Cloverfield and the Red Badge of Courage

I loved the movie Cloverfield. In fact I had my Slusho T-Shirt on when I went. If you don't know what slusho is, than you are not as lame as our programmer Jimmy. You probably get dates.

That said, many people are hailing the first person narrative, as being on the ground, in the heart of battle, lacking details and a precise understanding of the events by the narrator and viewer. It is heralded as innovative, fresh, new, and story telling for the modern ages / U-tube generation.

Couldn't help but think that is what they said about Stephen Crane's protagonist in The Red Badge of Courage. There we follow Henry Fleming, a lowly private as he traverses the battlefield, without ever knowing the true bigger picture. His travels and what the reader knows from the narrators perspective are equally opaque.

Of course that book was written in 1895. What is old is new again. That's why I have bell bottoms.