Winter Soldier (DVD)

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The clear-as-a-bell message of the film is that the evil starts at the top and spreads to the bottom, a "trickle down" theory that is actually plausible. The well-oiled military killing machine conditions its soldiers to view the enemy as non-human (thus the utility of the epithet "gooks") and therefore to treat them in inhumane ways. As soldier after soldier says, "I didn´t think anything of it" where the "it" refers to shooting children or torching friendly villages. This logic is indisputably correct, but I do wonder why the soldiers who testified at the hearings are so universally lionized. Yes, they were courageous to come forward, but they also admit to committing terrible war crimes. Is "I was just following orders" acceptable in this case?

I am not qualified to judge such matters. I am, however, qualified to judge the impact of "Winter Soldier." I prefer not to use military terms such as "explosive" or "incendiary" to describe it; I´ll just call it "numbing." And unbearably depressing. I would rather believe that these men (most of whom were decorated soldiers) are lying than to accept the idea that ordinary people (from any country) can be conditioned to commit such horrifying acts with such apparent ease. History suggests otherwise.

There are better documentaries about Vietnam (such as Emile de Antonio´s "In the Year of the Pig"), but none that I have seen delivers a hammer shot to the gut like "Winter Soldier."

Video

The documentary is presented in its original 1.33:1 full screen aspect ratio. The footage is grainy and scratched, just as this no-budget feature originally looked.

Audio

The DVD is presented in Dolby Digital Mono. Optional French and German subtitles and English closed-captions support the audio.

Extras

This DVD is packed with informative extras, suggesting that the DVD, like the original film, is intended for educational/propaganda (as I´ve argued before, this is not a negative term) purposes.

"A Conversation with the Filmmakers" (18 min.) reunites many of the filmmakers of the Winterfilm collective thirty-five years later. For the record, the filmmakers who are identified in this interview are: David Grubin, Barbara Jarvis, Barbara Kopple, Michael Lesser, Benay Rubenstein, Fred Aronow, David Gillis, Bob Fiore, Roger Phenix, Lucy Phenix, Rhetta Barron, and Nancy Baker.

"Seasoned Veteran: The Journey of a Winter Soldier" (40 min.) is a 2002 documentary (by Benito Aragon, Melinda Kahl, and Michael Kirschbaum) about Scott Camil, one of the veterans who figures prominently in "Winter Soldier." Camil became an outspoken anti-war protester after the Winter Soldier hearings. In fact, he was one of the Gainesville Eight (look it up on Wikipedia).

There are also two short films which were edited by the Winterfilm collective before the feature-length film was released. "Americal Division" (24 min.) includes the testimony of soldiers from Lt. William Calley´s division. Another short offers the testimony of soldiers from the "1st Marine Division" (17 min.)

The DVD also includes a substantial amount of information which is downloadable on DVDRom as .pdf files. One of the files contains John Kerry´s testimony to Congress.

The selection of extras is rounded out by a Trailer, a Stills Gallery, and an option to play the 1973 song "Oh, Camil (The Winter Soldier)" by Graham Nash.

Film Value

Grover Babcock, co-director of the excellent documentary "A Certain Kind of Death," recently told me: "It is a remarkable thing to be living at a time when so much great cinema, past and present, is instantly available." "Winter Soldier" remained almost entirely unseen for over thirty years until its re-release in 2005. Now available on DVD, it will reach the audience it has deserved all these years, and will likely become an indispensable part of the curriculum in documentary programs in America and abroad. Chalk up another victory for the DVD revolution.

NB: Though John Kerry is featured prominently in the promo material for this DVD release, he only appears very briefly (and is not identified) in the documentary.

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