This video essay explores whether Vietnam War films honour or exploit the conflict through camera and lighting techniques. Through analysing four films, Apocalypse Now, Rambo: First Blood Part IIThe Abandoned Field: Free Fire Zone, and Little Girl of Hanoi, the essay investigates how and why the director has used visual techniques to influence the audience's ideological and emotional engagement. American films such as Rambo and Apocalypse Now frame the war to create a visceral spectacle for the audience. Their use of high angles, dramatic lighting, and slow-motion shots turns the combat into entertainment, although Apocalypse Now does this purposefully to show the media’s portrayal of war. Whereas Vietnamese films honour the untold stories of civilians through documentary-style camerawork and naturalistic lighting, showing the effect of the conflict on common people. The video essay concludes that most commonly American cinema exploits the conflict for visual pleasure and entertainment, whereas lesser-known Vietnamese films honour the effects it had on Vietnamese civilians. However, it asks whether film as an art can ever fairly portray war, as we are just observing the director’s decisions and opinions.
