[...] The trouble with "The Hurt Locker" is that it, like too many other American war films, whitewashes history.
In this film neither the EOD unit at the center of the film or soldiers belonging to other units ever make a mistake that kills or seriously injures an Iraqi civilian. You keep waiting for it to happen, and you'd almost be OK with that one stray shot. Like the camera that put the audience behind the killer's mask in "Halloween," Bigelow has created a claustrophobic, soldier's-eye view ominous with paranoia, all too justifiable. It's hot and dusty. Everyone's dog-tired. You can almost taste the stress. Her camera jumps from one potential threat to another: is that garbage on the side of the road just litter? Why is that guy on the roof of the building across the street staring so intently? more
Hopefully Dave, who is much more the film buff than I and who has strong opinions about this movie and the Oscar's in general, will expand upon this in the comments.
My response here is titled "How not to depict a nation that pretends not to like war." It's also based on the rhetorical factors behind "Hurt Locker" winning the Oscar rather than the film itself--if you don't understand this distinction please stop reading and leave me alone.
ReplyDeleteThat Americans would say the Iraq war is unpopular and at the same time make, much less give a best picture Oscar to, a war film epitomizes Americans' collective dishonesty and obsession with a media-manufactured representation of human existence. First of all, thinking you understand war by going to the movies is typically shallow of Americans. War is awful, a nightmare; it's nothing but people killing and mutilating each other, and it is the epitome of false consciousness--perceiving something that isn't there--victory, doing a good thing--and thus blinding oneself to the violence and tyranny humans are really doing to one another. So Americans can think that since a movie about an "unpopular war" won the Oscar they don't really like war. So I want to ask, if the Iraq war is so unpopular, then why is America yet again mobilizing for another move to the Right? Why is Newt Gingrich popular again, according to today's New York Times? Why did Massachusetts go Republican in honor of Ted Kennedy? Because Americans like war and violence and aggression and anti-intellectual behavior and the scapegoating of teachers and sabotage of education through sports (listen to our last blog) and business (imagine that). You don't forget things that you are really against. If Americans were really against any war then there would be no Republican party to deal with in the first place. As Einstein said, " You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." Then again, Einstein was smart and a scientist so I'm sure he doesn't have any credibility to Americans. If Americans are so against these wars, then why aren't they 100% behind the Dems and 100% against the Republicans, you know the party that started the "unpopular Iraq war?" Why aren't they 100% against these big tough military people who did nothing to protect us on 9-11? That's what I don't like about these blogs and internet and all this media--people can say things and believe themselves to have positions on issues like the war but in the end it is completely meaningless and the military-industrial, post Democracy America marches on. People are living in an ideological parallel universe to "Grand Theft Auto;" you may think you're somebody and making a different when you push buttons and create yourself on screen instead of deal with what is happening on the planet. What struck me about the article above about Hurt Locker was not the film but the depiction of Iraq 2004 and the carnage I remember knowing at the time was completely meaningless because it was nothing but a fact--to be reported and archived in our free press--and sooner or later there are always other facts that can and do enter the picture. "You get your psychiatrist, I'll get mine;" that kind of thing. It's humiliating to realize a decade of my adult life has been spent on a total human carnage, and that I live among people who not only couldn't care less about war but have to go so far as if to pretend they do care and don't like it, and have enough social courage to say so by going to the movies and posting on blogs.