ARGUMENT THEN WAR, HOLLYWOOD STYLE
Mar. 22nd, 2010 10:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogMovies, opinion, bloggery, etc.
The Hurt Locker
[Which only just opened in Hong Kong ten days ago.]
The first thing I should say is that this movie was on my radar before all the Oscar hoopla because of Kathryn Bigelow, whose work I generally tend to like (and let’s admit it, Near Dark was possibly the greatest vampire film of the 1980s).
And the second thing I should say is that I generally don’t like war movies. The main reason I gave this one a chance – apart from Bigelow’s credentials – was that I got a little tired of reading columns criticizing Bigelow for not doing a Michael Moore when she picked up her Oscar, which somehow proved their theory that The Hurt Locker is a thinly disguised pro-war Army recruitment film – a theory the characters at Fox News are all too happy to embrace because the Oscar results prove that Hollywood is run by clueless America-hating liberals who wrongly assume America only wants to see anti-war films.
That’s bloggable, I thought.
So I went to see it. And walked away very impressed for a number of reasons.
First the politics – there really aren’t any, other than what the viewer projects onto it. That’s fine by me. And given that we live in a time when people are increasingly insistent that whatever the argument, you must pick a side (and it better be the right side), leaving the politics out of a film set in the Iraq war was arguably the most radical thing Bigelow could have done.
It’s also a valid approach to storytelling when the story is about the experience of the soldiers who had to fight regardless of whether you think the war is justified or not.
As for the experience, a lot of Iraq war vets have complained about the inaccuracies and things that no soldiers would ever do or be allowed to do. This is true, and fair comment, and we could do a whole separate post on whether this is a disservice to the troops that have been there and those that remain. Personally, I don’t think it is – in fact, I rather liked the idea that Bigelow took the maverick cowboy persona that’s practically a staple in American action films (war films included) and put it in an environment where such behavior isn’t appreciated.
In any case, accuracy isn’t a major issue for me for a couple of reasons:
(1) Hollywood is not in the reality business. It never has been. Astrophysicists have been complaining about Star Wars for over 30 years, but a scientifically accurate Star Wars would be a lot less fun. That’s why Hollywood has almost always put dramatic/artistic license ahead of 100% accuracy.
(2) This has always been especially true when it comes to movies about the military. My 3.5-year stint in the US Army taught me this. So I’ve learned not to worry about it.
One thing I think THL did get right was the characterizations. One way I judge a military movie is by how much the characters remind me of people I served with. In that respect, THL nails it, Jeremy Renner in particular.
The film also does a good job of taking the basic elements that make the Iraq war distinct from America’s other wars – the occupation, the IEDs, the insurgency and the subsequent paranoia that results from a war zone in which the enemy blends in seamlessly with the local civilians yr supposed to be protecting, many of whom don’t especially like you being there anyway – and uses them to build up the suspense to nerve-rattling levels. It may not be accurate, but I still left the theatre almost feeling as if I’d just come back from downtown Baghdad.
THL has its downsides too – a few plot holes here, some predictability there, and a few scenes you didn’t have to serve in Iraq to know are pure Hollywood drama devices. Overall, though, it’s a powerful film – and clearly powerful enough to actually get people to start talking more about the combat experience in Iraq.
Which is more than cable news channels ever did. Maybe that’s why people demand more accuracy from Hollywood on things like this. You’d think that’d be the job of CNN and Fox. Now it's up to Hollywood to get it right, even in works of fiction.
Imagine that.
Everybody hurts,
This is dF
The Hurt Locker
[Which only just opened in Hong Kong ten days ago.]
The first thing I should say is that this movie was on my radar before all the Oscar hoopla because of Kathryn Bigelow, whose work I generally tend to like (and let’s admit it, Near Dark was possibly the greatest vampire film of the 1980s).
And the second thing I should say is that I generally don’t like war movies. The main reason I gave this one a chance – apart from Bigelow’s credentials – was that I got a little tired of reading columns criticizing Bigelow for not doing a Michael Moore when she picked up her Oscar, which somehow proved their theory that The Hurt Locker is a thinly disguised pro-war Army recruitment film – a theory the characters at Fox News are all too happy to embrace because the Oscar results prove that Hollywood is run by clueless America-hating liberals who wrongly assume America only wants to see anti-war films.
That’s bloggable, I thought.
So I went to see it. And walked away very impressed for a number of reasons.
First the politics – there really aren’t any, other than what the viewer projects onto it. That’s fine by me. And given that we live in a time when people are increasingly insistent that whatever the argument, you must pick a side (and it better be the right side), leaving the politics out of a film set in the Iraq war was arguably the most radical thing Bigelow could have done.
It’s also a valid approach to storytelling when the story is about the experience of the soldiers who had to fight regardless of whether you think the war is justified or not.
As for the experience, a lot of Iraq war vets have complained about the inaccuracies and things that no soldiers would ever do or be allowed to do. This is true, and fair comment, and we could do a whole separate post on whether this is a disservice to the troops that have been there and those that remain. Personally, I don’t think it is – in fact, I rather liked the idea that Bigelow took the maverick cowboy persona that’s practically a staple in American action films (war films included) and put it in an environment where such behavior isn’t appreciated.
In any case, accuracy isn’t a major issue for me for a couple of reasons:
(1) Hollywood is not in the reality business. It never has been. Astrophysicists have been complaining about Star Wars for over 30 years, but a scientifically accurate Star Wars would be a lot less fun. That’s why Hollywood has almost always put dramatic/artistic license ahead of 100% accuracy.
(2) This has always been especially true when it comes to movies about the military. My 3.5-year stint in the US Army taught me this. So I’ve learned not to worry about it.
One thing I think THL did get right was the characterizations. One way I judge a military movie is by how much the characters remind me of people I served with. In that respect, THL nails it, Jeremy Renner in particular.
The film also does a good job of taking the basic elements that make the Iraq war distinct from America’s other wars – the occupation, the IEDs, the insurgency and the subsequent paranoia that results from a war zone in which the enemy blends in seamlessly with the local civilians yr supposed to be protecting, many of whom don’t especially like you being there anyway – and uses them to build up the suspense to nerve-rattling levels. It may not be accurate, but I still left the theatre almost feeling as if I’d just come back from downtown Baghdad.
THL has its downsides too – a few plot holes here, some predictability there, and a few scenes you didn’t have to serve in Iraq to know are pure Hollywood drama devices. Overall, though, it’s a powerful film – and clearly powerful enough to actually get people to start talking more about the combat experience in Iraq.
Which is more than cable news channels ever did. Maybe that’s why people demand more accuracy from Hollywood on things like this. You’d think that’d be the job of CNN and Fox. Now it's up to Hollywood to get it right, even in works of fiction.
Imagine that.
Everybody hurts,
This is dF
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no subject
on 2010-03-22 10:57 am (UTC)In fact, most good films do not take side :)