Yesterday, I dropped the name of Deborah Scranton’s The War Tapes, a documentary shot by the soldiers on the ground in Iraq, within this story about the ultra-indie “pro-troops” doc challenging Redacted’s sales. It had slipped my mind that Scranton has a new documentary, also shot by soldiers, called Bad Voodoo’s War. Chuck Tryon describes Scranton’s “virtual embed” technique in his review:
Bad Voodoo’s War focuses on the experiences of a California National Guard platoon, showing us, as the website claims, “the war through [the soldiers’] eyes, filmed with their own video cameras.” In order to make the film, Scranton equipped the soldiers with cameras and then kept in close correspondence with the soldiers via IM and email as they continued to send her tapes of their experiences.
Because the film is part of PBS’ FRONTLINE series, you can watch it in its entirety on PBS.com. There’s also an associated website, where the soldiers in the film are blogging and posting video extras. I found out about this today via a Facebook message from Scranton; she pointed specifically to this clip, called “It’s Not A Matter of If, It’s A Matter Of When”––referring to a change in attitude about the chances of an attack at any time. There are also many video extras on YouTube, including the preview embedded above.
Thank you so much for the shoutout Karina, we really appreciate it and continue to be committed to amplifying soldiers’ voices.
I saw this on Frontline a few weeks ago. With the caveat that I have yet to see The War Tapes, this program (plus another 2-hour behind-the-scenes-at-the White House Frontline) gave me the strongest glimpses I’ve seen yet into a war which is frustratingly difficult to grasp. The soldiers-eye view tactic certainly beats most of the self-righteous Hollywood grandstanding out there.