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Gardens of Stone
Columbia/Tri-Star // R // June 25, 2002
List Price: $24.95 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
It seems like an intriguing concept: Gardens of Stone is a film about the war in Vietnam, but it takes place entirely in the United States. At the Arlington National Cemetery where Sgt. Hazard (James Caan) and Sgt. Major Nelson (James Earl Jones) are part of the "Old Guard," a largely ceremonial Army outfit who have the sorrowful task of burying the dead who are coming in steady streams from Vietnam. Into their outfit comes young recruit Jackie Willow (D.B. Sweeney), who is possessed with the burning desire to serve his country at the front lines in Vietnam. As it turns out, though, Gardens of Stone is a film that makes a valiant effort to soar, but never in fact achieves liftoff.
It's not that the film is badly done. The cast is excellent, the acting is competent, and there's nothing that is obviously badly handled. Yet somehow there's nothing that really reaches out to the viewer to compel him or her to care about what's happening on-screen. The story demands an appreciation of the complex relationships between the main characters, and an appreciation of these characters' various feelings toward the Vietnam War. But while the story presents these characters interacting, something is missing, something is never quite expressed. The film seems to touch only the surface of the dramatic potential of the situation, relying on glossy cinematography and conventional emotional scenes to involve the viewer. Director Francis Ford Coppola seems enamored of the visual pageantry of the Old Guard, with its parades, exhibitions, and elaborate funeral services. To a certain extent, these scenes could be taken as commentary on the public perception of the glamour of being a soldier, in contrast to the horrible reality of it voiced by various of the anti-war characters, but it doesn't come across that way. Coppola seems simply mesmerized by the visual spectacle, allowing the scenes to run far longer than seems right in terms of pacing for the narrative.
A major part of the problem, I think, is in the screenplay, which is adapted from a novel. Novels always pose difficult issues for film adaptations; there's always more in the book than can possibly be put onto the screen, unless it's being adapted into a miniseries. In the case of Gardens of Stone, it's abundantly clear by the end of the film that the book must have delved far deeper into the lives and hearts of the characters than the film was ever able to. On the screen we are presented with characters who are presented in outline but never really filled in completely. Another tip-off that the film is a less than successful adaptation of a book is the surplus of supporting characters. A generous handful of characters are introduced, given names and a sketch of personality, only to remain in the shadows and never take any relevant part in the story. I strongly suspect that in the novel, these characters are more fully developed and add to the overall effect, but in the film, they frankly should have been cut, as they only dilute the film's narrative flow.
It's too bad that the film stalls out as it does, because Gardens of Stone does have quite a bit of potential. It sets up an interesting set of conflicting images of soldiers: the "toy soldiers" of the ceremonial Old Guard versus the heroic combat infantrymen of young Jackie Willow's imagination, and the living young men who are sent over to the war versus the coffins that are daily lowered into the cold ground at Arlington. There are also opposites set up among the characters, the most apparent being between Willow's naive idealism about serving his country and Hazard's bitterness and uncertainty about the situation.
Video
Gardens of Stone doesn't have much going for it in the video quality department. The strongest suit of the transfer is probably that the colors look good; especially in daylight scenes, the image is bright and vivid. The image is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and is anamorphically enhanced, but overall it doesn't look like much care has been taken in making the DVD transfer. The image is noisy and heavily edge-enhanced, and shows frequent small print flaws; the contrast is so-so, with detail a bit lacking in darker scenes.
The oddest flaw in the transfer is that it has frequent small "skips" in the image, where evidently a frame or two has been dropped. They are distinctly perceptible and rather jarring, and occur regularly throughout the film. It looks like the image compression has suffered from the decision to waste half the DVD space on a pan-and-scan version of the film.
Audio
The Dolby 2.0 audio track is adequate but could have been handled much better. The track is clean, with no background noise, and the sound appears accurate, but the main fault is that the dialogue and music soundtracks are badly balanced. The dialogue tends to be very low while the music is very powerful, and I ended up having to fiddle with the volume control frequently to be able to hear conversations but not get my eardrums blasted when the music kicked in.
Extras
The DVD has three trailers for other films. The flip side of the disc is wasted on a pan-and-scan version of the film as well.
Final thoughts
A movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola and featuring James Caan, James Earl Jones, Anjelica Huston, and even Lawrence Fishburne in a minor role, ought by rights to be a lot more interesting than Gardens of Stone is. In the end, that's the problem: it's not a terrible film, but it is not an interesting one.
It's not that the film is badly done. The cast is excellent, the acting is competent, and there's nothing that is obviously badly handled. Yet somehow there's nothing that really reaches out to the viewer to compel him or her to care about what's happening on-screen. The story demands an appreciation of the complex relationships between the main characters, and an appreciation of these characters' various feelings toward the Vietnam War. But while the story presents these characters interacting, something is missing, something is never quite expressed. The film seems to touch only the surface of the dramatic potential of the situation, relying on glossy cinematography and conventional emotional scenes to involve the viewer. Director Francis Ford Coppola seems enamored of the visual pageantry of the Old Guard, with its parades, exhibitions, and elaborate funeral services. To a certain extent, these scenes could be taken as commentary on the public perception of the glamour of being a soldier, in contrast to the horrible reality of it voiced by various of the anti-war characters, but it doesn't come across that way. Coppola seems simply mesmerized by the visual spectacle, allowing the scenes to run far longer than seems right in terms of pacing for the narrative.
A major part of the problem, I think, is in the screenplay, which is adapted from a novel. Novels always pose difficult issues for film adaptations; there's always more in the book than can possibly be put onto the screen, unless it's being adapted into a miniseries. In the case of Gardens of Stone, it's abundantly clear by the end of the film that the book must have delved far deeper into the lives and hearts of the characters than the film was ever able to. On the screen we are presented with characters who are presented in outline but never really filled in completely. Another tip-off that the film is a less than successful adaptation of a book is the surplus of supporting characters. A generous handful of characters are introduced, given names and a sketch of personality, only to remain in the shadows and never take any relevant part in the story. I strongly suspect that in the novel, these characters are more fully developed and add to the overall effect, but in the film, they frankly should have been cut, as they only dilute the film's narrative flow.
It's too bad that the film stalls out as it does, because Gardens of Stone does have quite a bit of potential. It sets up an interesting set of conflicting images of soldiers: the "toy soldiers" of the ceremonial Old Guard versus the heroic combat infantrymen of young Jackie Willow's imagination, and the living young men who are sent over to the war versus the coffins that are daily lowered into the cold ground at Arlington. There are also opposites set up among the characters, the most apparent being between Willow's naive idealism about serving his country and Hazard's bitterness and uncertainty about the situation.
Video
Gardens of Stone doesn't have much going for it in the video quality department. The strongest suit of the transfer is probably that the colors look good; especially in daylight scenes, the image is bright and vivid. The image is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and is anamorphically enhanced, but overall it doesn't look like much care has been taken in making the DVD transfer. The image is noisy and heavily edge-enhanced, and shows frequent small print flaws; the contrast is so-so, with detail a bit lacking in darker scenes.
The oddest flaw in the transfer is that it has frequent small "skips" in the image, where evidently a frame or two has been dropped. They are distinctly perceptible and rather jarring, and occur regularly throughout the film. It looks like the image compression has suffered from the decision to waste half the DVD space on a pan-and-scan version of the film.
Audio
The Dolby 2.0 audio track is adequate but could have been handled much better. The track is clean, with no background noise, and the sound appears accurate, but the main fault is that the dialogue and music soundtracks are badly balanced. The dialogue tends to be very low while the music is very powerful, and I ended up having to fiddle with the volume control frequently to be able to hear conversations but not get my eardrums blasted when the music kicked in.
Extras
The DVD has three trailers for other films. The flip side of the disc is wasted on a pan-and-scan version of the film as well.
Final thoughts
A movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola and featuring James Caan, James Earl Jones, Anjelica Huston, and even Lawrence Fishburne in a minor role, ought by rights to be a lot more interesting than Gardens of Stone is. In the end, that's the problem: it's not a terrible film, but it is not an interesting one.
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