Iraq Films Saying Nothing New

By Karina Longworth posted 5 months ago

In this longish but fascinating video companion piece to his Atlantic story on how Hollywood has reverted to 70s-style dialectics in order to talk about current global conflicts, Ross Douthat explains why the recent wave of Iraq movies haven’t connected with critics or audiences. The problem, in part, is that “Hollywood hasn’t found anything new to say about the Iraq War that you wouldn’t expect them to say based on what they had to say about Vietnam.” Via The House Next Door. Also on the topic of the contemporary war film’s unwillingness to telegraph unexpected or unsafe points of view: The NY Times did a profile of Stop-Loss director Kimberley Pierce over the weekend, and though an inordinate amount of space is given over to explanations for why it took Pierce nine years to make a second film, there’s some interesting stuff about the attempts made to “move towards a political balance that should satisfy red and blue states.”

3 Comments

Hollywood

iraq, iraq movies, iraq-war, kimberley-pierce, stop-loss, Video, war-on-terror

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Glenn Kenny said 5 months ago
Fascinating? Really? As far as I can tell, Douthat’s not doing anything but reiterating the old wingnut whine, “Why won’t Hollywood make movies telling America how much Muslims are teh suck,” only he’s not foaming at the mouth as he does so…which makes him one of those exciting young new-style conservatives, I guess. Don’t kid yourself— the “new” thing he wants movies to say about the Iraq war is that it’s teh awesome, which I think almost everyone can admit it’s a little late for.

…also, the guy’s got about as much insight into and deep knowledge of movies as I have of hydrangea planting. Please.

…and also, the video as it’s posted here cuts out around the time Douthat starts in on the Bond films. But I’d pretty much gotten the idea by then…
karina said 5 months ago
Admittedly, it’s a really slow news day, but what can I say? *I* was fascinated.

Nice use of “teh” though, Glenn.
Glenn Kenny said 5 months ago
It *is* quite well put together, I’ll say that. Wish I had that kind of video setup, or is it budget. They better be paying those royalties for “Bittersweet Symphony,” though, or Allen Klein’s people will be right up their butts.

I don’t deny you the right to be fascinated, Karina. Allow me to take the first two words of my prior comment back. I was just bein’ feisty…hoping to start a debate and stuff.