DR-BORN ON 4th OF JULY de Oliver Stone (1989) p2

19/07/2014 03:58 par tellurikwaves

Fiche technique
Titre francophone : Né un 4 juillet
Titre original : Born on the Fourth of July
Réalisation : Oliver Stone
Scénario : Oliver Stone et Ron Kovic,
d'après l'autobiographie Born on the Fourth of July de Ron Kovic
Musique : John Williams
Décors : Derek R. Hill
Costumes : Judy Ruskin
Photographie : Robert Richardson
Montage : David Brenner et Joe Hutshing
Production : A. Kitman Ho et Oliver Stone
Société de production : Ixtlan Corporation
Société de distribution :États-Unis : Universal Pictures
France : United International Pictures
Pays d'origine : États-Unis
Langues originales : anglais et espagnol
Format : Couleurs - 2,35:1 - Dolby Surround - 35 mm
Genre : Drame, guerre
Durée : 145 minutes
Dates de sortie: États-Unis : 20 décembre 1989
France : 21 février 1990

Š-DR-BORN ON 4th OF JULY de Oliver Stone (1989)

19/07/2014 03:50 par tellurikwaves

Né un 4 juillet (Born on the Fourth of July) est un film américain réalisé par Oliver Stone et sorti en 1989.Il est adapté de la biographie de Ron Kovic,paralysé durant la guerre du Viet Nam devenu opposant à la guerre ainsi qu'activiste pour les droits de l'homme après avoir estimé être trahi par le pays pour lequel il a combattu.Sélectionné pour huit récompenses il obtient les Oscars du meilleur réalisateur et du meilleur montage lors de la 62e cérémonie des Oscars.

*

*

Cast
Tom Cruise : Ron Kovic
Willem Dafoe  : Charlie - Villa Dulce
Bryan Larkin : Ron Kovic, jeune
Raymond J. Barry : M. Kovic
Caroline Kava : Mme Kovic
Josh Evans : Tommy Kovic
Seth Allen : Tommy Kovic, jeune
Jamie Talisman : Jimmy Kovic
Sean Stone : Jimmy Kovic, jeune
Holly Marie Combs  : Jenny
Kyra Sedgwick : Donna
Tom Berenger : sergent recruteur Hayes
Stephen Baldwin : Billy Vorsovich
Frank Whaley  : Timmy
Daniel Baldwin : un vétéran à la convention démocrate
William Baldwin : un soldat au Vietnam
James LeGros : un soldat au Vietnam
Tom Sizemore : un vétéran à la villa Dulce
Oliver Stone : un reporter
Bob Gunton : le médecin à l'hôpital militaire
Eagle-Eye Cherry : un vétéran à la convention de Miami

Š-DR- MONTE WALSH fin

18/07/2014 11:01 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR-MONTE WALSH de W.A.Fraker (1971) p21

18/07/2014 10:56 par tellurikwaves

à droite Jim Davis que l'on verra peu après dans la série DALLAS

Š-DR- MONTE WALSH p20

18/07/2014 10:42 par tellurikwaves

A wonderful, sad, poetic film
10/10
Author: Thomas Jacques (lickskillet@hotmail.com) from Brinkley, Arkansas
7 May 2002

"Monte Walsh" is an astounding film, astounding in that so few people seem aware of it. Lee Marvin heads an outstanding cast including Jack Palance, Jeanne Moreau and Mitchell Ryan in this elegant adaptation of the Jack Schaefer ("Shane") novel. The movie may be thought of as one of those so-called "revisionist" films of the era which re-examined the concept of the western.

"Monte Walsh" offers a vision of a dying cowboy lifestyle, of large cattle corporations and fewer jobs, of the growth of towns and the death of rowdy freedoms, of hard lives and few attractive options. Marvin encapsulates many of these aspects as the title character, forced daily to realize his entire way of life is over. Director William A. Fraker does a fine job of drawing fine performances from his cast, and of capturing the hard beauty and constant state of change in the American West.

Š-DR-MONTE WALSH de W.A.Fraker (1971) p19

18/07/2014 10:35 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR-MONTE WALSH de W.A.Fraker (1971) p18

18/07/2014 09:28 par tellurikwaves

One of the best westerns ever!!!
10/10
Author: harelik-1 from United States
17 November 2006

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The cowboy way-of-life is quickly coming to an end, and Chet and Monte try to carve out a new life - with great difficulty.

This movie has it all - authenticity, love, loyalty, and desperation. Treat yourself to one of the best movies ever made starring Lee Marvin and Jack Palance. This part of our U.S. history is accurately and lovingly recreated in this cinematic wonder. The cowboy has never been underrepresented in film, but this masterpiece shows us with thrilling detail the personal struggles that came with the end of their way of life. Monte Walsh is also an amazing allegory of the American way of life. Do Not pass this one up.