Cinematheque
Feb. 16th, 2004 01:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapsedmodernistIn Russian there is an expression na zlobu dnya. It literally means "on the evil of the day" but would be translated as "on point" or "currently relevant." In that spirit, I offer you a list of several movies which you should watch because they all fall within that useful imported category. Or, if it suits your cultural phileas better, you may think of them as helping you understand the zeitgeist, or if you prefer impressionistic paraarticulation to crisp theory, you can shrug and group them together as all possessing as certain je ne se quoi.
The Siege--this flick is a bit confused and confusing, but much more relevant than when it was first made. In it, there is a terrorist cell operating in Brooklyn, and they keep blowing shit up--first a bus, then a Broadway theater, and finally the FBI headquarters. Denzel Washington is the head of the FBI who is hunting the terrorists. After the third attack martial law is declared, Brooklyn is sealed off, and the army is brought in to extirpate the cell, headed by Bruce Willis, who initially makes an ACLU-worthy speech about how he opposes this measure and how there is nothing more demoralizing than the army policing its own people, but then is really gung-ho about herding young men of Middle Eastern descent into open-air cages and torturing an "enemy combatant." The weird thing is, the movie posits FBI against the army, with the FBI being the moral, patriotic force in touch with American values like no torture, whereas the army is all authoritarian and soul-crushing. There is also a confused subplot with a Palestinian intifadah martyr/double agent who turns out to be a belligerent terrorist whose plans for the final strike don't really make a whole lot of sense (he is gearing up to blow up the crowd of protesters who are demonstrating against martial law and discrimination against the Arabs), but all weirdness aside, the message of the movie (albeit delivered by the reified FBI) is what the terrorists want is paranoia, martial law, illegal detention and torture of prisoners, and children being locked up in cages, and that is the real damage to America. It's definitely a Hollywood movie, but while it's hardly radical, in today's cultural milieu I suppose it's progressive, and the particulars of the plot might make it useful as a thought-provoking vehicle for that older family member who was all pro-Bush right after 9/11, but who could be persuaded to watch a Bruce Willis flick over an Ah-nold one. Cuz even though Bruce is the kind of patriotic underdogs (Die Hard, anyone?), he's also been in some weird, through-provoking shit, like 12 Monkeys. But he's still way Americana. So, The Siege, with its relatively progressive message, can be snuck into the VCR as a "Bruce Willis movie." In reality, it's the Bruce Willis Trojan Horse movie. For your NRA-loving uncle, natch.
Three Kings--this movie has many good things going for it, if you can get over the inescapable metanarrative element of American soldiers helping Those Less Fortunate. At least in this case it's the opportunist-turned-anti-establishment soldiers who are headed straight for a court-marshal. The movie is not without fault; while offering a critique of racism, it still indulges in racist humor in parts. But it does provide an accurate critique of how Bush the first abandoned the rebels after promising them support if they rise against Saddam, showing the aftermath of the brokered peace, the disdain and the hatred of Saddam's loyalists for the Americans after the ceasefire and the despair of the abandoned rebels. It also showcases the role of the opportunistic media in the construction of the Gulf War, and has plenty of Yossarian/Chonkin-style ethos of absurdity. The movie ends with the three protagonists escorting the refugees to the border, and bargaining away Saddam's gold that they stole in exchange for their safe passage. Apparently the original ending, nixed by the studio went like this: Mark Wahlberg's character starts suffocating, no one helps him, he does not get his hands free and can't expel the air from his lungs, and dies, the gold is confiscated from them, and the refugees are not allowed to pass. That ending would have been a lot more realistic.
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb--this is appropriate to our return to the un-50s, especially now that the US and Russia are in a nuclear race again, and Russia is conducting the largest military exercise since the "7-hour nuclear war" exercise in 1982, which simulated an all-out nuclear attack against the US.. And we're, uh...building that defense shield? You know, the one that does not work? But there can't be a gap. Not to mention that the famous image of Slim Pickens, a.k.a. yee-hawing cowboy type Major "King" Kong riding the bomb off the board of the bomber called "Leper Colony," is, like, the visual logo and inspiration for Rumsfield and Cheney. So, in the beginning of the movie, the insane General Ripper orders a code red(!): a preemtive nuclear strike against the Russians, to stop the communist infiltration that is "sapping and impurifying all of our precious bodily fluids." There is a crisis meeting in the War Room, which is what Donald Rumsfield's Home on the Range probably looks like, there is Dr. Strangelove, who is an ex-Nazi evil mastermind now in charge of the US weapons program, who unsuccesfully tries to curtail his atavistic Heil Hitlers throughout the movie, and finally convinces everyone of the beauty of moving underground post-nuclear explosions by proposing a 1 man/10 women ratio. Chauvinistic polygamy model trumps the bad aftertaste of the atomic mushroom clouds. For some reason there is a common misperception that this is a funny comedy and the bombs are stopped at the end. It is a funny comedy, sort of, in the way that the blackest humor can be really funny, but I would like to clear up the wishful-thinking tinkering (wishful tinkering?) with the ending that has apparently transpired in the collevtive unconscious of those who have heard of the movie but have not seen it: the bombs fall. In fact, the final shot of the movie is that of nuclear bombs falling all over the world to the soundtrack of We'll Meet Again Someday. [Note: a good companion piece to this movie is the brilliant War Games. In Dr. Strangelove the absurdity of a nuclear race is taken to its logical conclusion; in War Games, the computer, through logic, learns the absurdity of a nuclear war; like tic-tac-toe, it can't be won. ]
The Battle of Algiers--apparently, The Pentagon screened this 1965 French film for its employees as part of their "thinking creatively about Iraq" strategy. Which is really perverse, but what else would you expect from a Pentagon FilmFest where the first prize is a gold statue of the four horsemen. So, this was Pentagon's press release blurb about this film which chronicles the Algerian resistance to French colonial occupation: "How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. . . . Children shoot soldiers at point blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film." If you want to read more about this tres controversial film (when it was first released, theaters were bombed, the Black Panthers used it as a how-to guide, it is rarely if ever screened; I caught it at the Film Forum during the two weeks when it ran there this January, but chances are it won't be found at your local Blockbusters, and now it's being used in Pentagon training), click here, it's a fairly informative article. Having seen the movie, I have to say it's really affecting. As movies go, it's fairly didactic, with two-dimensional characters, for the most part (the most "complex" character is the French general in charge of crushing the resistance). It is almost documentary in its narrative; at least insofar as "dramatic recreation" is a conventional documentary technique. But especially now it is extremely compelling, from its haunting images of threated French colonial residents ganging up from their balconies on a lonely local, who runs through an empty morning street because the (literally) upper strata, paranoid and shaken up by bombings, is screaming "dirty Arab" at him, to the minutae of suicide bomber operations, and the escalating horror and loss on both sides. Of particular interest to me was the portrayal of the press in the film. By that I mean that during the recreated press conferences, the press actually tries to hold the officials accountable on subjects such as torture and methods used in crushing the rebels. If the Pentagon is taking lessons from this film, perhaps our Press Corps can, as well.
Air Force One--this movie is just necessary to understand what Dubya wants to be, what he looks for, squinting, in his mirror, and why he spent the major part of 9/11/01 in the air, flying around the country and pretending to be Harrison Ford. To see what Dubya actually is, I refer you to any South Park episode prominently featuring Erik Cartman.
The Siege--this flick is a bit confused and confusing, but much more relevant than when it was first made. In it, there is a terrorist cell operating in Brooklyn, and they keep blowing shit up--first a bus, then a Broadway theater, and finally the FBI headquarters. Denzel Washington is the head of the FBI who is hunting the terrorists. After the third attack martial law is declared, Brooklyn is sealed off, and the army is brought in to extirpate the cell, headed by Bruce Willis, who initially makes an ACLU-worthy speech about how he opposes this measure and how there is nothing more demoralizing than the army policing its own people, but then is really gung-ho about herding young men of Middle Eastern descent into open-air cages and torturing an "enemy combatant." The weird thing is, the movie posits FBI against the army, with the FBI being the moral, patriotic force in touch with American values like no torture, whereas the army is all authoritarian and soul-crushing. There is also a confused subplot with a Palestinian intifadah martyr/double agent who turns out to be a belligerent terrorist whose plans for the final strike don't really make a whole lot of sense (he is gearing up to blow up the crowd of protesters who are demonstrating against martial law and discrimination against the Arabs), but all weirdness aside, the message of the movie (albeit delivered by the reified FBI) is what the terrorists want is paranoia, martial law, illegal detention and torture of prisoners, and children being locked up in cages, and that is the real damage to America. It's definitely a Hollywood movie, but while it's hardly radical, in today's cultural milieu I suppose it's progressive, and the particulars of the plot might make it useful as a thought-provoking vehicle for that older family member who was all pro-Bush right after 9/11, but who could be persuaded to watch a Bruce Willis flick over an Ah-nold one. Cuz even though Bruce is the kind of patriotic underdogs (Die Hard, anyone?), he's also been in some weird, through-provoking shit, like 12 Monkeys. But he's still way Americana. So, The Siege, with its relatively progressive message, can be snuck into the VCR as a "Bruce Willis movie." In reality, it's the Bruce Willis Trojan Horse movie. For your NRA-loving uncle, natch.
Three Kings--this movie has many good things going for it, if you can get over the inescapable metanarrative element of American soldiers helping Those Less Fortunate. At least in this case it's the opportunist-turned-anti-establishment soldiers who are headed straight for a court-marshal. The movie is not without fault; while offering a critique of racism, it still indulges in racist humor in parts. But it does provide an accurate critique of how Bush the first abandoned the rebels after promising them support if they rise against Saddam, showing the aftermath of the brokered peace, the disdain and the hatred of Saddam's loyalists for the Americans after the ceasefire and the despair of the abandoned rebels. It also showcases the role of the opportunistic media in the construction of the Gulf War, and has plenty of Yossarian/Chonkin-style ethos of absurdity. The movie ends with the three protagonists escorting the refugees to the border, and bargaining away Saddam's gold that they stole in exchange for their safe passage. Apparently the original ending, nixed by the studio went like this: Mark Wahlberg's character starts suffocating, no one helps him, he does not get his hands free and can't expel the air from his lungs, and dies, the gold is confiscated from them, and the refugees are not allowed to pass. That ending would have been a lot more realistic.
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb--this is appropriate to our return to the un-50s, especially now that the US and Russia are in a nuclear race again, and Russia is conducting the largest military exercise since the "7-hour nuclear war" exercise in 1982, which simulated an all-out nuclear attack against the US.. And we're, uh...building that defense shield? You know, the one that does not work? But there can't be a gap. Not to mention that the famous image of Slim Pickens, a.k.a. yee-hawing cowboy type Major "King" Kong riding the bomb off the board of the bomber called "Leper Colony," is, like, the visual logo and inspiration for Rumsfield and Cheney. So, in the beginning of the movie, the insane General Ripper orders a code red(!): a preemtive nuclear strike against the Russians, to stop the communist infiltration that is "sapping and impurifying all of our precious bodily fluids." There is a crisis meeting in the War Room, which is what Donald Rumsfield's Home on the Range probably looks like, there is Dr. Strangelove, who is an ex-Nazi evil mastermind now in charge of the US weapons program, who unsuccesfully tries to curtail his atavistic Heil Hitlers throughout the movie, and finally convinces everyone of the beauty of moving underground post-nuclear explosions by proposing a 1 man/10 women ratio. Chauvinistic polygamy model trumps the bad aftertaste of the atomic mushroom clouds. For some reason there is a common misperception that this is a funny comedy and the bombs are stopped at the end. It is a funny comedy, sort of, in the way that the blackest humor can be really funny, but I would like to clear up the wishful-thinking tinkering (wishful tinkering?) with the ending that has apparently transpired in the collevtive unconscious of those who have heard of the movie but have not seen it: the bombs fall. In fact, the final shot of the movie is that of nuclear bombs falling all over the world to the soundtrack of We'll Meet Again Someday. [Note: a good companion piece to this movie is the brilliant War Games. In Dr. Strangelove the absurdity of a nuclear race is taken to its logical conclusion; in War Games, the computer, through logic, learns the absurdity of a nuclear war; like tic-tac-toe, it can't be won. ]
The Battle of Algiers--apparently, The Pentagon screened this 1965 French film for its employees as part of their "thinking creatively about Iraq" strategy. Which is really perverse, but what else would you expect from a Pentagon FilmFest where the first prize is a gold statue of the four horsemen. So, this was Pentagon's press release blurb about this film which chronicles the Algerian resistance to French colonial occupation: "How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. . . . Children shoot soldiers at point blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film." If you want to read more about this tres controversial film (when it was first released, theaters were bombed, the Black Panthers used it as a how-to guide, it is rarely if ever screened; I caught it at the Film Forum during the two weeks when it ran there this January, but chances are it won't be found at your local Blockbusters, and now it's being used in Pentagon training), click here, it's a fairly informative article. Having seen the movie, I have to say it's really affecting. As movies go, it's fairly didactic, with two-dimensional characters, for the most part (the most "complex" character is the French general in charge of crushing the resistance). It is almost documentary in its narrative; at least insofar as "dramatic recreation" is a conventional documentary technique. But especially now it is extremely compelling, from its haunting images of threated French colonial residents ganging up from their balconies on a lonely local, who runs through an empty morning street because the (literally) upper strata, paranoid and shaken up by bombings, is screaming "dirty Arab" at him, to the minutae of suicide bomber operations, and the escalating horror and loss on both sides. Of particular interest to me was the portrayal of the press in the film. By that I mean that during the recreated press conferences, the press actually tries to hold the officials accountable on subjects such as torture and methods used in crushing the rebels. If the Pentagon is taking lessons from this film, perhaps our Press Corps can, as well.
Air Force One--this movie is just necessary to understand what Dubya wants to be, what he looks for, squinting, in his mirror, and why he spent the major part of 9/11/01 in the air, flying around the country and pretending to be Harrison Ford. To see what Dubya actually is, I refer you to any South Park episode prominently featuring Erik Cartman.
