Stockholm Film Festival

After Wall Street and Talk Radio - a quick but well deserved break from the Vietnam war memories depicted in 1986 Academy Award sweeper Platoon - Oliver Stone returned to war criticism from a different angle. Based on Kovic's 1976 autobiography, Born on the Fourth of July, is not so much a film about the Vietnam war as a portrait of the disillusionment of a nation, as it spans three decades, moving the audience and Kovic (Tom Cruise) through the early 60's and Kovic's teen years and prom night kissing with true love Donna (Kyra Sedgwick), through the Vietnam battlefields where he is fatally injured, through the stinking corridors of an understaffed Bronx veteran hospital, through his decline before
waking up to reality. After a hallucinatory trip to a hellish stay among prostitutes, drug addicts and other crippled veterans in Mexico, Kovic reevaluates his opinion of the war and finds salvation in the antiwar movement.
With Stone staying close to Kovac's narrative, Born on the Fourth of July never turns into a ''Platoon 2'', as some might have believed. Foremost, it is the film that made a star actor out of Tom Cruise, establishing him as more than a pretty face, which previous films (Top Gun, Cocktail, Rain Man) had suggested. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two, for Best Director and Best Film Editing.

ELIN LARSSON

Orig. titel

Born on the Fourth of July

Medverkande

Tom Cruise, Bryan Larkin, Raymond J Barry

Producent

Oliver Stone

Manus

Ron Kovic,Oliver Stone

Foto

Robert Richardson

Musik

John Williams

Talat språk

English

 

Andra filmer från sektionen Lifetime Achievement Award

Se alla festivalfilmer från 2004