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| The Sound of the Violin |
The Vietnamese Association of Cinematography
On seeing The Sound of the Violin in My Lai
By: Dinh Trong Tuan
The Seventh Art No. 9, 1998
Script: Ho Tri Pho
Director: Tran Van Thuy
Camera: Vuong Khanh Luong
Sound: Le Huy Hoa
Producer: The Central Agency for Documentaries 1998
I was deeply impressed and haunted for a few days by The Sound of the Violin
in My Lai. The story about the cruel massacre 30 years ago unfolds on the
silver screen through valuable documentary photos and the survivors, and
I feel my heart and mind pierced by hundreds of sharp knives. War has horrible
truths no one con imagine. In it, humans kill humans without batting an
eye, like a game, or a joke. It is also hard to imagine that there are people
who fought against their own fellows to save their "enemies", and for many
years have been trying to reveal this dark side of their army and their
country to the rest of the world. The Sound of the Violin in My Lai speaks
about these people: the three American soldiers, Thompson, Colburn and Andreotta.
They were pilots on a helicopter who spotted innocent people being slaughtered
by their peers. They defied their own army and saved these people. That
is not all. After leaving the army, they continued to trace the authorities
in America who were responsible for this immoral doing. As a result, 30
years after the massacre, the American government had to recognize the pilots'
brave act. The road of conscience and of the good often has to be earned
through much hardship, and the end is usually not clear in sight. It is
fortunate that the world still has these brave knights who fight for those
values.
Perhaps The Sound of the Violin in My Lai will not be received as
enthusiastically as Decent Things, also by Tran
Van Thuy. I think even though it is also a direct approach to
the topic, The Sound of the Violin in My Lai is softer and more
mature. It is the result of the director's experience. Yesterday's
success is the daring, reckless power of the youth. Today's success
is the experience of a lifetime.
The last thing I'd like to say is that the filmmaking process of a documentary
is like fishing. You know that there is fish in the lake, but to catch it
is another matter. Sometimes it is luck. I know there were many people who
wanted to make a documentary about My Lai (Son My), but director Tran Van
Thuy got the right opportunity. To have The Sound of the Violin in My Lai,
Tran Van Thuy has been lucky. But to have that "luck", he must stock 30
years of experience in making documentaries.
The Artist Talks
Director Tran Van Thuy:
The Person Who Likes To Talk Decent Things*
It's a morning in March on the Tra Khuc river. The sound of the violin,
choked with emotions, chases the moving oars on the foggy river. The voice-over,
an American one, says, "When I came back to Viet Nam, I brought with me
a violin from America because I want to offer a spiritual gift for the souls
of those who died in My Lai, as well as for those who are living in My Lai.
This is the voice from the bottom of my heart." That is the opening of the
documentary The Sound of the Violin in My Lai, by director Tran Van Thuy.
With the sound of the violin still fresh in me after seeing the documentary,
I went to see director Tran Van Thuy with doubts about what I felt. Tran
Van Thuy agreed to talk with me.
Journalist Phan Lac Nhi (PLN): it seems that the sound of the violin
hardly has anything to do with the horrible massacre in My Lai. So how did
it become the title of the documentary?
Director Tran Van Thuy (TVT): Even after the documentary was completed,
it still didn't have a title. Then I told a colleague that it would be The
Sound of the Violin in My Lai. He didn't say anything, not agree, nor disagree.
So that's how it became the title!
PLN: For me, The Sound of the Violin in My Lai is a success in the
art of filmmaking. Could it be that there are not enough pictures and documents?
Do you think that it was risky to make a documentary while you had almost
nothing but a few old photographs?
TVT: I started to make this documentary when it was really up in
the air. Up in the air because I didn't even know if I would be allowed
to do it or not. But for me, the most important thing in making a documentary
is the theme. Once you have the theme, the rest is easy: you just have to
shoot the scenes and then sit down to edit and create it.
PLN: So how was the theme formed?
TVT: I was still searching for it when I had the chance to meet Mike
Boehm. He told me about his life, his feelings about the My Lai massacre
30 years ago, and how he's trying to build a Peace Park there. He said that
he can play the violin. I asked, "Can you play some for us?' He was willing
to. I asked if we needed to find him a violin. He said, "I have it right
here with me". I was so happy, "That's it? The documentary's done!"
PLN: I'm very impressed with the setting. I remember seeing children's
innocent and bright faces interspersed with dark photos of the cruel crime.
Others in the filmmaking business are also talking about your setting. Is
it true that a few documentary photos and leading character are the key
of your theme?
TVT: For me, a documentary takes many factors to be impressive. It's
hard to say what exactly makes it good. I had a lot of support from other
filmmakers, from the setting-up of the shooting, collecting documents, sound
effects, to montages.
PLN: Al least this is a documentary in which there is a dialogue
between the two sides - Viet Nam and America. This is very different from
the other documentaries, which are a monologue of our voice, our will, and
our thoughts, and none of the Americans' about the war, even though both
sides were involved in a war which caused pain for both countries.
TVT: The pain of each culture is different. I think not all of us
can understand and share the wounds in the American veterans' heart. I'm
saying this outside of the documentary, even though I very much wanted to
express it in there, in words and not only through images, that a great
culture knows how to recognize the truth. Their pain is the pain of someone
who knows to be sorry for the crime they caused to their own species. Doesn't
the torment in the two American veterans, Thompson and Colburn, make you
think of something like that?
PLN: Were they the soldiers who saved the My Lai people in the massacre?
TVT: Yes. It is the leading figure in the documentary who said that
"I cursed those killing Americans with the worst possible language I could
think of. I tried to separate myself from them...but the sad thing is, anyone
can have the capacity to commit crime..." Yet there are people who saw the
truth, there are some space left for the good and kindness, and that was
how some My Lai people were saved. As shown in the documentary, there were
American soldiers who didn't give in to the evil, and shot their own legs
in order not to commit crime.
PLN: Through The Sound of the Violin in My Lai, do you want the viewers
to see a Tran Van Thuy with fewer words, deeper thought and still likes
to talk decent thing, even though those decent things are just stories about
someone and not praise anything in a simplistic and general "nationalist"
way?
TVT: Decent thing? For Me, My Lai is simply the story humankind needs
to talk about.
Note: *Decent Things is the title of one of Tran
Van Thuy's documentaries The following article was clipped from
a Vietnamese newspaper and sent to me so I don't know the name of
the paper. Director Tran Van Thuy on The Making of The Sound of
the Violin in My Lai.
In 1998, the Central Agency for Documentaries wrote its plan: to make only
one film. That one documentary is The Sound of the Violin in My Lai, script
by Ho Tri Pho, director Tran Van Thuy, and narration by Vo Thi Hao.
Within a neat 30 minutes and with an intention to form a story from facts
in the style of Ha Noi in Someone's Eye, Decent Things, and Stories From
the Corner of a Park, The Sound of the Violin in My Lai is so charming and
accessible to the audience. The facts, the witnesses and the philosophy
from My Lai can almost have all the attraction. But a foreign colleague
raised a point to Tran Van Thuy that he felt that the documentary still
lacked something. "It'd be better if it were longer, like a television series",
he said. (Isn't it always true that film making sometimes has to envy television?)
But during his shooting in My Lai (March 98), Tran Van Thuy did not see
any other Vietnamese crews. His team was able to make this documentary thanks
to their friendly relationship with CBS, America, who organized the coming-back
of Hugh Thompson and Lawrence Colburn, "the two humane faces" in the My
Lai event as some poet put it.
"This friendly relationship only come out of a long period of debate. CBS
brought the two pilots to Viet Nam, and they wanted to have sole monopoly
to "use" whatever that were related to these two men. We had to diplomatically
request to shoot the scenes, emphasizing a noncompetitive attitude in sharing
information, and also pointing out to them possible disadvantages for them
if they wanted to make it difficult for us. After all, it is our country.
For example, at first, CBS would not allow us to film the scene where Hugh
Thompson and Lawrence Colburn met with Mrs. Nhung and Ms. Nhan, whose lives
they saved. We asked CBS, 'What if we arrange for these two women to visit
the Americans at their hotel, and shoot that scene? Who would have the right
to stop us? Besides, with the language difference, can the CBS crew direct
the people in Son My to do what they want? Son My people would never understand
what is being said to them and would never open up.' Well, things eventually
fell into place. CBS now is very supportive to us, they even sent us photos
related to My Lai from some remote date in the past, together with their
own tapes made in March".
The Sound of the Violin in My Lai, in the intention of the filmmakers, is
the voice from a heart, Mike Boehm's, a 47-year-old veteran. He had nothing
to do with My Lai in 1968 since he was in Cu Chi and Vung Tau back then.
But he believes that "there is something similar between me and what had
happened in My Lai". He has been coming back to Viet Nam since 1992 and
is the president of the Peace Park Project in My Lai. This project does
not only build a park, but also a clinic, and a school of 20 classrooms.
It also offers rotating loans for needy women in My Lai.
To use an amateur music player like Mike Boehm to lead the thread of the
story is not a totally new technique, but I am curious about how he became
the key figure in Tran Van Thuy's documentary. "Before, when I heard of
'the Viet Nam syndrome' among American veterans, I only believe it partially.
Since I met Mike, Hugh, Lawrence, and some others, I really got"scared".
Between his family in his own country and a Viet Nam after the war, Mike
chose Viet Nam to live the rest of his life for. I had the chance to meet
him in Ha Noi and we used to talk a lot. Mike often cries when he thinks
of the stories about the past. When I was trying to form an idea for the
film, I think of the violin, the musical instrument for sorrowful people,
and told him, "I'll find a violin for you to play in my documentary." Mike
said, "But I brought one from America with me," and I yelled, "That's it!
The documentary's done!" It is so easy to direct Mike, since he is full
of emotions already.
The camera shows "young Americans who found their way here, shocked at a
dark, frightening past". It shows the black American soldier, Herbert Carter,
who not being able to stand the cruel killing, shot his own leg in order
to avoid taking part in the criminal act. It shows Ronald Haeberle, an American
soldier in Quang Ngai, who brought the massacre to light with 40 black-and-white
and 18 color pictures as evidence. It shows that Captain Andreotta, who
had saved more than 10 people together with Hugh Thompson, died three weeks
later in a battle in Quang Ngai. The most moving image is perhaps the ever-painful
look in Lawrence Colburn's eye...
Every year, the My Lai Zone of War Evidence (now in Tinh Khe commune, Son
Tinh district, Quang Ngai Province) receives about 50,000 visitors, 500
of which are foreigners. On this 30th anniversary, more attention has been
given to this place. Somewhere among the faces shown in the documentary
is that of poet-journalist Thanh Thao, a resident of Quang Ngai, and author
of more than twenty articles in newspapers in March. It is thanks to him
and journalist Huy Duc that the filmmakers found out about the important
witnesses of the My Lai event, such as Mrs. Nhung, Ms. Nhan, Mr. Do Ba...
The writer of this article wishes to be able to see the documentary made
by CBS for a comparison, but Tran Van Thuy has his own pride. "When we were
allowed to shoot, we started our work just as the others. Often we had to
beg photographers not to use their flashes so as not to affect the shooting.
The script was only written after the shooting was completed. However, when
we started to film the scene where Mike played his violin, the other crews
had a real shock. They realized that we also had our theme, and worked on
a well laid-out framework. The Canadians also asked to shoot Mike's playing
but they started by having a direct close-up to Mike's face and his chin
on the violin. I did it differently, I started from the silky incense smoke
rising up in his music, then slowly showed the player from some distance.
The Sound of the Violin in My Lai, the title is quite invoking, it allows
the viewer to imagine an artistic idea which is not as bare as the facts
presented. The theme of the documentary becomes clearer when the director
has Mike playing The Prayer and Farewell to the Soldier and talking about
his feelings towards the end of the documentary.
When I heard from Tran Van Thuy that there was some problems in producing
the documentary, I thought maybe he was violating some"taboos" of the type
he had with Ha Noi in Someone's Eye, and Decent Thing - and he was quick
to confirm my doubts. "That was the reason why the documentary was made
in April-May but was released much later than that. Some critics said the
theme was not clear, some, who must never have read anything about My Lai,
said that "the truth about this event is not certain". And there were yet
others who wanted to paint "A Bright Son My of Today", while the Head of
the district there kept telling me that "Son My is very poor, in fact, the
poorest in my district". Thank God, everything has been settled now. The
documentary will be shown widely soon. D.P.V. (the journalist who wrote
this article)
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