war on Iraq - reflected in current films? NRR

generique

A while back I saw a BBC documentary on how violent films from around 1970 were influenced by or reacting to horrific footage from Vietnam. It was about films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Romero's zombie films. Films that smeared the physical reality of death in the crowd's face and detached it from fantasy. They were also films that didn't want to "be liked". Now I wonder, do people see any change in mentality in current filmmaking that could have been triggered by the war in Iraq? I saw one film called Murder-Set-Pieces that sort of crossed the line by piling up torture, pornography and gory murder into one messy film. That film was condemmed by almost everyone, also because the serial killer that's in it seems to be having wet dreams about the WTC drama. I seriously hated the film but I think it will be one of those films that will feature in future documentaries on, you know, the Iraq generation. Any more examples or thoughts on this?

Junior

My gut reaction would be no.

Mainly because the Vietnam war was arguably the first major conflict where the media were able to give daily updates via pictures of the atrocities of war. These stories and graphic imagery then relayed back into the public conscience and filtered into independent, and to a lesser extent, studio, motion pictures.

These days we're all so desensitised to violence that the images and tragedy fails to really shock us anymore. It's all just part of the background noise. I reckon you're more likely to see more and more pictures subtly playing with the notions of values etc than out and out shock cinema.

Shit, I could have argued this a lot better 10 years ago. 8 years office work has severely numbed my academic thinking. Hopefully someone else can rephrase this better or school me.

generique

Thanks for the reply. It's clear enough for me!

I think you are probably right, about the diminished shock value of violence.

Still, there are many films from the 70's that you could not make nowadays, or well, you can - Murder-Set-Pieces proves this - but people just don't or maybe people don't want to see them. But still, as more and more people get concerned by our current governments, you would expect that films would get more and more critical and independant in their reasoning. I mean, I saw Airforce One the other night and hell, I don't think that would be a big succes if it was made today. It made me sick. The idea of the president as the ultimate father figure who unites and protects a whole nation, it wouldn't be believable (I hope). So, I don't see too much "grand national stories" in Hollywood films nowadays and less patriotism maybe? Okay, Lord of the Rings is being read as a cryptical patriotic film (remember "For the people of the West!") and the last Star Wars as a cryptical anti neo-con film, but cryptical messages I imagine are more something for films from, say, Iran. At he same time, the "you don't know how high this goes up the foodchain" of nineties conspiracy cinema has also disapeared it seems.

Okay, it's hard to see what's going on in your own time, but maybe there are some bright minds on here who can see some tendencies?

sabadabada

the WTC drama.

do you think you could sanitize this more?

erewhon

This might not be the kind of trend you are looking for, but the only obvious answer I can think of is the major shift in audience taste for documentaries. The trend was clearly already developing prior to the "war on terror" (with much credit to Bowling for Columbine and, actually, Spellbound), but the Farenheit 9/11 phenomenon threw open the floodgates for relatively major interest in the relatively minor Control Rooms, Outfoxeds, The Hunting of the Presidents, etc.

Keep in mind, though, that when you are talking about film in the 70s, you are talking about what is perhaps the most revolutionary creative period in Hollywood's history. It was much easier to tie influences to auteurs then than it is today. I think you're gonna find less and less explaination for trends on the creative side and more and more on the business side, which is actually, I think, partly demonstrated by the rise of documentaries example.

DrWu

I am not sure about the influence of the Iraq war but I think that the President's emptyheaded approach to the defecit is clearly reflected in the movies of Jessica Alba.

Rafa

There is a turkish film that is in cinema right now in various countries that is about the IRaq war specifically about a conflict which involved turkish allies and is based on a true story.

Check the trailer:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493264/

generique

I've seen that movie and it wasn't bad. Pretty interesting. But thanks for the tip. Weird there hasn't been a western movie on the subject yet (I think...).

The remark about the change in documentary audience is interesting. Gonna ponder on that one.

generique

I continue to be interested in whether horrorfilms or other genre films get into what's happening in Iraq.

Now I've read about two films that do explicitly. One is by Joe Dante, Homecoming, and it's about American soldiers who come back out of the dead as zombies to register to vote and they help vote Bush out of office. Sounds pretty good. It's made for TV but it'll show at the upcomming fantasy festival in Amsterdam.



The other one is called Hostel, by the guy who did Cabin Fever. I've read in an interview that the director wanted to adress what happened (or happens?) in Abu Ghraib. It only came out the other day but the general critique here is that the film is more about Europhobia and international ignorance. It's about American teens who end up near Bratislava in a torture dungeon so rich perverts can use them as they like. The film starts in (a parody of) Amsterdam and what immediately strikes you is that the people are talking in German...



Another film, which is more art cinema, is an Italian film about the IRA people who died in British prisons and it's a study in what's torture and what's not and how mental breakdown works. A bit uneven IMO but still interesting. It's called Il Silenzio dell'allodola.