John Pilger reports that, in spite of a history of repeated US-backed…
Blowback
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- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
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For a huge number of people around the globe the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have become "America's story". Films like the Academy Award-winning The Hurt Locker (2009) and the commercially successful and culturally impactful American Sniper (2014) have made a substantial impact on how these wars have been shaped in the global cultural imaginary. But what of films about these modern wars made outside of the United States? What of those narratives told by the Iraqis and Afghans themselves? Or of French, Turkish, German, Chinese, or Danish film-makers? How might these films contribute to a greater understanding of how the conflicts came to be viewed and remembered by cultures outside of "our own"?
Adopting a richly textured and dynamic approach, BLOWBACK: The 9/11 Wars in Global Film is an entertaining, educational and informative documentary that seeks to illuminate the potentialities and limits of national cinemas in the global age.
"An essential, engaging, and concise exposé of how the filmmaking of war turns us all into embedded reporters, incapable of seeing beyond our frame of reference. An invaluable resource for anyone teaching propaganda, media studies, or journalistic bias." Douglas Rushkoff, Professor of Media Studies, Queens College - CUNY, Author, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now
"Blowback is a fine component to any course on war films. Well-selected film clips forcefully pose many key questions about authenticity, romanticism (war porn), propaganda, censorship, and more. The clips from other nations should help students see their own national outlook. And the Zero Dark Thirty clips and the interview with Kathryn Bigelow alone would make a great class meeting." H. Bruce Franklin, Professor Emeritus of English, Rutgers University - Newark, Author, Crash Course: From the Good War to the Forever War
"Blowback explains that war films do not simply tell stories about war, they are themselves weapons used to justify war. This videographic essay exposes students to the complex issues surrounding the production and reception of war films. How do nation states influence the production of war films? How do war films reflect and inform wider public opinion about who is right and wrong on the global stage? What role do films play in public memory? The filmmakers do an admirable job of providing salient examples - A useful teaching tool." Pearl James, Associate Professor of English, Co-director in International Film Studies, University of Kentucky, Author, The New Death: American Modernism and World War I
"Interrogating the cinematic production of the 'war on terror' as a uniquely American story, Blowback offers an inventory of Hollywood's most chauvinistic representations of post-9/11 militarism while also emphasizing the importance of alternative perspectives. Blowback tells key aspects of this global narrative through close attention to non-Western contexts of film production, distribution, and reception. It will be an especially welcome addition to courses on popular media and is a generally stimulating conversation starter." Noah Tsika, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Queens College-CUNY, Author, Traumatic Imprints: Cinema, Military Psychiatry, and the Aftermath of War
"I found the film gripping. With a remarkable assemblage of clips from recent and classic war movies, Blowback shows how filmmakers across the world have used cinema to wage a war of ideas about terrorism and territorial aggression. This short film eloquently explores the power of movies to ask: Who are the sheep in global conflicts? Who are the wolves? Who are the sheepdogs that protect the sheep? Blowback offers a rich, provocative, and disturbing view of our collective experience of warfare in the early 21st century." David M. Lubin, Professor of Art and Film Studies, Wake Forest University, Author, Grand Illusions: American Art and The First World War
"War films can be weapons in shaping public opinion. Blowback reveals the seductive allure and power of the war film genre and alerts audiences that the point of view is essential for the master narratives created by cinematic representations. Ultimately, war films are closely related to propaganda and help promote violent conflict, even if they claim to be about preserving freedom and democracy. This educational documentary does not shy away from asking tough questions and would be perfectly suited for classrooms from high school to college." Karen A. Ritzenhoff, Professor of Communication, Central Connecticut State University, Co-editor, New Perspectives on the War Film
"Blowback offers a succinct and insightful look into the dynamics of war cinema, especially in the post-9/11 period. The film contextualizes these films within a broader history of US and British colonial cinema, and then compares US war films with those by Iraqi, Turkish, and Chinese filmmakers in the same period. While short enough to use inside the classroom, Blowback is a film that offers a productive touchstone for further studies and discussion of this rich topic." Kamran Rastegar, Professor of Comparative Literature, Director of the Arabic Program, Tufts University, Author, Surviving Images: Cinema, War, and Cultural Memory in the Middle East
Citation
Main credits
McSweeney, Terence (film director)
McSweeney, Terence (film producer)
McSweeney, Terence (screenwriter)
Lee, George (film director)
Lee, George (director of photography)
Lee, George (editor of moving image work)
Other credits
Cinematographer, George Lee; editor, George Lee.
Distributor subjects
"media literacy"; "war & peace"; "media studies"; "film studies"; "world history"; "american history"Keywords
[00:00:03.04]
[indistinct chatter]
[00:00:11.01]
[dramatic instrumental music]
[00:00:26.01]
- [Director] Guys, coming up.
[00:00:28.02]
- [Man] What are you looking for?
[00:00:30.02]
- [Director] Action!
[00:00:31.05]
- [Wayne Kyle] There are
three types of people
[00:00:32.03]
in this world,
[00:00:34.07]
sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs.
[00:00:38.06]
Some people prefer to believe that
[00:00:41.03]
evil doesn't exist in the world,
[00:00:43.05]
and if it ever darkened their doorstep
[00:00:45.04]
they wouldn't know how
to protect themselves.
[00:00:47.08]
Those are the sheep.
[00:00:50.05]
And then you got predators.
[00:00:52.05]
They use violence to pray on the weak.
[00:00:55.04]
They the wolves.
[children yelling]
[00:00:58.03]
And then there are those who've
[00:00:59.09]
been blessed with the gift of aggression,
[00:01:02.03]
and an overpowering need
to protect the flock.
[00:01:04.06]
[children yelling]
[00:01:07.00]
These men are the rare breed,
[00:01:08.06]
live to confront the wolf.
[00:01:12.05]
They are the sheepdog.
[00:01:15.04]
- [Navy Doctor] Would you
be surprised if I told you
[00:01:16.09]
that the Navy has credited you with
[00:01:19.07]
over 160 kills?
[00:01:21.02]
[gunshots]
[glass shattering]
[00:01:23.05]
- [Chris Kyle] I was
just protecting my guys.
[00:01:24.08]
They were trying to kill our soldiers.
[00:01:26.07]
The thing that haunts me are all the guys
[00:01:29.08]
that I couldn't save.
[00:01:31.05]
- Your dad, he's a hero.
[00:01:34.02]
[dramatic orchestral music]
[00:01:42.01]
- I think we're about fixing to get into
[00:01:43.02]
a pretty big gun fight.
[00:01:44.08]
[dramatic music continues]
[00:01:47.06]
[distant gunshots]
[00:01:49.06]
[gunshots]
[00:01:59.03]
[loud explosions]
[00:02:02.00]
- [Reed] What's the best way to go about
[00:02:04.05]
disarming one of these?
[00:02:07.07]
- The way you don't die, sir.
[00:02:09.05]
Got him.
[explosion]
[00:02:11.00]
- [Norm] Can't begin to imagine
[00:02:11.09]
what you went through personally.
[00:02:14.09]
- [Billy] Thank you for saying that, sir.
[00:02:16.05]
- [Norm] Being celebrated as a hero,
[00:02:19.01]
that's gotta weigh heavy
on a young man's shoulders.
[00:02:22.02]
- Makes me feel like I've
got no say in things, sir.
[00:02:25.02]
- I sympathize. But your story, Billy,
[00:02:29.06]
you gotta understand it
no longer belongs to you.
[00:02:32.05]
It's America's story now.
[00:02:34.07]
- [Director 2] Cut!
[00:02:38.00]
- [Narrator 1] For
millions around the globe,
[00:02:39.04]
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
[00:02:41.03]
have become America's story.
[00:02:43.02]
Films like "American
Sniper," "Lone Survivor"
[00:02:46.00]
and "The Hurt Locker" have
played a substantial role
[00:02:48.05]
in how people came to understand
[00:02:50.04]
and remember these conflicts.
[00:02:52.02]
Not just for those who lived
through them at the time,
[00:02:54.06]
but for generations to come.
[00:02:56.06]
But what of films about the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
[00:02:59.03]
made outside of the United States?
[00:03:01.06]
What of those stories told
by French, Polish, Italian
[00:03:05.04]
or Danish filmmakers,
[00:03:07.05]
or of course the Iraqis
and Afghans themselves?
[00:03:10.07]
How might these films contribute
to a greater understanding
[00:03:13.09]
of how the conflicts came to be viewed
[00:03:15.07]
by cultures around the world,
[00:03:17.04]
so that the narrative
of what many refer to
[00:03:20.00]
as the 9/11 Wars is no
longer America's story,
[00:03:23.01]
but a truly global one?
[00:03:24.06]
[dramatic duduk music]
[00:03:56.09]
[dog barking]
[00:03:59.00]
[suspenseful percussion]
[00:04:01.09]
[dog barking]
[dog whimpering]
[00:04:03.08]
[percussion continues]
[00:04:10.00]
- Just at the moment that
cinema's beginning, right,
[00:04:11.07]
that's the very moment
of cinema's emergence,
[00:04:13.08]
and it immediately starts to picture
[00:04:16.01]
American military strength and might
[00:04:18.05]
at the very same time that that military
[00:04:20.04]
is becoming newly professionalized.
[00:04:22.04]
So you see some of these early actualities
[00:04:24.07]
with the Spanish American War.
[00:04:26.01]
They're often just simple pans across
[00:04:28.06]
the majestic gunboat
[00:04:31.01]
or a huge big steel gunship,
[00:04:33.04]
and they're a display of technology,
[00:04:34.06]
they're a display of military
power and technology.
[00:04:37.04]
- American war cinema is, by definition,
[00:04:44.01]
a presentation and projection
of the American mind.
[00:04:48.04]
Of course, most people
don't read books on history,
[00:04:53.07]
so film is extremely important
in shaping the consciousness
[00:05:00.02]
and positioning of most
people in the world.
[00:05:05.00]
That's why, you know,
[00:05:06.02]
film is not just about making something
[00:05:10.00]
that you identify with
[00:05:11.08]
and you laugh or you cry,
or you enjoy yourself
[00:05:15.07]
because you like the characters.
[00:05:17.09]
It is projecting a greater background,
[00:05:21.05]
greater narratives,
[00:05:23.05]
national and sometimes
universal narratives about war.
[00:05:28.08]
[plane engine whirring]
[00:05:34.03]
- What, sir?
[00:05:43.07]
- Earn this.
[00:05:49.06]
Earn it.
[00:05:54.08]
- These liaison officers
that work in the Pentagon
[00:05:57.01]
or the CIA
[00:05:57.09]
whose specific job is to vet scripts
[00:06:01.04]
and make sure that these
scripts are broadly consistent
[00:06:04.00]
with the image that the military
[00:06:05.04]
wants to present of itself
[00:06:06.08]
or these particular
institutions like the CIA.
[00:06:09.07]
And at that point they
will, of course, yeah,
[00:06:11.06]
lend you materials or
support in some respects
[00:06:13.09]
if it's broadly consistent
with the worldview
[00:06:16.01]
that they would like to articulate.
[00:06:18.04]
If it isn't consistent
with that worldview,
[00:06:20.00]
and if it's critical
of American imperialism
[00:06:21.06]
or American efforts to shape
the world in its own image,
[00:06:23.09]
then you don't get the support.
[00:06:25.08]
Classic example of that
is "Zero Dark Thirty."
[00:06:27.08]
We have memos back and forth
[00:06:29.00]
between the filmmakers and the CIA
[00:06:31.01]
which document the close relationship
[00:06:33.07]
and the efforts of the CIA
[00:06:35.06]
to shape it's image in filmic terms.
[00:06:40.06]
So here's an institution which
is shaping the representation
[00:06:44.00]
of the War on Terror,
particularly around torture.
[00:06:47.06]
- I own you, Amar.
[00:06:50.00]
You belong to me.
[00:06:54.02]
Look at me.
[00:06:58.05]
You don't look at me when I talk to you,
[00:06:59.08]
I hurt you!
[00:07:01.03]
You step off this mat,
[00:07:02.05]
I hurt you!
[00:07:03.08]
If you lie to me,
[00:07:04.07]
I'm gonna hurt you!
[00:07:05.06]
Now! Now, look at me!
[00:07:09.02]
Look at me, Amar!
[00:07:11.06]
- I wanted to...
[00:07:13.08]
put the audience into the
center of this particular hunt,
[00:07:17.04]
so you feel not just
that you're watching it
[00:07:19.08]
but you're inside it,
[00:07:21.03]
and you're in the marketplace
[00:07:23.00]
and you're going around the, you know,
[00:07:25.01]
in the van going around
trying to track the Potohar.
[00:07:29.02]
So I think that that sort of immediacy
[00:07:33.01]
creates a kind of, I
suppose, a kind of tension
[00:07:36.06]
that is good for a story
that's so realistic.
[00:07:39.07]
- Usually movies, particularly
by very highly credentialed
[00:07:42.09]
producers, directors, and casts,
[00:07:45.06]
does have an effect on public opinion,
[00:07:48.01]
not only in the United States
[00:07:49.08]
but around the world.
[00:07:51.03]
First of all, the brutality depicted there
[00:07:54.01]
is very disturbing.
[00:07:56.01]
But the thing that we, Senator
Levin and Senator Feinstein
[00:07:59.04]
focused on is that you believe
when watching this movie
[00:08:03.04]
that waterboarding and
torture leads to information
[00:08:07.03]
that leads then to the
elimination of Osama bin Laden.
[00:08:11.05]
That's not the case.
[00:08:13.01]
The moral of the story is
that torture does not work.
[00:08:17.04]
It is hateful.
[00:08:18.03]
It is a harmful--
[00:08:19.07]
incredibly harmful to the
United States of America--
[00:08:22.06]
and to somehow make people
believe that it was responsible
[00:08:25.08]
for the elimination of Osama bin Laden
[00:08:28.06]
is in my view unacceptable.
[00:08:31.06]
- If this is
[00:08:34.01]
obviously something that's
a controversial issue,
[00:08:37.07]
which it is,
[00:08:39.04]
a healthy debate I think
is helpful, you know.
[00:08:43.06]
And so if the film has stimulated
a debate, a conversation
[00:08:46.05]
about something that's very important
[00:08:51.05]
and, you know, elements that were done
[00:08:54.05]
in the name of finding bin Laden,
[00:08:56.04]
then I think it's a real testament
[00:08:59.01]
to the power of the medium.
[00:09:00.08]
- Here's a film that
justifies that torture,
[00:09:04.00]
and in justifying that torture
[00:09:06.00]
takes leave from the historical record
[00:09:07.06]
to shape opinion about the practices
[00:09:11.08]
of the War on Terror, torture,
[00:09:14.02]
and broadly speaking, its
core of American interests.
[00:09:26.01]
- The winner is Oliver Stone, "Platoon"!
[00:09:29.09]
[audience cheering]
[00:09:33.01]
- Thank you.
[00:09:33.09]
Thank you for this Cinderella ending.
[00:09:36.05]
But I think that through this award,
[00:09:38.01]
you're really acknowledging
the Vietnam veteran.
[00:09:40.07]
And I think what you're saying
is that for the first time,
[00:09:44.00]
you really understand
what happened over there.
[00:09:46.07]
And I think what you're saying is that
[00:09:48.03]
it should never, ever in
our lifetimes happen again.
[00:09:52.08]
- The movie was in a
sense about my struggle
[00:09:55.03]
to keep my own humanity going
[00:09:59.00]
and-- or call it a soul.
[00:10:02.01]
The odyssey of Charlie
Sheen in the movie becomes
[00:10:04.07]
this struggle for his soul.
[00:10:07.01]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[00:10:12.08]
[rapid gunfire]
[00:10:16.04]
[melancholy orchestral music]
[00:10:32.07]
- [Man in Film] Hold
your armor. Guns! Guns!
[00:10:34.01]
Pull off! Pull off!
[00:10:35.02]
We're trying to cover it on my side!
[00:10:38.06]
- When "Platoon" was first released,
[00:10:40.03]
a number of people asked me,
[00:10:42.05]
"Was the war really like that?"
[00:10:46.02]
I mean, I never found an answer because
[00:10:48.07]
what really happened is,
[00:10:50.09]
it's now so thoroughly mixed up in my mind
[00:10:53.05]
with what people said happened
[00:10:58.02]
that the real experience,
[00:11:01.03]
it's no longer there.
[00:11:03.01]
[helicopter blades whirring]
[00:11:04.05]
- [Narrator 1] If war
films can be so influential
[00:11:06.04]
to those who encountered
a conflict firsthand,
[00:11:09.00]
like William Adams, what
might their impact be
[00:11:11.06]
on those who only ever
experience war vicariously
[00:11:14.02]
through the media?
[00:11:15.07]
The war film possesses a
tremendous power to move audiences
[00:11:19.04]
and influence their
understanding of conflicts
[00:11:21.08]
in ways which move beyond the screen.
[00:11:29.05]
[wolves growling]
[00:11:31.03]
[dramatic instrumental music]
[00:11:38.00]
- [Narrator 2] "Pause and
visualize the real Arab.
[00:11:39.09]
"What do you see?
[00:11:41.02]
"Black beard, headdress, dark sunglasses.
[00:11:44.05]
"In the background-- a limousine,
[00:11:46.03]
"harem maidens, oil wells, camels.
[00:11:50.00]
"Or perhaps he is brandishing
an automatic weapon,
[00:11:52.07]
"crazy hate in his eyes
[00:11:54.01]
"and Allah on his lips.
[00:11:56.04]
"Can you see him?"
[00:12:01.05]
- Americans are actually finding
[00:12:04.03]
what they want to find there.
[00:12:06.04]
What they want to find is a desert,
[00:12:09.05]
the intensity of hate towards them,
[00:12:14.04]
and the beginning of "Hurt
Locker" does exactly that.
[00:12:17.07]
Within two minutes of the
beginning of the film,
[00:12:20.09]
it becomes clear that
you cannot trust anyone.
[00:12:24.02]
When looking through the
gun site at the Iraqis,
[00:12:28.05]
what we get is you never can trust an Arab
[00:12:33.04]
and the enemy could be anybody.
[00:12:35.02]
It could be those workers
watching you from the roof.
[00:12:39.05]
It could be children walking by.
[00:12:42.00]
It could be the shepherd.
[00:12:44.02]
It could be the man in the butchery.
[00:12:47.07]
You are in enemy country,
[00:12:49.09]
and everybody is and could be an enemy.
[00:12:56.03]
[loud explosion]
[00:12:58.04]
- So "American Sniper"
is key to some of this.
[00:13:00.06]
I mean, it's an extraordinary movie,
[00:13:01.08]
and straightforwardly
almost kind of fascist film
[00:13:04.04]
in some respects in
terms of its articulation
[00:13:07.00]
of the savagery of this racialized "other"
[00:13:10.02]
that must somehow be
policed by the, you know,
[00:13:14.00]
white savior nation, the United States.
[00:13:16.06]
I think there's a connection
[00:13:17.06]
between some of these
representations of the War on Terror
[00:13:21.07]
and the slow rise of
new forms of nationalism
[00:13:25.05]
that were formed sort
of between, you know,
[00:13:27.08]
2001 and 2016, let's say--
[00:13:30.05]
an increasing sense of a kind
of American exceptionalism
[00:13:33.00]
through this sense of a savage "other"
[00:13:35.06]
outside there in the rest of the world,
[00:13:38.04]
these Islamic fanatics who
aren't really ever humanized
[00:13:41.02]
or thought carefully about
in any of these films,
[00:13:43.09]
but imagined-- particularly
in "American Sniper"--
[00:13:46.03]
simply as savages, a word that's
actually used in the film.
[00:13:49.05]
- These are savages.
- Chris.
[00:13:51.01]
- Babe, they're fucking savages.
[00:13:52.06]
- Bunch of savages, isn't it?
[00:13:54.03]
- Bloody savages.
[00:13:55.04]
- They're savages here, one and all.
[00:13:58.01]
Leave them to go back
to slaughtering babes
[00:13:59.09]
and playing stick-and-ball
with one another's head.
[00:14:02.00]
- Savages!
[00:14:05.08]
- That's my wife, Yakima, my squaw.
[00:14:08.02]
- Yes, but she's...she's savage!
[00:14:11.00]
- Put fear of God into the savages.
[00:14:13.07]
- I've done got me 157 dead gooks killed.
[00:14:19.02]
- We got gooks in the fucking perimeter.
[00:14:20.09]
- God damn village Vin Drin Dop, or Lop.
[00:14:25.07]
Dmn gook names all sound the same.
[00:14:28.02]
- You wouldn't have done that
[00:14:29.01]
if that was a white boy back there.
[00:14:30.08]
Yeah, but to you he's
nothing but a gook, huh?
[00:14:32.09]
I mean, he's just a yellow nigger.
[00:14:34.01]
- He is the enemy.
[00:14:35.00]
- No, you are the enemy!
[00:14:36.05]
- I don't want to hear "dune coon"
[00:14:37.06]
or "sand nigger" from him or anybody else.
[00:14:40.01]
- [Conrad] Captain uses those terms.
[00:14:42.04]
- Look, the point is, Conrad,
[00:14:43.07]
that "towel head" and "camel jockey"
[00:14:44.06]
are perfectly good substitutes.
[00:14:46.05]
- And the second that they run down there,
[00:14:47.08]
we got 200 hajis on our back.
[00:14:50.07]
- Dude, you bought it from savages.
[00:14:53.07]
- Who are the bad guys?
[00:14:57.06]
- The ones with the beards.
[00:15:04.00]
- [Tucker Carlson] Iraq is a crappy place,
[00:15:05.04]
filled with a bunch of, you know,
[00:15:06.09]
semi-literate primitive monkeys.
[00:15:09.06]
But I just have zero sympathy
for them or their culture,
[00:15:13.01]
a culture where people just
don't use toilet paper or forks.
[00:15:16.08]
- [Co-Host] And the way they treat women,
[00:15:17.07]
you know, I agree with you.
[00:15:18.07]
Their culture is--
[00:15:19.09]
but you're in their homeland,
[00:15:22.00]
and you're over there as
an American, who they hate,
[00:15:24.07]
and they want nothing more
[00:15:25.06]
than the Americans off of their soil.
[00:15:27.01]
So they're not gonna play games.
[00:15:28.01]
- [Tucker] Yeah but then
the second we-- I mean,
[00:15:29.02]
they can just the shut the
fuck up and obey, is my view.
[00:15:33.01]
- I've always been in love
with the genre, the war genre,
[00:15:35.04]
since I was a kid.
[00:15:36.04]
Movies like "The Deer
Hunter" and "Apocalypse Now"
[00:15:38.09]
and "Platoon" were things
that always resonated with me,
[00:15:42.00]
and I was always obsessed
with the plight of a soldier
[00:15:44.06]
when I was a kid.
[00:15:45.07]
I was just hoping that it
really would be a movie
[00:15:48.01]
seen for what it was,
at least intended to be,
[00:15:50.01]
which was a movie about
soldiers and their families.
[00:15:52.07]
That's it.
[00:15:56.06]
- A new movie that
opened tonight in Europe
[00:15:58.04]
is creating an uproar.
[00:16:00.02]
It's called "Valley Of The Wolves: Iraq."
[00:16:03.08]
Now, here's the plot to the movie.
[00:16:06.05]
U.S. soldiers attack a
wedding party in Iraq.
[00:16:10.00]
They drag prisoners off to Abu Ghraib.
[00:16:12.08]
Critics are calling it one of the worst
[00:16:15.00]
anti-American propaganda films ever.
[00:16:18.03]
If that's par for the course
for the way they think
[00:16:20.07]
that explains why you have
people running airplanes
[00:16:25.01]
into buildings in America.
[00:16:26.08]
- Over there, they take
the uncivilized approach
[00:16:30.04]
and then they wonder why so many people
[00:16:32.06]
don't trust the Muslims
when it comes to liberty.
[00:16:34.08]
- So do you have any problem
with Billy Zane and Gary Busey
[00:16:37.02]
being in a movie that's so anti-American
[00:16:39.09]
that our troops are being ordered
[00:16:41.02]
to stay away from movie
theaters showing it
[00:16:43.06]
because they're afraid
that American troops
[00:16:45.06]
may be injured or killed?
[00:16:47.04]
- The film has been regarded
a response to Americans
[00:16:53.00]
and because of what has
been known as a Hood event
[00:16:58.05]
in Turkey, where I think
11 Turkish soldiers
[00:17:04.01]
were detained by American soldiers
[00:17:08.05]
because of, allegedly,
[00:17:12.09]
plotting an assassination
against a Kurdish leader,
[00:17:16.00]
which had been considered a humiliation
[00:17:20.06]
for the Turkish nation,
[00:17:21.07]
not only for the Kurdish
soldiers themselves.
[00:17:24.06]
So what Polat Alemdar does in this film
[00:17:28.04]
is to take revenge of
that event and sort of
[00:17:33.00]
re-establish the pride
of the Turkish nation
[00:17:37.07]
through humiliating the
American soldiers in return
[00:17:41.04]
and killing them.
[00:18:01.07]
- Unlike other anti-American film,
[00:18:04.02]
we have a paramilitary hero
rather than a military hero,
[00:18:08.02]
fighting against American soldiers
[00:18:10.06]
and sort of re-establishing
the order within the region.
[00:18:15.08]
Definitely it's a
national fantasy, sort of,
[00:18:19.08]
as I've said before,
re-establishing the order
[00:18:23.06]
or the humiliation that
Turkish nation felt
[00:18:27.07]
over the Hood event.
[00:18:30.06]
So in reality, neither Turkish government
[00:18:33.04]
nor the officials have done
something regarding this event.
[00:18:38.08]
So the film filled that need,
[00:18:44.01]
satisfied that need felt
by the public, and sort of
[00:18:51.01]
also implicitly reviving fantasies
[00:18:56.05]
of an imperial power.
[00:19:01.03]
[dramatic instrumental music]
[00:19:09.07]
[speaking Chinese dialect]
[00:19:13.05]
- I think there's a propagandistic cycle
[00:19:15.08]
that's emerging from China,
and that's clearly connected
[00:19:19.06]
to the rise of China as a global power--
[00:19:23.02]
directly connected to
a kind of articulation
[00:19:25.09]
of military strength,
[00:19:27.03]
and a kind of military strength globally
[00:19:29.05]
in these "Wolf Warrior"
and "Wolf Warrior 2" films,
[00:19:32.00]
an articulation of the
power of the Chinese state
[00:19:34.09]
to manage its populations,
[00:19:37.01]
to save its population abroad,
[00:19:39.00]
which is directly keyed to
the goals of the Chinese State
[00:19:43.03]
to expand its military--
[00:19:44.07]
particularly to expand its Naval forces,
[00:19:46.07]
to protect the South China Seas
[00:19:49.02]
and as part of a global strategy of growth
[00:19:53.07]
and of a creation of a superpower.
[00:19:56.04]
So film is playing a role
[00:19:59.00]
in the articulation of
Chinese military strength
[00:20:03.05]
as a symbol of Chinese economic strength.
[00:20:07.09]
[sheep bleating]
[conversing in Arabic dialect]
[00:20:14.09]
[dramatic instrumental music]
[00:20:21.09]
- [Narrator 1] Films made
in Iraq and Afghanistan
[00:20:24.02]
do not have the budget or resources
[00:20:26.00]
of those made in the
United States or China.
[00:20:29.02]
The experiences these
countries have had of war
[00:20:31.08]
are not those fought
thousands of miles away
[00:20:33.08]
by heavily armed soldiers,
[00:20:35.06]
but in their own country, their own cities
[00:20:38.04]
and their own communities.
[00:20:41.00]
As a result, their narratives
tend to center around
[00:20:44.03]
the civilians that American
films push to the margins
[00:20:47.04]
or erase entirely.
[00:20:49.04]
Filmmakers like Mohamed
Al-Daradji and Shawkat Amin Korki
[00:20:53.06]
provide an insight into a war far removed
[00:20:56.01]
from that portrayed in American films,
[00:20:58.06]
one that's hardly ever seen
by audiences in the west.
[00:21:03.02]
[speaking in Kurdish dialect]
[00:21:09.06]
[woman crying]
[00:21:18.00]
[speaking in Arabic dialect]
[00:21:43.09]
- We are going through a difficult time,
[00:21:46.01]
but we are beautiful human being--
[00:21:47.08]
we have normal life, and
we have normal activity
[00:21:51.05]
and we have normal joy.
[00:21:53.04]
And we are looking to have a joy in life.
[00:21:56.04]
You know, those children, you know,
[00:21:58.01]
I always make film
about women and children
[00:22:01.05]
'cause they are the victim.
[00:22:02.07]
[dramatic instrumental music]
[train horn blaring]
[00:22:08.05]
[speaking in Arabic dialect]
[00:22:12.00]
- The winner...
[00:22:15.09]
"Memories on Stone."
[00:22:17.09]
[audience applauds]
[00:22:18.08]
- I would like to dedicate this award
[00:22:23.05]
to my people in Kurdistan,
[00:22:26.00]
which are in a new,
[00:22:29.03]
tragic,
[00:22:31.00]
bloody situation with ISIS.
[00:22:34.01]
[woman screaming]
[00:22:37.04]
- The Iraqis never presented
any threat to this country.
[00:22:41.03]
And if we leave, those Iraqis
[00:22:43.07]
don't present any threat to
this country after we leave,
[00:22:46.06]
'cause they're not, you know,
[00:22:47.06]
they're not some evil caricature
[00:22:48.09]
like you've seen in the
films and all that stuff.
[00:22:50.09]
They're people.
[00:22:52.02]
They have mothers, they have fathers.
[00:22:54.00]
They have sisters, they have brothers,
[00:22:55.05]
they have children, you know.
[00:22:57.04]
There's people that love them
[00:22:58.04]
just like there's people
that love you, you know.
[00:23:00.09]
And those people grieve
when they lose them,
[00:23:04.00]
just like people grieve if
they lose you, you know.
[00:23:09.07]
That's maybe not as dramatic
and as exciting, you know,
[00:23:13.01]
and clear cut, you know,
[00:23:15.06]
and easy to understand as, you know,
[00:23:19.08]
this sort of simple binary
world of good and evil
[00:23:22.00]
that you get painted for you,
[00:23:23.04]
but that's not the way the real world is.
[00:23:27.08]
- We tend to have more memorial sites now
[00:23:29.03]
than we have monuments,
[00:23:30.06]
and I think those two
terms are often attached
[00:23:33.07]
to two different functions
we ascribe to these sites.
[00:23:37.03]
There's a kind of didactic role.
[00:23:39.00]
There's a sense that monuments,
memorials are intended
[00:23:42.03]
to teach us something about the past
[00:23:46.03]
or intended to instruct us
[00:23:48.02]
and often to teach us a better
kind of national history,
[00:23:51.05]
and usually from the point
of trying to, in some ways,
[00:23:55.00]
instill a certain kind of reverence
[00:23:57.01]
or appreciation for a
kind of national history.
[00:23:59.07]
Now we have much more memorials,
[00:24:01.02]
and memorials tend to
be therapeutic places.
[00:24:04.08]
They play a therapeutic role,
they're sites of encountering,
[00:24:09.04]
but also often alleviating,
hopefully, trauma.
[00:24:15.05]
- I think film and media generally
[00:24:17.02]
is straightforwardly projected
military and imperial power
[00:24:20.06]
across history, in many respects
[00:24:22.03]
as sort of other forms of visual culture
[00:24:23.09]
and symbolic culture statues do the same.
[00:24:26.06]
There's a whole series of
visual artifacts, shall we say,
[00:24:30.04]
that celebrate the military might
[00:24:33.02]
and the power of the
state itself frequently.
[00:24:36.01]
Film is part of that, right?
[00:24:37.01]
Film in a sense is the modern version
[00:24:38.05]
of a statue in that sense,
it seems to me regularly,
[00:24:41.02]
that it is a visual correlate
[00:24:42.09]
to those forms of
memorializing military power.
[00:24:48.08]
[suspenseful instrumental music]
[00:24:55.05]
- Now...
[00:24:59.05]
the German army controls every French port
[00:25:02.03]
except Dunkirk, here,
[00:25:03.04]
and Calais here to the west.
[00:25:06.08]
- "Dunkirk" is a really interesting film
[00:25:09.00]
for a number of reasons.
[00:25:10.06]
For me, most prominently
amongst those is that
[00:25:14.01]
it offers the spectator a unique position
[00:25:17.01]
from which to understand the war film.
[00:25:19.06]
It puts them right in the shoes
[00:25:21.07]
of those who were on the beaches
[00:25:23.07]
and gives the audience some sense
[00:25:26.06]
of the sensory experience of war.
[00:25:29.01]
So "Dunkirk" is, to some extent,
[00:25:31.09]
a product of the culture
within which it's made.
[00:25:35.00]
Although I think that
some of those assumptions
[00:25:38.07]
about its connections to British identity
[00:25:41.07]
are exaggerated within the popular press
[00:25:45.02]
and by politicians to a
large extent, as well.
[00:25:48.05]
Most famously, the UKIP
leader Nigel Farage
[00:25:52.01]
posted a picture of himself on Twitter
[00:25:55.02]
in front of the poster for "Dunkirk,"
[00:25:58.03]
advocating that young people
should go and see the film.
[00:26:01.03]
And I think that gives
some indication of the
[00:26:04.07]
level of cultural impact
that the film has had.
[00:26:08.07]
- A nostalgic moment that
happened briefly there
[00:26:11.07]
with "Dunkirk"
[00:26:12.05]
and maybe some of the Churchill movies
[00:26:14.02]
that came out at the same time,
[00:26:15.09]
a sort of sense of a nostalgic Britain
[00:26:20.06]
that did beat the Germans
in the second World War.
[00:26:24.00]
This of course is a constant
screen memory in Britain.
[00:26:26.05]
Britain spends a lot
of time thinking about
[00:26:28.06]
how it beat the fascist
during second World War.
[00:26:30.06]
It spends very little time thinking about
[00:26:32.02]
how it was the fascist for the rest of the
[00:26:34.06]
19th and 20th century, how
it was an imperial power
[00:26:37.02]
and how it used military
might and media might
[00:26:40.05]
to foster that imperialism.
[00:26:42.01]
But it does make a lot of films about how
[00:26:43.07]
plucky Britain beat the fascists.
[00:26:48.06]
- [Narrator 2] "Though
wars continue to be fought
[00:26:50.02]
"and won or lost on the battlefield,
[00:26:52.02]
"they also continue to
be fought and won or lost
[00:26:54.07]
"through their representation
[00:26:55.08]
"on the movie or television screen.
[00:26:58.02]
"Images of war explain why we fight;
[00:27:00.06]
"they stage and restage wars battles;
[00:27:03.00]
"and they attempt to
explain why we won or lost.
[00:27:06.07]
"In other words,
[00:27:07.05]
"all contemporary wars
are waged on two fronts--
[00:27:10.01]
"on the battlefield and on the screen."
[00:27:17.08]
- Don't look at the camera.
[00:27:18.08]
Don't look at the camera!
[00:27:19.07]
Just go by like you're fighting!
[00:27:21.05]
Like you're fighting!
[00:27:22.03]
Don't look at the camera!
[00:27:23.03]
It's for television!
[00:27:24.05]
Just go through, go through!
[00:27:25.09]
Just go by, keep on going...
[00:27:27.01]
[helicopter blades whirring]
[00:27:29.04]
- [Narrator 1] Such is the
effective power of the medium.
[00:27:32.03]
American films about its wars,
[00:27:34.04]
whether based on real
life or fictional stories,
[00:27:37.04]
have frequently turned to the cinema,
[00:27:39.02]
secure in the knowledge that
generations of young men
[00:27:42.00]
and women have had the idea of what war is
[00:27:45.02]
formed and defined by what
they've seen on the screen.
[00:27:55.06]
In a similar way, films
from all over the world
[00:27:58.04]
have often not only used
film to represent individual
[00:28:01.02]
and collective trauma,
[00:28:02.07]
but also incorporated
the filmmaking process
[00:28:05.05]
into their narratives.
[00:28:06.07]
- Action!
[00:28:10.06]
- [Tommy] A story, a man
fires a rifle for many years,
[00:28:16.00]
and he goes to war.
[00:28:18.08]
- [Man 2] The others have forgotten.
[00:28:20.02]
- You're wrong there.
[00:28:22.00]
They aren't forgotten
because they haven't died.
[00:28:24.09]
They're living, right out there,
[00:28:28.01]
Collingwood and the rest.
[00:28:29.07]
And they'll keep on living
[00:28:30.07]
as long as the regiment lives.
[00:28:33.01]
- [Tommy] Every war is different.
[00:28:35.04]
Every war is the same.
[00:28:38.02]
- They'll be horse meat
before this campaign is over.
[00:28:42.09]
- [Tommy] We are still in the desert.
[00:28:47.02]
- [Narrator 1] Films,
then, play a central role
[00:28:49.00]
in how cultures come to understand
[00:28:50.07]
the conflicts in which they participate.
[00:28:53.04]
They have done so since
the birth of the medium,
[00:28:55.09]
and will continue to do so
[00:28:57.06]
as long as we turn to the screen
[00:28:59.01]
to make sense of the world around us.
[00:29:02.09]
[solemn orchestral music]
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 30 minutes
Date: 2019
Genre: Expository
Language: English / English subtitles
Grade: 10-12, College, Adults
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
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