Iraq War Film

"LaRocca offers a synoptic anthology of essays that brings to our attention how war films can provoke contemplation and meditation because of the ways that such films inevitably focus on the mortality and vulnerability of human beings. The essays, written by an outstanding array of international scholars, work out various ways in which the genre can compel our thinking to become philosophical. This collection of essays constitute a significant contribution to not only the philosophy of the war film, but also to philosophy of film itself."―Daniel Flory, Montana State University

"War is a pervasive condition, a constitutive part of human experience. The war film genre is extensive and multiform. It is no surprise, then, that war films are provocations to philosophical thought. This important and timely edited collection has an extensive introduction that seeks answers to vital questions: What sort of a phenomenon is a war film? What do we think we mean when we speak of a war film? What are war films for? Can war as such be represented by film? The essays that follow illuminate myriad ethical, aesthetic, epistemological and ontological issues as they related to a broad range of representations of war."―Guy Westwell, Film Studies, Queen Mary University of London

"The philosophical reflections compiled in this book look at war films from a variety of perspectives. I commend editor David LaRocca for bringing together scholars who each, in different ways, engage the interdisciplinary mission of the inquiry into how war is depicted on screen. What is the philosophy of film, and then, of war films specifically? Do war films harbor a philosophy – of death, violence, love - or does philosophy enrich the understanding of the cinematic of war? The Philosophy of War Films explores these questions and many more, connecting the reality of war with the art of filmmaking."―Mieke Bal, University of Amsterdam

"This volume offers rich and deeply thought-out consideration of the representation of war on film and of the ways filmic and now digital representation is deeply entangled with how we experience and think about war (up close or at a distance) in actual life. The book reaches back in film history but is especially provocative on war and its representation in the last decade―the situation we are living with now. The essays are fresh and surprising, showing the whole subject of war and film to be far more interesting, complex, and disturbing than in the standard thinking about war genre films that we are used to."―Charles Warren, Boston University


Wars have played a momentous role in shaping the course of human history. The ever-present specter of conflict has made it an enduring topic of interest in popular culture, and many movies, from Hollywood blockbusters to independent films, have sought to show the complexities and horrors of war on-screen.

In The Philosophy of War Films, David LaRocca compiles a series of essays by prominent scholars that examine the impact of representing war in film and the influence that cinematic images of battle have on human consciousness, belief, and action. The contributors explore a variety of topics, including the aesthetics of war as portrayed on screen, the effect war has on personal identity, and the ethical problems presented by war.

This chapter aims to begin the process of establishing how the recent cycle of US war films showing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan might be located in relation to the development of the US war movie genre more generally, and especially in relation to the genre’s most recent cycles, including the Vietnam war cycle, and the pre-9/11 ‘greatest generation’ cycle. A brief description of the core myths of the war film genre will provide a context for a series of more specific observations about The Hurt Locker (2008), the most successful of the recent Iraq war films. I am particularly interested in the question of whether the contemporary war film conforms to the genre’s general tendency, ideologically speaking, to make an argument for war.

Speaking about the state of the Hollywood film industry at the 2008 Academy Awards, the Oscars’ host – comedian Jon Stewart – made the following wry assessment: ‘Not all films did as well as Juno obviously. The films that were made about the Iraq War, let’s face it, did not do as well. But I’m telling you, if we stay the course and keep these movies in the theatres we can turn this around. I don’t care if it takes 100 years. Withdrawing the Iraq movies would only embolden the audience. We cannot let the audience win.’ The films he is referring to include Home of the Brave (2006), In the Valley of Elah (2007) and Stop-Loss (2008) – all of which focus on the personal cost to American soldiers on their return to civilian life, as well as exposing the failure of the US invasion of Iraq at home and abroad. Despite their topical subject matter, these movies were, for the most part, commercial failures. This article seeks to investigate audience indifference (Jean Baudrillard claims a certain indifference is a fundamental consequence of the Western globalising ideology) to particular mainstream cinematic depictions of the post September 11 invasion of Iraq, via a consideration of the trauma and abjection depicted in these films. Baudrillard’s hypotheses on terrorism – as a symbolic challenge put forth by terrorism (embodied by the attack on the Twin Towers) – and the West’s incapacity to respond to it, forms the basis for our investigation of the limits of these films to incite and engage viewers. His writings offer a lens through which to consider how ‘terrorism’ operates symbolically, and fundamentally, the dilemmas this raises for a Western psyche grappling with how the ‘terrorist threat’ might be answered, engaged with, responded to.

During the 1950–70s, film production in Iraq was relatively prolific. Private industry eventually gave way to nationalization under Ba'th Party rule. Not unlike Iraqi cinema of the colonial era, most post-independence Iraqi cinema had the ideological aim of propping up the new regime while supplying light entertainment to the populace. A minor auteur cinema did develop, which produced a small number of critical independent films, but the movement was short-lived. The bulk of quality film production in Iraq occurred during the period of nationalization. This development eventually led to the establishment of a film school in Baghdad. Since the Iran–Iraq War, national film production in Iraq effectively ended. This is not to say that films publicized as 'Iraqi' have not been produced in recent years; on the contrary, a small but noteworthy number of 'Iraqi' films have been made, primarily for international distribution, largely by Iraqi ex-patriots to (and from) Europe and with financial support from private foreign sources. This article discusses two such films, Zaman: The Man from the Reeds (Alwan, 2003), and Ahlaam (al-Daradji, 2006), comparing and contrasting their differing but overlapping strategies, which evidence the suffering of Iraqis living under conditions of war and violence. These strategies at the same time in varying ways distract or distort attention from the real determinants of those conditions. By extension the article draws critical connections between the aims and orientations of new 'Iraqi' cinema and the hasbara cultural initiatives of contemporary Israel.

While the war cinema of the late 1980s onwards is typified by a return to the group ensemble and the intimate framing of subjects reminiscent of Vietnam war film, it is also characterised by a disjointed, concatenated, ‘machine-gun’ editing syntax inspired by news footage and videogames. Three Kings (1999) and The Hurt Locker (2008) are arguably representative of Hollywood’s attitude towards conflict in the Middle East. While the technology producing the narratives has changed, and the presentation of those narratives is very different, this paper contends that, on some level, stories from contemporary conflicts of the Middle East (Iraq, Syria) have returned to the nationalistic, high-concept ideals of the World Wars. These films take a wider perspective, appropriating techniques of news reportage, documentary footage, and the ‘machine-vision’ of targeting screens and in-built cameras, in presenting an essentialist view of these new global conflicts: handheld cameras, a constantly-moving frame, and disjointed editing shake the audience into an awareness of the implications of these far-away wars. This paper examines key scenes from both films alongside philosophical considerations of cinematic spatiality and technological changes in warfare, to attempt to redefine the ‘war film’ in light of modern ‘globital’ conflicts.

Resumen:
La mediatización es un proceso de influencia a largo plazo que afecta a todos los ámbitos sociales y culturales, también a la guerra. El objetivo de este artículo es averiguar si dicho proceso queda reflejado en la ficción bélica. En un primer momento se ha caracterizado el fenómeno de la mediatización de la guerra de Irak. Posteriormente, se ha realizado un análisis de contenido de las películas que conforman el ciclo de Irak. En el caso de la película Redacted el análisis de contenido ha sido más exhaustivo y se ha completado con una segmentación de la estructura narrativa.

Laburpena:
Esparru sozial eta kultural guztiei, gerrari berari barne, erasaten dien epe luzerako eraginprozesu bat da mediatizazioa. Artikulu honen xedea aipatu prozesu hori gerra-fikzioan islaturik agertzen ote den ezagutzea da. Lehen une batean, Irakeko gerraren mediatizazioaren fenomenoaren ezaugarriak eskaini dira. Eta, ondoren, Irakeko zikloa osatzen duten filmen eduki-analisi bat egin da. Redacted filmaren kasuan eduki-analisia sakonagoa izan da eta narrazio egituraren segmentazio batekin osatu da.

Abstract:
Mediatization is a long-term influential process which affects all social and cultural fields, as well as the war. The aim of this paper is to find out whether this process is reflected in the war film. To that end, first of all we characterized the mediatisation of the Iraq war. Then, we conducted a content analysis of the films that form the Iraq war cycle. In the case of Redacted, we go depth with a more exhaustive content analysis and complete it with a segmentation  of the narrative structure.

This essay focuses on the adventure mode in relation to Clint Eastwood's American Sniper (2014). It argues that adventure is one the dominant narrative forms used to organize war stories in American culture today and that American Sniper exemplifies its structure and most common conventions. Adventure as a mode is characterized by a fascination with the pleasurable aspects of violence; however, in US culture, this blatant pleasure in killing is often in tension with the preference of American audiences for a distinctly righteous violence necessitated by religious or moral imperatives.  Eastwood's film combines the pleasures of the adventure mode with the moral dictates of righteous violence by focusing on the hero's own suffering of PTSD and on the enemy's irredeemable savagery.

This book proposes a significant reassessment of the history of Iraq, documenting democratic experiences from ancient Mesopotamia through to the US occupation. Such an analysis takes to task claims that the 'West' has a uniquely democratic history and a responsibility to spread democracy across the world. It also reveals that Iraq has a democratic history all of its own, from ancient Middle Eastern assemblies and classical Islamic theology and philosophy, through to the myriad political parties, newspapers and protest movements of more recent times. This book argues that the democratic history of Iraq could serve as a powerful political and discursive tool where the Iraqi people may come to feel a sense of ownership over democracy and take pride in endorsing it. This could go a long way towards mitigating the current conflicts across the nation and in stabilizing and legitimating its troubled democracy. Taking an interdisciplinary approach and referring to some of the most influential critical theorists to question ideological assumptions about democracy and its history, this book will be useful to those interested in political and legal history, human rights and democracy.

Representations of war can emphasise hyperrealist levels of violence, pathos and heroism but this does not represent the real experience of most soldiers. For most soldiers war comprises tedium, routine work and occasional violence, but these images are not part of the spectacle of war that we construct and consume. The vast majority of war film discourse is focused on ‘realistic’ or ‘critical’ war films that represent small, isolated peaks of military experience. Representations of war in film and media range from the Second World War model of mythic heroism, the Vietnam era genre of disillusionment and despair, or for the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts the image of soldiers as war junkies raised in an amoral historical vacuum. In an environment where actual media images of the YouTube war are readily available online, and where many western communities are increasingly divorced from daily contact with real soldiers, this essay examines the distorted misrepresentation of the war on terror, using case studies that include The Hurt Locker, Restrepo and Taking Chance.

Director Sam Mendes makes no secret of the fact that he made “a Beckettian war movie” out of William Broyles Jr.’s screenplay for his 2005 movie "Jarhead." The film's nihilistic view of war played well in Mendes' native England and Continental Europe, but received a tepid response from American critics and audiences, used to a more patriotic presentation of combat. Of this transatlantic difference, he said, “I feel they've understood in Europe. In America, it's like talking about a different movie.” By exploring the director’s visual realization of four Beckettian themes—the passage of time, the breakdown of language, the uncertainty of past and future, and the presence of absence—found in Jarhead’s narrative, this paper will consider how Mendes made a successful absurdist war movie, if an unsuccessful “American" war movie.