Born on the Fourth of July (1989). Photofest.
(Oliver Stone, US 1989, 145 min., 35mm)
Fourth of July. Based on the autobiography of soldier turned activist Ron Kovic, this film garnered Tom Cruise his first Academy Award nomination. Brought up in a typically patriotic household, Kovic (Cruise) heeds the call for young men to volunteer for the US Marine Corps. In his second tour of duty in the Vietnam War, Kovic is wounded, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. Depressed and distraught through military hospitals and his altered home life, Kovic tries to find solace among other disillusioned soldiers. Oliver Stone’s bombastic style is leavened by the beauty of the imagery captured by Robert Richardson in this middle chapter of Stone’s Vietnam Trilogy.