Just something I noticed - any thoughts on this?
When Dixie tried to comfort Danny as he was telling her about all the hell he'd seen while in Vietnam, he says, "Don't" while she tousels his hair. I mean, the woman flew all the way to Vietnam to be with Danny and sing for his platoon, you'd think he'd be happy to let his mother console him. Just a dynamic I didn't quite understand...
"If it's too loud, you're too old!"
I didn't understand that, either. But maybe he feels like after all the hell he's been through, done, seen...maybe he doesn't deserve comfort. Or maybe he was trying to protect his mother - you know, like all the bad things he has stored inside may rub off on her if she touches him.
I dunno. Just a theory.
"Nostalgia isn't what it used to be."
I didn't think about it that way before - makes sense! Still this movie was so underrated - I'm glad the mother-son baggage didn't spoil the movie!
"If it's too loud, you're too old!"
I noticed that too. I think the director had Danny act that way to show the horrifying and traumatic effects that the war had already had on him. He'd become so frustrated, so exausted, so mentally and psychologically damaged that his own mother's touch made him cringe.
I don't know, I think it was just one of those things where a kid is embarrassed by attention he gets from his mother in front of his friends, something that you usually see teenagers do, but Dixie doing it in front of his whole platoon might have been a little embarrassing for him.
shareTheir relationship as mother and son had been strained since Japan. His pulling away was just another result of what happened on Xmas night.
shareMy take on that scene has always been that Danny asks her to stop comforting him because if she does not he is "going to lose it" and break down right there in front of his men - behavior that a Marine Captain would not want to display.
shareThat was kind of my take on it. Her tenderness might cause his mental armor to crack. He had just described one of his men who collected ears and had said, "I've got to send him home. He's 19 and he's gone." I got the feeling Danny felt they all were not far away from that, including himself. If he accepted her comfort and relaxed, he might not be able to pick his burdens back up again.
I also wondered if he felt so grimed with the war that he didn't want his mother to be touched by it.
Any potential major problems in their relationship I think were resolved in his speech when he graduated. "I believe in family... in my mother... in her spirit."
To me, even more powerful than that conversation is the moment when he first greets Eddie and Dixie. He hugs Dixie and looks over the top of her head at Eddie with an expression that speaks volumes. "I'm glad to see you, what the hell are you doing here, I love you, I hate you, you don't understand, I don't want you to ever understand."
Each person posting above make good points, however what is missing is the point that Eddie Sparks alienated Danny from his Mother, gradually making himself more important to Danny than his own Mother.
Eddie greased the skids for Danny to get into West Point with his "friends" and "contacts". He hadn't talked to his mother after joining the service, and had written only to Eddie. The episode at the Admiral's Dinner pushed the kid firmly into Eddie's camp.
Of course he had all that baggage of the war, and all his ideals tarnished with the reality of war in hell, without glory, just blood and death and burned out kids (as illustrated, not necessarily true. Hey it's a movie). Her touch of his head was a nervous move, of a mother who couldn't think of a way through his barriers. She wanted to hold him and never let him go.
Eddie hurt that woman more than the movie can spell out, alienating the boy, then taking him from her, then brainwashing him and by pulling strings making his firebase a ripe fat target.
I think in the end- in the VERY end- he was reaching out to Dixie (if you overlook the embarassed cringe he does when she touches him). Their final conversation- to use an effective phrase from earlier posters- spoke volumes. Before mentioning the 19-year-old soldier he has to send home he begins, somewhat coldly, confessing to his mother his disgust that Eddie- the man he loved so much 15 years earlier- was in fact, using the war (and whoring all of them) for publicity. Dixie tells him what else is new, and he should already have known that about Eddie the last 20 years. By 1967 they were both wildly sick of Eddie, but appeared to be reaching out to each other. Also, when Dixie is singing "In My Life" and flashes the peace sign to the troops, I think Danny was a little touched, even if he couldn't (wouldn't) show it in public.
shareJust to correct one point in your post: Danny didn't graduate from West Point, he graduated from The Citadel. West Point is run by the U.S. Army, The Citadel is a state-funded college in Charleston SC. It appeared that the scene was actually shot there.
Presently it is co-ed (THAT involved a huge legal battle in the late 90's). At the time the movie is set it was much more military oriented than now, although it is still a military school. People here in SC seem to have a sort of worship of it, but a critical view of the school set in the time Danny would have been there is presented in Pat Conroy's "The Lords of Discipline."