Winter Soldier
List Price: $24.95Amazon.com's Price: $22.49 You Save: $2.46 (10%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0784148010045
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Label: New Yorker Video
Languages: GermanSubtitledFrenchSubtitledEnglishOriginal Language
Manufacturer: New Yorker Video
MPN: DMILE00100
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: New Yorker Video
Release Date: May 30, 2006
Running Time: 95 minutes
Studio: New Yorker Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1972
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Thus it should come as little surprise that while the events described in Winter Soldier took place during the Vietnam conflict, the 2006 home video release of this 1972 documentary more or less coincides with recent, eerily similar revelations regarding the activities of U.S. military personnel stationed in Iraq, including the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the alleged slaughter of civilians in the town of Haditha. The film centers on a day in January, 1971, when more than 100 former soldiers turned up at a motel in Detroit to give testimony as part of an investigation sponsored by a group calling itself Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Their stories are genuinely chilling, as they matter-of-factly describe civilians being thrown from helicopters, villages burned, children shot, women raped, and innocent people tortured, maimed (cutting off their ears was popular), or even skinned; the notorious My Lai massacre of 1968 was apparently more the rule than the exception. Some eighteen documentary filmmakers took part in the making of this production, including Barbara Kopple (Harlan County, U.S.A.) and Robert Fiore (Pumping Iron). But there is no great artistry on display here--the film is mostly a succession of talking heads, appearing in grainy black & white (there are also a few photographs and occasional color film footage shot in Vietnam) and recounting how they were brainwashed into believing that the atrocities in which they participated were "in the best interests of our nation," as one puts it, especially since "it wasn't like (the Vietnamese) were human." Unlike Emile de Antonio's In the Year of the Pig, Winter Soldier gives us nothing from the other side--the opposition to the opposition, if you will. All we have are the vets' terrible (and highly credible) tales of how officers who witnessed or took part in these horrors wrote them off as Standard Operating Procedure. Strong stuff, but the film starts to become repetitive and ultimately tedious after it passes the one hour mark. The abundance of bonus features, including a current interview with the filmmakers and three shorter films addressing the same theme as the main feature, will be of interest mainly to gluttons for punishment. --Sam Graham
Average Rating: 
Rating: -
I am rather fond of invoking, especially in writing of the American Revolution that we have just again celebrated, Tom Paine's little propaganda piece in defense of that revolution which hails the winter soldiers of 1776 for staying at their posts when others either ran away or became faint-hearted at the prospects of defeating the bloody English. It is those efforts by those long ago winter soldier that other leftists and I have honored in the past and continue to honor today. We will leave the ... Read More
Rating:  -
Sure, some soldiers committed crimes in the Vietnam war. BUT, don't let their professed behavior cloud your perspective into believing it was widespread amongst all combat units. Most of our soldiers served their country with honor and performed the difficult task with dignified integrity. They performed a duty that few wanted to do, they served their country instead of dodging the draft and fleeing to Canada. Remember the atrocious treatment heaped on our soldiers as pow's by the north vietnamese ... Read More
Rating:  -
Soldiers testifying about their actions during the Vietnam War. Mandatory viewing for anyone interested in the war, or war in general.
j.w.k.
Rating: -
I saw this movie on TV the day before Thanksgiving and just couldn't beleive it, it may be the most important documentary ever made. The very first veteran interviewed talks about how it was fairly common practice for vietnamese POWs to be thrown from airborne aircraft and everything just spirals downward from there. The movie shows normal everyday americans talking about some of the most horrible things imaginable. Veterans often laugh and chuckle while recounting these things and then you see their ... Read More
Rating:  -
A detailed examination of the full transcript of the presentations made in Detroit in '71 shows they are a mix of reasonable, questionable, and really off-the-wall statements. One of the stars, Scott Camil, has made a lifelong career of outlandish claims, most recently that an entire village was massacred by Marines who wanted the US combat boots the natives had all somehow acquired. Since the average VN foot size is several sizes smaller than US and villagers didn't like American boots anyhow, this ... Read More
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