Winter Soldier
First screened in September 2005
Directors: Winterfilm Collective (Frederick Aronow, Nancy Baker, Joe Bangert, Rhetta Baron, Robert Fiore, David Gillis, David Grubin, Jeff Holstein, Barbara Jarvis, Al Kaupas, Barbara Kopple, Mark Lenix, Michael Lesser, Lee Osborne, Lucy Massie Phenix, Roger Phenix, Nancy Miller Saunders, Benay Rubinstein, and Michael Weil). Documents the testimonies submitted at the three-day 1971 "Winter Soldier" Conference in Detroit, where American veterans of the Vietnam War recounted atrocities they had witnessed and demanded truer accounts of American conduct in the war. Featuring Rusty Sachs, Joe Bangert, Scott Shimabukuro, Kenneth Campbell, Scott Camil, John Kerry, Steve Pitkin, Johnathan Birch, Charles Stevens, Fred Nienke, David Bishop, Nathan Hale, Michael Hunter, Murphy Lloyd, Carl Rippberger, Evan Haney, Robert Clark, Gordon Stewart, Curtis Windgrodsky, Gary Keyes, Allan Akers, William Hatton, Joseph Galbally, Edmund Murphy, James Duffy, Scott Moore, Mark Lenix, Thomas Heidtman, Dennis Caldwell, and James Henry.

Twitter Capsule: More an archival record than a genuine documentary, but its candor and despondency retain every bit of their power.

VOR:   Invaluable artifact pointing backward (recovering truths in the Vietnam record that are often blurred or distorted) and wholly present (lamenting old mistake brazenly repeated in medias res).



Photo © 1972 Winterfilm Collective, © 2005 Milliarium
Zero (c/o DVD Beaver)

Not yet reviewed in full. Grade: B+


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