Restrepo Movie Responses

2.  I think the director's choice of intermingling individual interviews with long periods of unedited footage was important for the theme or message of the documentary to be carried across.  First, this technique of excluding an outside narrative voice, and instead using interviews and experiences of soldiers as narration helps the viewer be thrust into war in the way the soldiers were.  As viewers, we come in knowing scarcely anything about the Korengal Valley, just as the soldiers are dropped in like gamepieces to a violent situation, and are forced to adapt.  Also, the choice helps tell the story of the platoon's experiences in the Korengal be complete.  The unedited footage shows the true, uncensored experience of war and its impact on the people involved in the immediate.  However, the interviews are critical for reflection upon deeper meaning into these blurred experiences, that is necessary to completely tell theme and story in Restrepo.  The interviews look into how the experience affected each individual in unique ways, illustrating the inevitable impact it has on lives after the war.  The looking back on it, as Vonnegut argues, is part of what makes us human, and part of the story of war that needs to be told.
3.  Restrepo's platoon faced myriad ongoing challenges in the Korengal Valley in achieving the American agenda.  Perhaps the greatest one was fear.  Fear discouraged troops from fighting and intruding into their enemy's territory; they knew the entire valley was characterized by violence.  Yet fear also made it difficult to overcome biases that might have led to more death -- causing brash actions in revenge that would lead to more death.  Another challenge was pain.  The movie's namesake, after all, Restrepo, is the name of a soldier who died fighting.  A couple of other soldiers were injured or killed, and the soldiers had to be mentally tough to persevere in carrying out the American agenda.  Captain Kearney persuades these soldiers to overcome death and sadness by transforming it into fire against the enemy.  A last challenge could be differences.  Throughout the film, soldiers needed to adopt a unified mindset and follow orders so they would not be killed.  This did cause some backlash.  The platoon needed to become a family.  Yet an even greater challenge was that of working with local elders, who shared different mindsets on the issue than the American soldiers.  The Americans had to realize that the fear of the Taliban was great for the village people, and that cooperation with them was going to be difficult because of threats they had received.  Tension also rose when innocent civilians were injured by Americans.
7.  The showing of the soldiers' individual faces at the end of the film was sobering.  The silence conveyed the idea that sometimes, in the midst of great tragedy and slaughter -- an idea present in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five -- there is nothing sensible that can be said.  The silence is imposed by fate.  The pictures showed so much more than words, here.  The faces showed, anguish, grief, stoicism, and regret, all conditions of war.  It also pointed again to the importance of the individual, in the face of the mob mentality nature of war.  The viewer could see the pain of every individual, and it had the effect of breeding empathy.  The scene showed the humanness of people involved in war, which is important for the viewer to recognize.

Slaughterhouse-Five Microlabs

Round 1:  "Actually, Billy's outward listlessness was a screen.  The listlessness concealed a mind which was fizzing and flashing thrillingly.  It was preparing letters and lectures about the flying saucers, the negligibility of death, and the true nature of time." (p. 190)

            Context: Billy is recovering from his head wound in the plane crash, and appears listless to the real world...

            Juxtaposition of Billy's Tralfamadorian mind and his appearance in the moment; death and life are meaningless; word choice of "flashing" and "thrillingly"

Round 2:  The recurrence of the motif "So it goes" in the novel makes death seem meaningless, thus making the life of the person who died, or as Billy Pilgrim would likely argue, experienced death, void of meaning as well.  This idea paints every human being as an "it," a machine.  This is in contrast with the argument that Vonnegut is making.  The passivity highlights the inhuman nature of war.  The motif paints war as simply a slaughterhouse.

Round 3: Kilgore Trout's stories aid in carrying out the argument or theme of the text, in providing somewhat cynical stories around the idea of the human condition -- thus encouraging people to act differently; ppl don't like reading books where ppl die and fail, but this is the true world -- the money tree is an example of the portrayal of human greed

Round 4:  The Edgar Derby tragedy, instead of being the climax of the book, is simply another "So it goes."  Despite being the killing of one of Billy's companions in the dramatic death by firing squad, Edgar Derby is just another death.  Slaughterhouse-Five does not attempt to really have a climax in trying to convey a Tralfamadorian-style plot line.  The book jumps around in plot, but goes together like the Rocky Mountains.  Also, Edgar Derby helps shape the idea of fate versus free will, in that Billy likes to point out the superficiality of his death.

Round 5: Showing humanity in times of war is seen as a weakness (pillar of salt) -- people have to move on from negative experiences -- introduces Tralfamadorian concept of time from the get-go.  Billy doesn't have to look back, because there is no back.  Poo-tee-weet at the book's end shows the curiosity of a species as to the destructive force that humans possess.

Round 6:  Vonnegut does offer some hope, and ultimately by portraying war as inhuman, he shows that humans, through utilizing free will, have the capability to end the mindless slaughter that is war.  In particular, I think of the movie rewind: bringing the bombs back through the bomb bay doors, and preventing destruction: it can happen, but with belief and free will.  People must realize how dehumanizing war is.

Round 7:  I disagree that Vonnegut supports a Tralfamadorian view of time.  The consequences for a universe governed by a Tralfamadorian view of time are the deprivation of human dignity and free will, really the things that distinguish human beings from other species.  Vonnegut instead seeks for people to act humanely, respect the lives of beings, and not engage in the massive slaughter that is war.  He wants people to be themselves, and not the Tralfamadorian aliens that have a massive disregard for life.  War embraces a mob mentality.  If people recognize the way that war leads the human condition, they will not go to war.

Quote-Comment-Question

Quote: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference." (Vonnegut, p. 60)
Comment: This quote brings to light Billy's perspective on life given to him by the Tralfamadorians, where time is the fourth dimension and is cyclical and non-linear.  He believes that when the universe has time, and is made up of predefined, structured moments, it's very difficult to know what one can change and what one cannot.  In many ways, this is also an idea that Vonnegut is attempting to convey in Slaughterhouse-Five.  That people should cherish the good times, and forget the bad -- because there is nothing they can do about it.  Vonnegut is struggling with the idea of fate versus free will.
Question: Can this quote be extended to fit a commentary on life of Vonnegut?

Person 1 and Person 2
Mike: "So it goes."  Both this and the above quote attest to the idea of fate versus free will; Jesse brought up the fact that when Tralfamadorians die, they say this simple phrase because they think not about the poor condition of the person today, but the great life they lived.  This and the above quote, and the idea of the alternate perspective on time of Tralfamadorians in general contribute to the fate versus free will debate.  Vonnegut may share the Tralfamadorian perspective of fate, or that of free will on Earth, which might be more predestined.  This was all fashioned through war, and an ideology of what war brings to us.  The Tralfamadorians may all be seasoned war veterans.  He is using the Tralfamadorian view of time to argue something else.

Person 3
Jacob talked about Jesse's quote about Billy Pilgrim setting the scene, and Mike mentioned the significance of Vonnegut's voice.

War takes from you your humanity; going back in time fixes you.  Chronology matters.  It makes you cynical, and takes from you the free will and innocence of youth.