Far From Vietnam

The US poster for the film Loin du Vietnam (Far from Vietnam, 1967), co-directed by Jean-Luc Godard, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Chris Marker and Alain Resnais, reproduced Pablo Picasso’s El rapto de las Sabinas (Rape of the Sabine Women, 1963) as symbolic of US aggression. For the MFA Boston (the owners of the painting), this was “Picasso’s last major statement about the horrors of war” which was “perhaps inspired by the Cuban Missile Crisis” (1962) under John F. Kennedy’s Presidency. At the JFK Presidential Library and Museum, the painting was displayed to mark the 50th anniversary of the conflict.