Owlbear Camus posted:

I think it's very deliberate that we don't know. Soldiers from both sides wear the OCP Scorpion Multicam pattern*, and Plemmons is not wearing any name tape, unit bage, or flag on his blouse.

My money is on loyalist who's probably going to try to put on jeans and lay low once DC falls. The whole premise is the reporters are trying to race the advancing WF front line to interview Offerman in the trumpennunker so it tracks.


*this is one of my dumbass tactical realism nitpicks, surely the WF would take a bunch of M81 woodland or whatever uniforms out of storage for both the practical and propaganda purposes of distinguishing themselves from loyalist yroops.

Oysters Autobio posted:

Is it ever specified or implied who the soldiers were with Jesse Plemons? I know this is intentional (the dialogue in the sniper scene makes that obvious) but I couldn't quite understand the context of what they were doing. Not being American I really couldnt understand the geography at play (i.e. implied forward-lines).

Were they US Government soldiers (i.e. Offerman's troops) carrying out some kind of last ditch reprisals against "traitor" civilians (ala diehard waffen ss at the fall of the nazi regime) as they fell back, or were they supposed to be Western Forces doing reprisals against "traitor" civilians from recently captured territory?

I'm guessing they were supposed to be WF because of the locations of the frontlines but I really couldnt follow the geography at play throughout since I just dont know where any of these places are.

Owlbear Camus posted:

I think it's very deliberate that we don't know.

veni veni veni posted:

I don’t read this subforum much but seriously you guys are some of the most pretentious dorks I have ever seen in my life.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

What’s the pretense?

veni veni veni posted:

Practically the whole drat thread man. Half of you are constantly tripping over yourselves to look like the smartest guy in the room. It’s embarrassing to read.

I didn’t expect to Stan for this movie super hard or anything. As I said above, it’s probably my least favorite movie of Garland’s , but most of the criticisms I’ve seen itt are such dog poo poo. It’s like half of you guys missed the point entirely and just saw it as a platform to come huff your own farts and do a little flex, because you guys think you are revolutionaries for sitting around parroting societal problems on the internet all day.

This movie is not beyond criticism and I have seen some good ones itt. But about 90% of them seem to just be based around it not catering specifically to the breed of doom scrolling, twitter addicted, politics obsessed nerd that frequents this website. The movie accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. Unfortunately for goons it doesn’t line up with their absolutely terrible idea of what it should have been.

it’s not about people not liking it though, it’s how ridiculously smug you guys are about it. Political goons are the most annoying people I have ever interacted with.

Vegetable posted:

I hate on this subforum as much as anyone but you’re kinda a dummy if you don’t see how your post makes you a similar breed of smug

veni veni veni posted:

Half of you are constantly tripping over yourselves to look like the smartest guy in the room.

veni veni veni posted:

I don’t stand for anything I just think a lot of you guys are super annoying.

veni veni veni posted:

it occurred to me while I was typing that but I wanted to say it anyways.

veni veni veni posted:

I don’t stand for anything I just think a lot of you guys are super annoying.

veni veni veni posted:

I don’t stand for anything

Saganlives posted:

I just saw this film today and I was expecting it to be trash or at least hamfisted, but I thought it was pretty great. From what I had been hearing passively online I got the impression that it was "frustratingly apolitical" which seems echoed in this thread, but I honestly found the "lack" of politics a good creative choice. The setting gave the proceedings a nostalgic (is that the word I want? I just mean evocative of a sense of home) backdrop that I don't think Americans are used to seeing in this context. For me it was very emotionally stimulating seeing all this violence and depravity that is occurring in the real world play out somewhere I feel like I could walk to. And these moments of violence and horror are given room to breathe as the film indulges in the artistry of its medium, which I thought were a beautiful contrast. It paced the film really well, and I was glued to the screen the whole time.

I thought the actors' depictions of the highs and lows of combat were stellar, particularly Wagner Moura. His smile as he rides the adrenaline is amazing. Cailee Spaeny also won me over by the end as her character went from naive but eager, to eager and reckless. Culminating in her breaking away from the sergeant who tried to stop her from entering uncleared rooms and ultimately taking the hallway shot that leads to Lee's death. The contrast between her recklessness there (and the movie's depiction of war journalists broadly) and the quality and "wow" factor of the kinds of shots she was getting was really conflicting for me in an interesting way that I haven't stopped thinking about. Kirsten Dunst I thought was good for the character, but that character didn't require much of her.

The combat sequences were thrilling and I really liked the brief pauses as we're given a still as a representation of a picture at key moments. These two things are phenomenally on display in the final push on D.C. and that whole sequence was amazing. Gripes about realism and whatever miss for me, because the film sold it all to me in the moment and I was engaged.

A+ surprise hit for me.

veni veni veni posted:

I don’t stand for anything I just think a lot of you guys are super annoying.

Uncle Boogeyman posted:

Have I got a movie for you!

quote:

I’m a photojournalist. ‘Civil War’ gets war photography dangerously wrong.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/20/civil-war-garland-movie-war-photojournalism-wrong/

Name Change posted:

Mr. F! posted:

Anyone got the text? That’s paywalled

quote:

Louie Palu is a Washington-based photojournalist who has covered multiple conflicts, including Afghanistan and Ukraine.

In 2007, while working as a war photographer in Afghanistan, I faced what you might call a professional ethics test. After a day of heavy fighting in Kandahar, the Afghan and Canadian soldiers I was with needed to evacuate a casualty.

This was not someone they knew; it was a Taliban insurgent who only hours earlier had fired on us, been shot in the chest, and then surrendered. He was gravely injured. On foot and miles from base, the soldiers were faced with a moral dilemma: Should they leave him to die or risk their lives to save their enemy? Bitterly, they decided to save him.

As we stumbled through the unforgiving terrain, the medic asked in a desperate tone if I would take a turn helping carry the stretcher. As a journalist, I try to stay out of the stories I’m covering, but the humanitarian in me agreed. Helping carry a wounded human being through the dark, where I could not take photographs, I wondered why I was even there. All the photos of the day’s firefights felt meaningless. When we got back to the base, several of us vomited from exertion. But as soon as I could, I edited, filed my photos, and called my photo editor to discuss my images. That was the job.

You’d never guess most of these parts of the job from writer and director Alex Garland’s recent film, “Civil War,” which follows two photojournalists covering a contemporary armed conflict — the origins of which we never learn — in a divided United States. Their assignment is to travel from New York to D.C. to photograph the president in a war-torn capital where journalists face the threat of execution. On the road, they encounter several scenarios in which the film highlights its interpretation of what a “war photographer” does. But as an actual war photographer, I can tell you that the film’s creators get that fundamentally wrong — with dangerous implications.

As the photographers — a jaded veteran played by Kirsten Dunst, and the young woman, played by Cailee Spaeny, she reluctantly accepts as a protégée — the two main characters focus on covering shooting up close, as though that’s the most important aspect of what we do. It is not only what the photojournalists photograph, but also what they don’t, that rings false. When the two spend a night in a displaced-persons camp, neither character raises her camera to document what’s around them, ignoring the civilian victims of the war.

What I have learned covering conflict over the course of decades is, with a few exceptions, most pictures of firefights alone don’t say much — and, similarly, the film doesn’t say much about the people committing the atrocities or what has led them to this point. The pictures being taken during the film don’t explain a civil war any more than the film does, focused as it is on the spectacle of the violence.

Ironically, the film makes admiring reference to photographer Lee Miller, best known for her images from Nazi death camps — and someone who was everything these characters are not. Though unjustly held back from covering front-line combat because of her gender, Miller made some of the most poignant work of World War II, at the sites of one of the worst human rights violations in history. There is no ambiguity in her work; it is clear who committed the atrocities, who the victims were, and what the United States was fighting against. And it’s the faces of civilian victims, not guns shooting or bombs exploding, that reveal those facts.

The film also degrades our own humanitarian responsibility as journalists. Repeatedly, as colleagues are shot, the photojournalists in “Civil War” simply leave people to die. In the film, that becomes a mark of character — that a photographer seeing another shot would just continue taking photos, leaving her behind. These actions serve the film’s narrative, but they don’t represent reality. The war photographers I know are generally all trained in first aid and would do the opposite. We are there not looking for glory in the form of some elusive graphic image, but because we care about the stakes of these conflicts, often democracy and human rights, and about the people trapped in the fight.

There is a broader point to this. Audiences at this critical time in history need to understand that in any conflict, there are sides with clear intentions, as in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Images of that day by a Reuters photographer, Leah Millis, made an invaluable record of the attempted coup that this film suggests could lead to an actual civil war. On that day, I was at the Capitol amid the violent mob when someone screamed “photographer,” pointing toward me, causing men with clubs to encircle and threaten me. It matters who was behind this and what that mob wanted. It also matters why people think photojournalists are there.

In a film hyperfocused on the “action,” none of those stakes are clear. Instead, even as “Civil War” tries to make heroes of its war photographers, it seems to circumvent what we do best. That is to document, to gather facts, to show why each side is fighting, and to explain why they are using violence to further their goals, all through the wordless language of photographs.

ex post facho posted:

Jerkface posted:

I think its fair for a professional to criticize a movie thats ostensibly "glorifying" their profession poorly.

Saganlives posted:

Lol my reaction to that article is "it was a movie." But I guess war journalists haven't had a lot of chances to nit pick Hollywood's depiction of their profession like others have.

Some Guy TT posted:

This is what really bugs me about Civil War. The lovely amoral PTSD burnout aspect, that's totally true to form for the profession. But there isn't any real discussion of why these characters subject themselves to this. For the most part, they just seem to consider it entirely self-evident that warzone journalism is of such innate value that the sacrifice is worth it. Lee very vaguely has a sense of guilt about luring Jessie into the profession, but never at any point questions the fact that what she does is important.

What makes this contrast especially absurd is how noone except Sammy even seems to care why the war started or is willing to speculate about what will happen after the Western Alliance succeeds in killing the president. They all seem to think that they just need to document how bad the war is and that's it, mission accomplished. The movie simultaneously acts as if journalism is the most important profession in the world yet doesn't seem to think that this profession actually involves doing much of anything except for just making gruesome snuff films.

It's as if Garland thinks the martyrdom itself is what makes reporters noble, and not the actual work they do. It is, intentionally or not, a frankly brilliant portrayal of the fetishized position journalists hold in present political discourse, completely at odds with their collapsing reputation with actual readers. Someone upthread suggested swapping the Red Dawn heroes with Afghani freedom fighters, well, I can't help but look at Civil War as, what if instead of Nick Offerman, Bashar al-Assad? I doubt anyone has any real idea why Assad is so awful, we just sort of take it for granted that he must be or else why would Syria be having a civil war at all?

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

The film was probably retooled a lot in its final year of production (any film that uses US military hardware is bound to be under script and depiction restraints) because loving lol at making even a passing defense of the fourth estate as some noble protectors of the democratic apparatus after october 7th, after the seven months of carnage and institutionalized deceit that has followed.

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

The status quo often only makes sense to everyday persons if they exclude materialist critique from their perception of the world, this is at the ideological heart of liberal brain rot. It's why the text of this movie's depiction of war can't really be about anything to the viewer, just clashing personalities and those dedicated few, tarnished angels, who are there to thread the needle and present a supposedly unbiased glimpse of both sides so that the public might be better informed in its passive state, so that we may decide how to feel about it. "Can't we just dial everything down a notch, can't everyone just get along??!" We know the world doesn't work that way.

This type of opportunistic fence-sitting is usually only comfortable for the wealthy or the naive, everyone else has already made up their mind. The mental illness of liberalism puts its roots very deep, it is hard to shake loose of it even for a lot of well-meaning and otherwise intelligent people (granted, there are many types of intelligence). And yet, it's similarly hard to sit there in the theater and not laugh at the extremely shallow cinematic earnestness of this film's politics on full display, or wish they'd maybe read a book or two beforehand. So that's what we get from the film, moralizing in service of a cheap thrill, grave portents that seem decades late to the party, spotless cinematography and editing that brandishes both twee music video pastiche and traumatizing intensified continuity, and an unintentionally hilarious ending.

The film was probably retooled a lot in its final year of production (any film that uses US military hardware is bound to be under script and depiction restraints) because loving lol at making even a passing defense of the fourth estate as some noble protectors of the democratic apparatus after october 7th, after the seven months of carnage and institutionalized deceit that has followed. Even on a symbolic level the exercise stumbles hard enough to look almost bumbling: what if america was instead all of those countries we've done regime change to? huh? what then? Or maybe it's some anachronistic thought experiment, liberal wish fulfillment; after all, americans have always seemed to imagine themselves as the ones that subdued the reichstag and stormed the fuhrerbunker, instead of the ones who rehabilitated and subsequently integrated with european fascism. Whatever the case, walking out of the theater's sensory inoculation from material reality one might instead immediately remember that america isn't somehow the imperial periphery of these cinematic alt-history fictions, it's the center of the nastiness. Yes of course (in reality) all of that nastiness will indeed be coming home, it has to, the world frontier vanishes before our eyes, but the particular day american hegemony commits suicide will be no tragedy.

Seldom Posts posted:

As I said before in the thread I also really enjoyed the movie, but my admiration of the movie is based on my read of it, and that read is specifically that it does not have any admiration for the journalists when they are acting as journalists.

The movie is primarily about the civil war going on inside of Lee not the civil war in the United states. Specifically the film is about Lee coming to terms with the ideal that she is devoted her life to is worthless.

Lee has devoted herself to a neutral objectivity that she thinks will enable other people to make good decisions. As a result she never gets involved in anything nor does she even take action to do even the most basic helping action.

We see this in the opening scene where she briefly helps Jesse, but as soon as the explosion is over, she immediately starts taking photos of the dying and injured.  This is contrasted with the every other person in the scene who is reaching out to try to help people.

However, she  soon reveals that her attachment to this objectivity was because she thought it was going to serve a moral good, i e.  prevent people in her home country from engaging in similar Acts. She  found out that this did not work despite her being a celebrated war photographer.  Sammy then spells it out for her when he tells her that her crisis is existential.

We see her wrestle with this throughout the film until the climax in which two things happen.  First, her mentor and fellow journalist, Sammy, risks his own life to save them, ultimately at the cost of his own.  Second, she is "born again" by being knocked into a pit full of dead people and then pulled out.

After this, she primarily abandons her journalist and objective based ideals.  She deletes the photo of Sammy dead in the car notwithstanding her earlier words.   She takes very few pictures in the final raid on Washington DC.    She ultimately does the same thing as sammy, sacrificing her life to save someone else which is explicitly not the act  of someone who is dedicated to the objective journalism that she earlier proclaimed.

The article above from the actual war photojournalist makes this clear, that he views himself as a human first by offering to help people in need and a journalist second. That's why he's upset with the way they're portrayed in the film. But the film isn't portraying it as a positive thing.

There are lots of subtlety great bits of direction that drive the point home.  The way Lee focuses it on the individual flowers when they're pinned down by the sniper.  The way the actress playing Jesse momentarily adopts a dead monotone voice when she says "I never felt so alive" to Lee in the gazebo.  Jesse is explicitly adopting Lee's manner of speaking and her viewpoint on the world just as Lee is  rejecting it.  The way Lee reacts when Joel says Sammy died for nothing because the story is over. You can see she doesn't agree because Sammy died saving their lives.

The film is not apolitical at all. It explicitly rejects taking an apolitical viewpoint. It clearly states that the better life is one in which you take actions to define your beliefs.  It also strongly implies that the correct side in the conflict is the one that is taking down the Trump style president.

The film mostly reminded me of Natural Born killers.  At the end of that movie the serial killer points to a camera and tells us that it is an objective means of capturing the truth. That it is it is an impartial eyewitness.  Yet the film we just finished watching clearly put the lie to that, as we saw two deeply evil and disturbed individuals be presented in an extremely sympathetic and aesthetic light.  

Just like Natural Born killers , civil war is telling us not to trust anyone who claims they're objective.  And of course it is correct. Look at the way the pro Palestinian protests in the United States have been framed by the media, for just the most recent example.