“In the Year of the Pig” is a documentary by Emile de Antonio. He was a member of the arts scene and the counterculture in the 1960’s and 1970’s. De Antonio was close friends with Andy Warhol. He made documentaries that criticized politics and society. An avowed Marxist, he was surveilled by the FBI, which compiled a 10,000 page dossier on him. One of his first films documented the career of Joseph McCarthy. ”In the Year of the Pig” was his most controversial film. And his personal favorite. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Theaters that showed it were victims of bomb threats and vandalism. When asked about the leftist messaging in his films, he famously responded: “Only God is objective, and he doesn’t make films.” For this film, he interviewed many “fellow travelers” like Daniel Berrigan, David Halberstam, and Harrison Salisbury.
The movie begins with assorted images - “Make Love Not War” on a helmet, a monk self-immolating, the 54th Massachusetts monument in Boston. Don’t ask what that last one has to do with Vietnam War. Where did it all begin for us? After WWII, the United States turned over Japanese weapons to the French so they could reassert control over French Indochina. On the other side was the “George Washington of Vietnam” - Ho Chi Minh. David Halberstam points out that the best of a generation joined the Viet Minh. Those rebels lugged artillery pieces up the hills around Dien Bien Phu. Before you know it, the French are out and in come the Americans. Giap outlines his guerrilla strategy (without the general being identified). The domino theory is used to explain why America is there. Strategic hamlets alienate rural South Vietnamese and Madame Nhu alienates all the Buddhists. The Battle of Ap Bac proves the ARVN can’t win the war on its own. A monk named Quan Doc burns himself to gross out Americans. Mission accomplished. Diem is overthrown with American approval. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident is our excuse to send troops. Pretty soon, those soldiers are searching to destroy and settling for burning villages. Gen. Westmoreland proclaims that we are not mistreating prisoners. De Antonio follows that with footage of prisoners being mistreated. If you haven’t guessed it yet, the film cherry picks footage and events to make the war look like a big mistake. The choice of interviewees erodes the perception that Vietnam was a righteous war.
It says something about the Academy Awards that this film was nominated for an Oscar. It is not worthy of that kind of recognition. It is clearly slanted toward doves. It’s doubtful many hawks went to theaters to see a movie that assaulted all their government-sponsored beliefs about the war. All the interviewees were anti-war, although it does include snippets of speeches by hawks. Curtis LeMay promises we will use our power in the most humane way. Until “no two bricks are stuck together”. Well, I guess it depends on your perspective of the war whether that solution to Vietnam was humane. I can’t imagine that the movie changed many minds. The war itself is going to do that, but the film was made before the Tet Offensive. It was released before the anti-war movement boomed in America. I can picture De Antonio kicking himself for not waiting a year to complete the film. So much good material.
Does it work as a history of the war? Not really because you have to already have some knowledge of the situation in Southeast Asia. This would have been uncommon in 1968 and is very rare today. Read a book about the war before watching this movie. It doesn’t help that it is unclear what year the film is covering. And sometimes the interviewee is not identified. And I’ve already mentioned that you are getting only one side’s history of the war. That side is Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese side of the war. They could do no wrong. And the U.S. Air Force was bomb-happy. The film includes footage of an F-105 being shot down by a SAM. Since my father flew Thunderchiefs in the war, I found that the film jumped the shark in that moment. It’s one thing to paint one side as heroic, but it’s another to root for it.
“In the Year of the Pig” is propaganda, but effective propaganda if you entered a theater to see it. Your prejudices would have been confirmed. But as a documentary, it was not worthy of an Oscar nomination. It has some value as a history of the America’s involvement before Tet. It could be watched along with reading histories and memoirs of the war (from both sides). However, as a stand alone, it comes off as a Marxist’s dominoes leading to a mouse trap.
GRADE = C
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