An overview

byHolly Phares, Lauren

Lafollette & Nora Patterson

HCOM 348

Profession Qun Wang

9 January 2006

Le Ly : Le Ly was that youngest child out of 6 and was considered by her family to be spoiled. Even after the French came in 1953 and destroyed her village and when the Viet Cong came in 1963 she seemed to be somewhat aware of her family’s struggles but also very naive. Over the course of the movie we can see her change from a spoiled girl to a women who has to struggle to survive. We can also see her perception of men change throughout the movie, going from a daddy’s girl to hating all men to finding her soul mate and finally to having affairs with men who never have her heart. Le Ly is a very strong minded women who wanted to do everything that she could so that she didn’t end up being a prostitute. She also lived through very difficult situations and in the end was still able to raise her children and create a better life for herself and her sons.

Major Steve Butler: When we first meet Major Steve Butler we think that Le Ly has finally found a man that will take care of her and her son and this is true until they arrive in America. Once in America everything that he had witnessed and did in Vietnam started to catch up with him. He found it hard to relate to “normal” society and we saw him start to sink further and further into alcohol and depression. He had very similar demons to Le Ly but wasn’t as strong, because he ended up taking his own life.

Character Analysis

Papa: Le Ly’s father, in conjunction with her mother, connects Le Ly with her heritage and her ancestors. In the very beginning she said that it was his job to teach her to learn to love, about God, and about people they cannot see. After Le Ly became pregnant her father wanted nothing to do with her and they stopped talking. She did go and see him before he died and we saw him forgive his daughter and make peace with her before he passed. In the end he was proud of her for doing what she had to do to survive.

Mama: The transformation that Le Ly’s mother made throughout the movie was very prominent. Before all the war she was who gave all the answers about the meaning of life and things like where babies come from. Once Le Ly became pregnant she lost her mother’s respect. Throughout the movie every action that Mama made was what she though would be best for her children. Even though she didn’t want Le Ly to go to American she was still proud that she had gotten herself out and was able to provide a better life for her children because that’s the mother’s job. Le Ly’s reconciliation at the end of the film with her mother denotes how both have come to terms with the modern world, accepted their fate and forgiven each other’s character defects.

Character Analysis

Oliver Stone is well known as an auteur for his plosive and abrasive style of film making, and Heaven and Earth is no exception. This film is dubbed with narration, and as Le Ly’s dialogue explaining what is going on, and the audience is brought in to see the story from her prospective. Stone uses sweeping shots of the beautiful rural Vietnamese landscape in Le Ly’s village in the beginning of the film to sharply contrast the image of America when Ly Le and Steve arrive. The arrival in the United States is portrayed in an augmented fashion, and most of it is shot from the floor which makes everything in the shot seem large. This is done to mimic Le Ly’s own awe with her new foreign home. Stone focuses on the obesity and excess of food in America to demonstrate the American consumer society and its materialism and bloated selfish nature to parallel this with Vietnam and the large gap between the two countries. Stone utilizes jagged camera movements when ever there is violence or conflict, and this conflict is often out of focus to emphasize the lack of control Le Ly has over the situation. Back and white is used in violent dream sequences, or for portions of Le Ly’s flashbacks of conflict and strife to contrast the present and emphasize the detrimental effect this strife has had upon Le Ly’s life. Stone makes use of every film device available to convey a message and tell Le Ly’s powerful story.

Cinematography & Style

•Born September 15, 1946 in New York, NY•Attended Yale for one year before dropping out•Joined the U.S. Army in 1967 and fought in the Vietnam War.•After the Army, he attended NYU where he studied film under Martin Scorsese•Heaven and Earth is the last movie in his trilogy about the Vietnam War, following Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July•Other works include: Natural Born Killers, Alexander, JKF, The Doors, and Nixon.

Oliver Stone

Awards• In 1976 Stone won his first Academy Award for

writing the script on Midnight Express.• In 1987, Stone received his first Best Director

Oscar for Platoon (1986).• In 1990, Born of the Fourth of July (1989) earned

him his second Best Director Academy Award• Stone won the Golden Globe award for Best

Director for Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and JFK (1991).

• Oliver Stone has also been recoginized for his films by many other less known film organizations around the world.

Le Ly Hayslip• Born in 1949 in Vietnam• Was tortured by the South Vietnamese police for

helping the Viet Cong and then consequently sentenced to death by the Viet Cong after being accused of collaboration with the South Vietnamese

• Married an American, Ed Munro in 1969 and moved to the United States in 1970

• Munro died in 1973 and she married Dennis Hayslip in 1974

• Wrote the award winning memoirs, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places and Child of War, Woman of Peace, after her second husband committed suicide

• Hayslip left her enough money with which she opened up a small business and made several investments in real estate. She became a millionaire.

East Meets West "Working Together to Heal the Wounds of War" • Hayslip founded the non-profit organization in

1988• It’s goals were to improve the lives of the

Vietnamese in Vietnam and the understanding between the United States and Vietnam

• Provides better health care• Educational services• Vocational training • Rehabilitation • The foundation has also build many facilities,

such as a medial center and the Displaced Children’s Center

ThemesSuffering is one of the main themes of the movie. “Different skins, same suffering. ” The movie points out that although Le Ly and Steve are from two different countries, they both have suffered the same. Oliver Stone’s early films on the Vietnam War focused on men perspectives and also mostly that of an American’s point of view. Heaven and Earth is an important part of the trilogy because it shows how much the Vietnamese people suffered during the war. America was not the only country that lost their fathers, sons and brothers. Vietnam not only lost their fathers, brothers and sons, but they also lost young children, sisters, mothers and grandparents.

ThemesOne of the themes in the movie is Forgiveness. Le Ly goes to a Buddhist Monk to talk about her husband. He tells her, (in simple terms), that she must move on and get along with him. She must forgive him (and herself). If Le Lycannot do this, than her karma will prevent her from receiving love from any other man. This does not apply only to love, but also to what happened during the war. Le Ly was raped, her brother was killed and she watched her country be destroyed. Before Le Ly can go on with her life she must be able to accept and forgive all that has happened. Living a life full of anger and hatred is not really living.

Discussion QuestionsHow is Le Ly Hayslip’s growth portrayed in the movie? It is visually portrayed as she gets older, and grows from a rural farm girl in traditional garb to a street vendor in Saigon with more modern, but yet still traditional clothing, to when she marries Steve, but is still in Vietnam, and begins dressing and doing her hair in the contemporary American fashion of that period. The way shecurls her hair is the most evident symbol of her growth away from her roots, as no one in Vietnam has naturally curly hair. Le Ly is shown to grow in many ways, she matures emotionally and spiritually as the movie progresses. She moves from a wistful girl who enjoys the simple things, such as her village’s traditional dancing, and the attention of her master, to a cynical and scheming woman, to one who learns to love and replace her cynicism and scheming with love, strength and determination. Her forgiveness of her parents, her rapist, and eventually her husband are all indicators of her spiritual growth.

Discussion QuestionsDiscuss reconciliation as a central theme in the movie. Reconciliation is a main motif in this film. There is Le Ly’s reconciliation between herself and her father, herself and her master, herself and her mother, and between her roots in Vietnam and her life in America, between the war and the peace she now lives, a reconciliation her husband was unable to make. The message here is that life may take us into the depths of pain and misery, and though we may make mistakes that can never be fixed, it is possible to make amends and heal.

What is heaven and what is earth according to Le Ly Hayslip? The act of heaven and earth changing places is one to describe that the world has turned upside down, as it was for the Vietnamese and Americans involved in the War. Le Ly’s journey from her village in Vietnam, which she describes in an idyllic and romantic way as the most beautiful village in the world, to America, which is shown to have its grotesque and intolerant qualities is essentially a journey from Paradise, or Heaven, to Earth and its harsh realities. Heaven and Earth in this movie are also representative of pre-war and post-war Vietnam, as her village is no longer the joyous and beautiful place she grew up in, we see the Agent Orange planes flying over the fields and the barren land marks the devastation of napalm

Discussion Questionsand war. It can therefore be seen that war has, essentially raped Vietnam, stolen its innocence, and irrevocably altered its status as a paradise to another tarnished portion of Earth.

Bonus Question: What is the definition of colonialism? How is it objectified in the movie?Colonialism is the policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations. Vietnam is a country that has been continually colonized over the millennia by the Chinese, the French, and the Americans. Colonialism is depicted most overtly in the movie as the Americans take over Saigon, and Le Ly’s village and an American flag flies in her home town. Suddenly in Saigon there are G.I.s everywhere, and the economy becomes centered around and homogenized by the American presence. Popular American music and is playing everywhere, and American culture and style permeates Vietnamese culture. However, the Chinese imperialism is shown through Le Ly’s parents, and their desire to cooperate with authorities. The French imperialism is shown as the children of Le Ly’s master are learning French. The American imperialism is much more evident because the film is focusing on the Vietnam War, which was the advent of the American imperial presence in Vietnam.

For me it was very interesting to see what it was like for a woman during the war. In school I have only seen movies from the perspective of the American Soldiers, and these usually portray women in a bad light. I couldn’t believe that this was a true story and that Le Ly is actually a real person, she went through so much and still managed to raise her children so that they didn’t have to endure what she did.

Holly’s Thoughts

Lauren’s ThoughtsI really enjoyed this movie. I have heard so much about the Vietnam War- mostly through movies and from people who fought in Vietnam. This movie gave me a better perspective to both sides to the war. I had never thought about how the Vietnamese people were being told to do two different things-one by the Viet Cong and one by the South Vietnamese. I cannot even begin to imagine what living like that must have been like. I think the part of the movie that affected me the most was the torture scenes-especially with the ants and snakes. I was confused at this point as well, because I couldn’t figure out why the South Vietnamese singled out Le Ly. I didn’t like how the American’s were portrayed in the film- they were very obnoxious and all overweight. However, the director did get his point across as to the differences between Vietnamese and Americans. The scenery in the film was beautiful as well, it made me want to visit Vietnam. I plan on reading When Heaven and Earth Changed Places as well as Hayslip’s other memoir because I think that it will clear up a few loose ends as well

Nora’s ThoughtsHeaven and Earth is a poignant and inspiring film that was remarkable because, unlike Stone’s and many others previous films about Vietnam it is told from the Vietnamese prospective. This gives a voice to a people who had been hitherto marginalized in our nation’s discussion and memory of the Vietnam War. This film is also important because it is told from a women’s perspective, and gives strength and representation to immigrant women in the US. Heaven and Earth is a film all about transitions - transitions from imperialism to independence, transition from innocence, chastity and purity to maturity, experience and knowledge. Much like Adam and Eve’s transition from Paradise to Earth, Le Ly begins life in her rural village in Vietnam as an innocent child and ends up in America as a mature and knowledgeable women who has experienced the evil and dark side of human nature. I found the performances and story depicted in this film compelling and hope that its messages about war, personal strength, and forgiveness are received by all who endeavor to learn from this movie.

“Most of you who read this book have not lived my kind of life. By the grace of destiny or luck or god, you do not know how hard it is to survive; although now you have some idea…Right now, though, there are millions of other poor people around the world—girls, boys, men, and women—who live their lives the way I did in order to survive. Like me, they did not ask for the wars that swallowed them. They ask only for peace—the freedom to love and live a full life—and nothing more. I ask only that you open your heart and mind to them, as you have opened it to me by reading this book, and do not think that our story is over.”

Le Ly Hayslip