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September 02, 2007

Hollywood 'artist' as ...

Quick now ... name some recent American films in which the US military is portrayed in a positive light. Or which is based on American heroism. Any movie about Paul Smith? How about any movie about the Iraq war that doesn't portray US troops as other than crazed rapists, thuggish murderers or dyspeptic mental cripples, or who come home to be crazed rapists, thuggish murderers or dyspeptic mental cripples?

However, at the Venice Film Festival, we get two films from anti-Iraq-war directors. And some choice quotes.

First, there's the ever artful, thoughtful and subtle Brian De Palma with his latest, Redacted

A new film about the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers who also murdered her family stunned the Venice festival, with shocking images that left some viewers in tears.

"Redacted," by U.S. director Brian De Palma, is one of at least eight American films on the war in Iraq due for release in the next few months and the first of two movies on the conflict screening in Venice's main competition. ...

De Palma, 66, whose "Casualties of War" in 1989 told a similar tale of abuse by American soldiers in Vietnam, makes no secret of the goal he is hoping to achieve with the film's images, all based on real material he found on the Internet.

"The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people," he told reporters after a press screening.

"The pictures are what will stop the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against this war," he said.


Of course, the American public is totally unaware and only a man with the superlative talent to stun audiences with dumping pig blood on Sissy Spacek can bring us lesser beings The Truth(tm).
"In Vietnam, when we saw the images and the sorrow of the people we were traumatizing and killing, we saw the soldiers wounded and brought back in body bags. We see none of that in this war," De Palma said.

"It's all out there on the Internet, you can find it if you look for it, but it's not in the major media. The media is now really part of the corporate establishment," he said.


De Palma is not corporate? Hell, De Palma is the man who thought Jerry O'Connell could be convincing as an astronaut.

Then there's Paul Haggis and In the Valley of Elah

The scars from the Iraq war do not heal when U.S. soldiers return home, says a powerful new film starring Tommy Lee Jones that keeps the conflict at the heart of the Venice film festival this year.

After Brian De Palma's "Redacted" stunned audiences with its reconstruction of horrific events in Iraq, Paul Haggis' "In the Valley of Elah" brings a more nuanced, yet moving account of the brutality some soldiers bring back to the United States. ...

One of the defining images of the film is the American flag flying upside down, a sign of a nation in distress.


Because, you know, the upside down America flag is really nuanced, in a nuancey kind of way.
Haggis said he had tried not to allow his personal opinion about the war in Iraq to influence "Elah" too heavily.

The upside down flag convinces me, Paul.
In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, at least six films on the topic are due out soon as the operations continue.

Haggis, whose 2005 film "Crash" was an Oscar for best picture, said this was partly because journalists were failing.

"During the Vietnam war, we had terrific journalists doing their job, reporting on things that we didn't want to hear ... Now we don't have that. I think that when that doesn't happen, then it's the responsibility of the artist to ask those difficult questions."


Of course, this is less the case that reporting is not happening and more a case that Paul ignores any information that doesn't conform to his perceptions.

While Valley may be wowing them in Venice, Variety wasn't being impressed by the nuance.

Unwilling to opt for the pulp-trash excesses of such military thrillers as "The General's Daughter," the film ends up delivering a poorly conceived message of alarm, bluntly signaling that the war is causing America's sons and daughters severe psychological damage.

This isn't about "information" or "larger truths". This isn't the "artist's" self-perception as ennobled soul tasked with bringing enlightment to the benighted masses.

This is "artist" as proctologist.

Posted by Darleen at September 2, 2007 12:03 AM

Comments

Haggis obviously wants to provide the iconic film for the Iraq War that "The Deerhunter" provided for Vietnam, where returned soldiers are dysfunctional and warped by their wartime experiences.

De Palma thinks that if he can craft a sufficiently shocking and disgusting portrait of the American soldier, then he can singlehandedly end the war, which will make him popular at dinner parties.

Neither of these people want the United States to win this war, and so achieve a permanently enhanced national security, or force a paradigm shift in the Middle East, or make dictators nervous about their positions. They want the United States to be humbled, even humiliated, in order to assuage their vague aversion to the fractious and disagreeable work of living in reality, no matter the consequences to their fellow citizens.

Posted by: Chris at September 3, 2007 05:54 AM