NY Times: A War On Every Screen ('Redacted')

[Hissyspit]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/movies/28scot.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin



A scene from Brian De Palma’s “Redacted.”

A War on Every Screen

By A. O. SCOTT
Published: October 28, 2007

THERE is a lot in Brian De Palma’s new movie, “Redacted,” that audiences are likely to find shocking and painful to watch. An Iraqi teenager is raped and then killed, along with her family, by American servicemen. An improvised bomb blows one character to pieces, and another soldier is beheaded by insurgents. But the most disturbing images come at the end, after the lightly fictionalized atrocities are over. At that point the film’s fake-documentary conceit gives way to the genuine article as the screen fills with photographs of dead and maimed — and very real — Iraqis.

Even though “Redacted” will not open until Nov. 16, these pictures have already been the subject of intense argument, some of it between Mr. De Palma and Magnolia Pictures, the film’s distributor. Because the eyes and some other facial features of the people in the photographs have been blacked out, Mr. De Palma has complained that his film was itself subjected to redaction, its confrontational impact blunted. Magnolia says the modification of the photographs arose from straightforward legal considerations having to do with the risk of showing the faces of real people without permission.

This explanation hardly settles the aesthetic and ethical questions raised by the intrusion of reality into a cinematic fiction. The sickening, saddening power of the photographs is undeniable. But what beyond that stark, literal reminder of horrors outside the movie theater is their purpose, their relevance? What, in the context of a moviegoer’s expectations and experience, do they mean? These are questions that reverberate far beyond those pictures, and beyond “Redacted.” They can also be addressed to a growing roster of movies that try, in different styles and with varying degrees of success, to bring the conventions of cinematic storytelling into contact with the truth of the war. Not just the conflict in Iraq, but also the larger, more nebulous struggle — War on terror? Clash of civilizations? Response to 9/11? Imperial overreach? — of which it is part.

The season started with “In the Valley of Elah,” a somber thriller about Iraq, and “The Kingdom,” a frenetic thriller about Saudi Arabia. “Rendition,” a drama about the kidnapping and brutal interrogation, under C.I.A. auspices, of an innocent Egyptian-born resident of Chicago, opened Oct. 19. Along with “Redacted” November will bring Robert Redford’s “Lions for Lambs,” in which two soldiers in Afghanistan fight to survive while, stateside, a professor argues with a student about civic engagement, and a senator lectures a journalist on military strategy. And then, in time for the holidays, come “Grace Is Gone” with John Cusack as a military husband who must tell his two daughters that their mother has been killed in Iraq; “The Kite Runner,” based on Khaled Hosseini’s best seller about life under the Taliban in Afghanistan; and “Charlie Wilson’s War,” about American involvement in an earlier phase of that country’s painful history.

This is just a partial list, omitting documentaries and some smaller, independent films. But the upshot is clear: Jihad; torture; suicide bombings; terrible things done by and to American soldiers; official secrets and government lies; the failures and responsibilities of journalists, politicians, law enforcement officials and ordinary citizens in the face of terror — such matters will be hard to avoid in movie theaters between now and Christmas.

Except, of course, that the public may well succeed in avoiding them. Even the most politically engaged among us may pause over the movie listings and ask the question that comes up in those last moments of “Redacted”: Do I really need to see this? And soft box office returns — already the fate of “In the Valley of Elah” and “Rendition” — are likely to help solidify the emerging conventional wisdom that we don’t. Public indifference, in turn, may bolster the ideologically convenient notion that Hollywood is out of touch with the American people, and also the economically convenient idea that people go to the movies to escape the problems of the world rather than to confront them.

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[drm604]

1. So, do we have a moral obligation to go see these movies?

And soft box office returns — already the fate of “In the Valley of Elah” and “Rendition” — are likely to help solidify the emerging conventional wisdom that we don’t. Public indifference, in turn, may bolster the ideologically convenient notion that Hollywood is out of touch with the American people, and also the economically convenient idea that people go to the movies to escape the problems of the world rather than to confront them.

So, do we have a moral obligation to go see these movies? If we'd rather not see the depiction of these horrors (I don't particularly want to) should we at least buy a ticket even if we don't actually go?

[superkia]

2. No one wants to be reminded of reality, they just want to be able...

to afford their SUV to cruise in and their flat screen tv to watch their happy movies on. That way they feel like everything is ok, that is until Blackwater is knocking at their door. But hey, as long as all they do is take away their 2nd amendment right, who cares, just leave the tv and SUV alone.

[symbolman]

3. Good old New York Times - They help sell a war

Then when someone tries to show the True Horrors of it, they slickly tell everyone NOT to see them... That the Public doesn't CARE ...

Well *I* fucking CARE, you bastards, and so do the People.

They should be drug before the Hague for complicity in War Crimes.

Judith Miller, Anyone?