Gardens of Stone

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The subtext of this grim, snail-paced Francis Ford Coppola film is the death of Coppola's son, Giancarlo, in a boating accident. Coppola came back with this Vietnam-era military drama about the men assigned to patrol and serve at the funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. James Caan is the world-weary patrol leader with a fatherly interest in a gung-ho cadet (D.B. Sweeney). Caan tries to show Sweeney the potentially fatal future that awaits him if he volunteers for combat, but he can't break through his young charge's zealousness. The subplot involves crusty Caan's attempts at romance with Anjelica Huston, who can't quite fathom his contradictions. The story is all glum and lumbering, despite a warm, full-bodied performance by James Earl Jones as one of Caan's buddies. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews:

Damn few left.......2006-11-08

This movie depicts a very intense feeling of the loss felt by veterans after a fallen friend is gone. I like this movie a lot because it shows a side of the military very often forgotten. We are no less of an emotional being than anyone else but our bond is built by something deeper than most will have the joy to experience. For those who wish to experience the feeling of almost being military I highly wish you to see this.

Spot On..........2006-02-07

The story line was a bit of surprise for Hollywood. A "war" movie w/out blood or combat. Doing a movie about the Old Guard and Arlington during the Vietnam War was pretty brave considering the sympathy displayed for the men involved...You have a PSG (platoon dad)James Caan, torn by demands of duty and a family lost to him because of that duty. (This should reasonate with all of us vets who lost our families because of our duty) He has a job he hates and one he knows he is good at but still wants a return to his line job of leading infantrymen. You have the CSM (sargeant major) James Earl Jones, the young gung ho troop DB Sweeny (they are alot more numerous then common perception would have), Dean Stockwell as the CO(company commander) Anjelica Huston as Caan's anti war love interest and a fine supporting cast.

I was really impressed with the overall story line. I disagree with many of the other reviewers as this is not an anti war movie. Coppola did his research and the movie really does a great job of showing what life is often like in the Army. He showed the little details (M14 rifles and the detail in the barracks TA50 inspection) that Hollywood so seldom gets despite the military advisors they hire to check out scripts. The day to day workings of the Machine in garrison brought back alot of memories too. The Army was really like this People, it is/was a very tight organization and the Old Guard is a good example of that tightness.

I have worked w/those guys and seen them at their job. Despite all the pressures, they seldom (almost never in the public eye) fall down. The stuff that goes on behind the public eye is what makes the story so compelling. I'm not a Coppola fan but he did this right and surprisingly w/respect too.

An Affectionate Tribute to the Old Guard.......2006-01-17

I hail from the Washington DC area and lived in Arlington for many years. As an Army brat, I spent many hours on post at Ft. Myer and observed many of the ceremonies captured in the film. Finally my father was buried with full military honors in Arlington Cemetery during the period covered by the film. Despite the fact that the story is very unremarkable, if not labored, even with such a high-powered cast, it is filled with long loving silent meditations on the ceremonies, and for that, it deserves respect. The credits pay eloquent and simple tribute to all the services' ceremonial units, but this is the Old Guard's show, and they execute with the poise and precision for which the unit is world famous. I found it very moving.

A great anti war film.......2005-08-30

An interesting look at the Vietnam War by using the Army as an instrument to see the war from the inside of one of the Elite Units of the Green Machine. I.E. The 3rd Infantry (Old Guard) Regiments whose job is pay final honors to the fallen dead of the war. This is one of the more intelligent films to come out in quite a while. Just don't expect any combat sequences just some really intelligent conversations.

In eternal glory..........2004-04-04

This is a film with a difference -- many people come to it with preconceived notions of how a military-themed film should be, and are somewhat disappointed. This is not an action film, and while it fits the overall genre of being a protest film about Vietnam, it is not unambiguously so. It is an anti-war film, to be sure, but is not an anti-military or even anti-American film. It has an emphasis on duty and honour that transcends minor considerations of the particular patriotism for particular nations -- the themes as old as the Roman centurion's honour for fallen compatriots run through to the Old Guard at Arlington National Cemetary.

The plot winds its way around the Old Guard, the honour guard at Arlington National Cemetary, charged with the performance of a hallowed trust, one of the few in a secular nation such as the United States -- that of overseeing the gravesites of the honoured dead who died after service to the nation, including the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The primary senior characters are Platoon Sergeant Hazard (James Caan) and Sergeant Major Nelson (James Earl Jones), two crusty veterans overseeing operations; both served in Korea and Vietnam with distinction, and are now sitting on the sidelines of the expanding war in Vietnam in a place where the body count is very apparent. Into this mix comes the young and idealistic Specialist Willow (D.B. Sweeney in one of his earliest roles), an Army brat whose father is (of course) a friend of Hazard and Nelson.

Willow has an unrequited love (played by Mary Stuart Masterson) in the daughter of a colonel, who seems to think that the son of a sergeant is beneath his daughter, even as Willow has ambition toward becoming an officer. Willow also has ambition toward the experience of real combat -- he sees duty at the Arlington National Cemetary as being uneventful -- Willow is certainly not a Patton-esque character, but rather portrays that element of the military and citizenry who wishes to be where the action is when action is happening. Hazard (and, to a lesser extent, Nelson), being world weary, tries to temper Willow's enthusiasm, knowing (and stating several times) that Vietnam is not the typical war -- when Willow says that he wants to be on the front lines, the retort from the more experienced soldiers is invariably that there is no front line in Vietnam. Ultimately, Willow does make it to Vietnam, and Hazard does decide to leave the Old Guard for a more active engagement in the war where he can do more good (or so he feels) than simply burying the dead who return.

Hazard also is involved (as a subplot) with a woman who struggles to deal with the contradictory nature of the war, embodied by Hazard (Angelica Huston plays the correspondent who has a largely anti-war feeling, but again this is tempered by not being anti-military). Hazard's intimacy with her grows throughout the film, being tested when he announces his intention to leave the cemetary duty and go to Vietnam service; Willow's father dies early in the film, thrusting Hazard into a fatherly role, so the trio become a makeshift family of sorts.

From my visits to Arlington and conversation and correspondence I've had with those who have worked there, this film is fairly accurate in its portrayal of the procedures of the place. There are some things which never change, and perhaps one of the more constant places of military tradition is here.

The backdrop of Coppola dealing with the death of his own son runs as a sombre tone throughout this tale, that has both high points and tragic points. The ending is somewhat predictable but no less poignant for being so. Coppola's idea that even with all the honour a mighty nation can muster, death is still tragic and war often has few winners (and certainly the Vietnam had no true winners) remains steady here.