The Subject Position in Apocal

The subject position in a film is with whom the audience member most closely identifies with throughout the film. The subject position is created both by the filmmaker and by the audience that views the film. In many films about the American intervention in Southeast Asia, the films create a spectator position that initially is different from American national identity but by the end of the movie the subject position usually comes in line with …

…Vietnam War in American Film, eds. Dittmar, Linda and Michaud, Gene, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1997, pp145-158. Whillock, David Everett, “Defining the Fictive American Vietnam War Film: In Search of a Genre,” Film/Literature Quarterly, vol16, no4, 1988, pp244-250. Wimmer, Adi, “The American Idea of National Identity: Patriotism and Poetic Sensibility Before and After Vietnam.” in Cultural Legacies of Vietnam: Uses of the Past in the Present, Ablex Publishing Corporation, Norwood, NJ, 1990, pp55-79.