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Why Do Iraq War Movies Suck?

Please take 15 minutes and view this scene from a film by Akira Kurosawa’s called “Dreams”. It's called “The Tunnel”. Go head, I’ll wait right here for you to come back, it wont take but 15 minutes and it will help illustrate my point.

Part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

To men that have fought in war and survived, there is a “Private Noguchi” in every shadow. As a genre of the film art form,"War Movies" almost always fail to capture this basic horror of corrosive fear that lives in the heart of any man or woman who has faced the horror of war.

Movies are unique as an art form, as they act more as a mirror of the people making the film rather than reflecting the views of the audience viewing the film. Today's Hollywood cannot make "war movies" because almost everyone in Hollywood has never served in uniform, rarely even met anyone who has served in uniform, have never known the horror of war as a civilian and hold in contempt nearly all who have come into any contact with any war.

The consequence of this is that the modern "War Movie" is actually a political movie, where the spirited arguments for and against the war are fought out on the screen, rather than the audience seeing a depiction of the various battles of the war itself.

Certainly there is never an example of 'heroism' shown on the screen and no hint of a victory is ever given or hinted to. To be sure, in Hollywood, heroism is reseved only to those who stayed home. In fact, this is the only war that the Hollywood culture knows, Not the "Iraq" war, but the war of politics, the war that was fought at the tables of Starbucks around all of the very best neighborhoods in Hollywood, Santa Monica and downtown Manhattan.

If an act of heroism in war is actually shown in a modern war flm, the act is always destroyed and denigrated by an uncaring government or the ignorant charactures known as "the folks back home". The enemy is always held in a place of honor and the people of this country who fight in the war are always treated with contempt, unless of course they act as a traitor or embrace the enemy in some small way. Killing the enemy, and winning a battle is never seen or depicted unless the enemy is shown as an honorable man killed by a blood thirsty American no-necked yokel.

There is no bravery, no honor, no respect in the modern war movie; There are only fools that are fooled to fighting a war for "corporate interests" and general betrayal by the so called leaders and the country. The people who fight on our side are always dupes, on their side they are always men of courage fighting against the odds.

In the example that started this post, you can see Akira Kurosawa capture the essential horror of war. He does not make a political statement because to do so would be false and it would be caught as a lie by the audience. His images state what needs to be stated; the fear, the guilt and the shame, not of the dead but of the living. He does not argue for or against the reasons for the war; a war in which his protagonsts in the film and a large part of his Japanese audience will have personally suffered. He is commenting on the war the way that all soldiers do, in the language of duty, honor and country.

This is language that Hollywood does not understand. This is why "All Iraq War Movies Suck", because they are all made in the wrong language.

Talk to any man or woman who has lived in combat, and if you look into their eyes you will see their "Private Noguchi" looking back at you. Be warned, no man or woman who has actually lived through war is likely to tell you much about war. You are a civilian, you arent in the "special club" made up of the suvivors of war. Because you are a civilian, you dont know and you don't really want to know what that 'fear of shadows' experiencd by veterans of war is really like.

You go to war movies because you think that going to a movie is your version of "doing your part", but nothing could be further from the truth. You react to that scene, not because you know what its like to order men to their deaths and the sense of doubt that forever scars your soul, but because you too feel the shame that the Captain feels, the shame of not dying while others you know, did die.

All you really need to know, is that to the veteran, the fear is always there and it is always real. You should also know that capturing that emotion of surviving war, is rarely, if ever done with the exacting artistic perfection, as it is in Kurosawas Dreams, so don't set your expectations so high.

This is why all Iraq war movies suck. They always fail to capture the essential truth of the event. Those of us who stayed home while it was being fought, only know about the war from the spittle of the people on the other side of the table at Starbucks. Those who actually fought it, dont have time to educate us on what the war was really like, because life is too short for such trival things. The people of Hollywood don't care to tell the story in the way their sacrifice deserves to be told with the language of "Duty, Honor and Country", because they dont know what that means.

Posted @ March 30, 2008 07:51 PM | Current Affairs

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Posted by: pavler at April 18, 2008 04:03 AM