Was Barnes really a 'bad person'?
-
DariusStrain — 12 years ago(September 18, 2013 07:26 AM)
I agree that the characters are allegorical and that's kind of what I don't like about it. It's almost like Stone thought that the war itself isn't dramatic enough, you need a bunch of allegories to spice it up a bit.
Also I'm sure there were shootings of one's own troops in the Vietnam war, fraggings, but there was just a little too much of that in Platoon. I would have preferred a more realistic war tale. -
nickm2 — 12 years ago(September 18, 2013 07:42 PM)
Not sure about that last bit; As I recall Stone did multiple tours: As an MP; As an artilleryman & as a squaddie in the 25th Infantry division. I had heard that his 'Barnes/Elias Conflict' was him 'ruminating' what would happen if the squad leaders from his two different units 'had a fight'as for 'fragging'I'm sure it happened in the rear & it probably had more of a self preservation issue in the field-IE: Goof-off pointman, dangerously incompetent squadleader & whatnotstill the 'fragging' could be overstated sometimes:
I recall a 'poser/author' with the pen-name 'cincinatus'. He wrote about Vietnam a lot in the early 1970s & purported to have been 'in country'. He expounded a lot on 'fragging'-so much so, that he gave the impression that a large percentage of officer & NCO losses were caused by it. Part of what made me feel he was telling tall tales was the comments on the number of casualties that Helicopter pilots suffered. He 'opined' since most pilots were 'warrant
officers'
, the mechanics could easily sabotage the helicopter to do away with 'lifers'-kind of overlooking the fact that many warrants were barely out of high school & sort of 'hot rod racers' in their outlook rather than by the book officers -
julielambert99 — 11 years ago(June 19, 2014 07:04 PM)
My mom had explained to me that, to her, when you see Barnes "reflecting" after the men are injured, he is really reflecting on killing Manny, part of why he is startled when he catches Chris looking at him (they find Manny right after this). HE is the psychopath killer in this movie. He hates the enemy. He kills Manny in order to stir up the men and make them more ruthless. He wants to make them into killers like him. He wants to make them hate the enemy like he does. After he kills Manny and gives them the speech, many of them are ripe to "do the whole town". They don't question his tactics. He definitely goes over the top at this point. Killing the woman, and such. I had always thought this to be so. Everyone I tell this to thinks I am crazy. I just took my mother for her word.
-
gressos — 11 years ago(August 01, 2014 07:26 AM)
That's a very good topic to think about.I believe that Stone wanted to draw a portrait of an evil person-product of the environment,as other users have already mentioned but,at the same time,we are presented with one of the most complex characters of the movie.This man is totally obsessed with pain and death.Even from the beginning of the film,when he shouts ''take the pain'' to a wounded troop,he seems like he is addressing to himself about something HE is battling for.Elias' rationality and kindness of thinking just block him and confuse him.(''When the machine break down,we break down'').But obsessions aside,he has not been able to cope with the idea of death.Nobody who has,would repeatedly beg for others to relief him of his existence.He is one of the most powerful characters I have seen in a war movie,although I,too,hated him,enough times.
-
nickm2 — 11 years ago(August 17, 2014 08:59 AM)
That reminds me of a quote I read from a personal narrative on a late war battle fought by the 101st ABD in the A-Shau Valley (The Battle of Firebase Ripcord 1970): one of the companies got a new officer to lead them. He happened to be a Veteran Special Forces NCO who was promoted to Leutenant just for the job. Still recovering from a leg wound he would, l limp around their position working on the defenses. He would tell them that, 'If you guys want to survive the war, you must only think of the war & nothing else.'
Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!? -
R011DaveAAA — 11 years ago(August 30, 2014 08:59 PM)
Every army needs a person like Barnes.
Oh absolutely. There is nothing an army needs more than to have its morale ruined and its discipline undermined. A rabble that do not trust each other, will not follow their leaders, indeed would rather kill each other than the enemy can only be victorious when faced with an foe who is focused, well led, and disciplinedn -
maserati_ferarri — 11 years ago(November 19, 2014 09:48 AM)
What do you expect to see from a man so long in fighting jungle (anti)guerrilla warfare? A musketeer with gentlemans code of conduct? Lol. Army needs soldiers who will do the job right and Barnes did every task given to him flawlessly. Not only he did the job flawlessly he was a real mofo out there. We can be hypocritical and judge him but we all know the enemy feared him with reason. The other pair of gloves are that later everybody are washing hands from a guy like that and judging him. He was surrounded with bunch of incompetent idiots and people absolutely not motivated for warfare nor life of a soldier. A platoon of men like Barnes and you can win any war you want. You know it and I know it.
-
R011DaveAAA — 11 years ago(December 01, 2014 08:00 PM)
What do you expect to see from a man so long in fighting jungle (anti)guerrilla warfare?
Competance.
he was a real mofo out there.
And how did that all work out for the platoon Barnes was responsible for? Instead of a cohesive fighting unit, he had a demoralized bunch of individuals unbable to work together. As a platoon sergeant, his job is not to be some marvelous individual warrior, but a team leader and team builder. He's reponsible for the behavior, discipline, administration, and training of all the men in his platoon including his platoon officer. He singularly failed at all of these. If they're unmotivated and incompetent, it's his fault. Indeed, he worked hard throughoutr the film to keep them like that.
And no, the enemy, if they knew him at all, wouldn't fear him. He's a bully and a murderer and they were much better off with him in charge of that platoon than an competent soldier. -
ivitt — 11 years ago(March 14, 2015 01:26 AM)
Barnes is the type of person Kurtz is talking about in AN. Get rid of the people who don't want to slaughter and kill like Defoe. Just give me Barnes types. Kill a ton of people and they will submit.
America didn't have the stomach for it. This wasn't like Korea where you have a real liberal government and a crazy nutjob being used as a middle man for Mao. We outright invaded a country that wanted to be our ally against the Chinese. All for money. -
ncdwbmk6 — 11 years ago(January 04, 2015 12:55 PM)
I think that Barnes is a lot like
Col. Jessup (Jack Nicholson's character)
in the movie
"A Few Good Men" (1992).
Like
Jessup
, Barnes has acquired the experience and skill to do his job competently, and has decided he's above the rules. He can do whatever he wants to get the job done. If he has to kill civilians or even his own men who get in his way, that's ok with him.
You got your mind right, Luke? -
al666940 — 11 years ago(March 09, 2015 08:20 AM)
Well, within the movie's context (active battlefield), he's more another war casualty himself.
- He's been there years already (worn down, physically and mentally)
- He's been wounded multiple times (several near death encounters MUST take a toll mentally)
- He was cracking up just before the village massacre (Charlie watching him mourning the booby trap victims)
- His sins really are going to extremes while carrying out his job:
a) His shooting of the woman was not only because she was mouthing off, but to terrify the head honcho, he even states he's going to waste more of them if he doesn't talk, so clearly it wasn't just him lashing out in frustration.
b) His shooting of Elias was in fact for challenging him in front of the suspected enemy and his troops, not out of fear of being court-martialled (the lieutenant being clearly on his side, there's effectively 0% chance of him doing time). Oliver Stone himself states Barnes' reason in the commentary when he fraggs Elias ("This is MY war"). He threatened to kill him at the brawl. He simply carried it out. Since on the battlefield Barnes has tactical command and thus authority over Elias, his fighting him there can be perceived (by Barnes) as insubordination. And insubordination in the battlefield is usually punished by death. That is how far gone (extreme) Barnes was at that point.
Stone also says in the commentary that in the final battle, where Barnes lashes out at Taylor and almost kills him (the airstrike saving Taylor), he's out of his mind (berserk) and thus most likely does not recognize Taylor. So you cannot hold that against him.
Even states that Taylor fragging him makes Taylor a murderer, and that will remain with him forever. he does not condone it as just (unlike a fragging of someone like say lieutenant Caley of the Mia Lay massacre, whom Stone states he would have happily fragged had the chance presented itself). Obviously he's not comparing Barnes to Caley.
-
sonofbeach-sheet — 10 years ago(June 09, 2015 07:01 PM)
To make matters worse, Barnes was brought up poor and uneducated in rural Tennessee according to the book. And if that was your background, being caring and compassionate usually applied only to the deeply religious.
-
Druffmaul — 10 years ago(June 10, 2015 01:41 PM)
He was definitely wrong to summarily execute the woman in the village. Wartime did not give him the right to do that. Can you find some twisted way to defend what he did to Elias? He might have been a good man before the war, but wasn't a good man during the movie. He was rotten to the core. A mass of scar tissue with eyes.
I just read a couple other posts in here where people condone shooting the old woman in the village, saying that she was obviously VC, blah blah blah. The scene was obviously written to keep it ambiguous whether the villagers were actual VC, sympathizers, or being forced by the VC to comply. You have no proof and neither did Barnes. That kind of ***t actually went on in Viet Nam, and ***k you all for defending it. Anyone who defends it is scum.