Civil War - On The Complicated Power of War Photography

How Alex Garland's misunderstanding of the nature of images results in a provocative mess.

There are two parts to this essay. Part 1 is spoiler free and explores the media theory surrounding war photography and how that relates to Civil War. Part 2 has spoilers and is a more direct examination of how the ideas of part 1 can be seen play out in the film. Part 2 is available for paid newsletter subscribers and my patrons.

Alex Garland believes in the power of images. So much so that he made an entire movie exploring this power. I agree with Garland that these images are powerful. We disagree on the exact nature of that power.

Civil War, is an evocative, gripping, and horrifying road trip through a contemporary America that is violently ripping itself apart from the inside. We follow a group of photojournalists on their way to DC, and they act as our guides to a series of horrifying set pieces that showcase hellish combat, and graphically depicted brutal inhumanity. The film avoids presenting itself explicitly as a political commentary. We’re not given much explanation for why and how the war was started or has progressed, and the photojournalists themselves are mostly disinterested in the actual politics. But the movie is not as some have suggested, actually devoid of any recognizable politics. (More on that later).

Director Alex Garland knows how to craft evocative cinema. It’s well directed, well shot, and well performed. The sound design is exceptionally gripping. All of this serves the purpose of demanding that you pay attention, and care about what’s happening on screen.

On that screen one of the most interesting decisions Garland makes is to focus less on the war itself, and more on photojournalism. In an interview with The New York Times he is asked about his motivation for centering the film on the press:

NYT: “Are you saying the press is meant to be a check on polarization?”

Garland: “It’s not meant to be, it is. That is its function.”

I do believe the press (and war photography as a function of that press) are invaluable and critical to democracy, and can undoubtedly function as a check and balance of governments, authoritarianism, and perhaps even, as Garland asserts of polarization. Although I’m much more skeptical of its ability on the last point. But the press function within media, and media and its effects are often not as straightforward as we would like. Where I’m most skeptical is with Garland’s seeming belief that certain press images can act as objects have innate power to fight polarization just by their nature of existing as objective documents, and his application of that same ethos to his own film.

Later in the same interview he says:

“The film is presenting old-fashioned reporters, as opposed to extremely biased journalists who are essentially producing propaganda. They’re old-fashioned reporters, and the film tries itself to function like those reporters.”

He also notes:

“I wanted to put the press as the heroes...”

We’ll come back to the issue of whether the film Garland has crafted can itself function as the kind of “unbiased” image that he so strongly values, but let’s start by turning our attention for a moment to the nature of war photography itself.

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Author, and media critic Susan Sontag, in her book Regarding The Pain of Others explores, among other things, the ethics and impact of war photography and the complicated nature of these images. Here’s what she has to say about how people respond to images made by the kind of “old-fashioned reporters” Garland is so fond of:

“To read in the pictures, as Woolf does, only what confirms a general abhorrence of war is to stand back from an engagement with Spain as a country with a history. It is to dismiss politics.” Regarding The Pain of Others p. 9

Sontag is talking here about a letter Virginia Woolf wrote in response to images of The Spanish Civil War, one of the first wars to be covered by war photographers. Woolf’s response to these images of mutilated bodies was a deep sense of horror:

“War is an abomination; a barbarity; war must be stopped.” (p. 9)

But Sontag’s argument is that it is Woolf’s spectatorial perspective, as part of the English upper class with no direct involvement in the war, that allows her to see these images as evidence of the generalized barbarity of war. To someone within the context of the war itself, Sontag asserts, these images are not just abstract depictions of the barbarity of war:

“To an Israeli Jew, a photograph of a child torn apart in the attack on the Sbarro pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem is first of all a photograph of a Jewish child killed by a Palestinian suicide-bomber. To a Palestinian, a photograph of a child torn apart by a tank round in Gaza is first of all a photograph of a Palestinian child killed by Israeli ordnance.” (p. 10)

Those intimately involved in the violence are not likely to see these images simply as images of “abomination that is war,” instead they see them as an attack by the enemy, or as proof of a victory or revenge. This means that while images of war can function as anti-war objects in certain contexts, in others, they might not strike the viewer as being anti-war at all.

“Photographs of mutilated bodies certainly can be used the way Woolf does to vivify the condemnation of war, and may bring home, for a spell, a portion of its reality to those who have no experience of war at all. However, someone who accepts that in the world as currently divided war can become inevitable, and even just, might reply that the photographs supply no evidence, none at all, for renouncing war…” (p. 12)

Because of this we should be skeptical of these images’ power to argue against war on their own merit devoid of supporting context:

“The destructiveness of war [...] is not in itself an argument against waging war unless one thinks (as few people actually do think) that violence is always unjustifiable, that force is always and in all circumstances wrong.” (p. 12)

Sontag also makes the case that it is not just the viewer’s political perspective that causes these images to become subjective, there’s a layer of interpretation inherent to the act of taking an image:

“But the photographic image […] cannot be simply a transparency of something that happened. It is always the image that someone chose; to photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude.” (p. 46)

Which photos a war photographer chooses to take, how they frame them, and what they choose not to show, in spite of attempt to remain neutral and objective, will inherently craft a some narrative.

Let’s return from the Spanish Civil War to Alex Garland’s imaginary second American Civil War. Garland seems to infer that photographers who are trying to be unbiased can achieve this just by trying. Besides his comments in interviews, he made an entire movie about war photographers, and never explores the way in which how they frame their photos and what they choose to photograph might bias the images in one way or another.

It’s not that Garland is completely uncritical of his own journalist protagonists. They are shown as brave and uncompromisingly dedicated to their work. But they are also imperfect. Lee has calcified into a cold and mostly unfeeling figure, and Joel is an adrenaline junkie seeking the thrill of war. They suffer heavily from the effects of their profession and put their own lives at risk. But this only address the complicated nature of the risks and effects of making these images, the actual value and effect of these images themselves is assumed and goes almost entirely unexamined.

The closest the film comes to actually examining the effectiveness of photojournalism itself is when Lee, the film’s war-weary veteran photographer played excellently by Kristen Dunst bemoans the fact that she thought the images she had been sending home from her years of working in the field abroad were being perceived as “warnings.” Here Garland gently gives voice to Sontag’s critique, before quickly brushing it aside by having Sammy, a fellow journalist with an older and wiser demeanor say, “Lee’s lost her faith in journalism.” It does not feel like we are supposed to take Lee’s statement seriously. It is a momentary doubt, an obstacle for the character to overcome, not an indictment the viewer must grapple with.

Supported by the fact that Garland has stated explicitly in interviews that his goal was to “put the press as heroes.” It’s difficult for me to feel like the film considers any critique of its protagonists’ line of work seriously. Garland does not seem to be interested in the sticky nature of how media itself functions, for him it is simple, there are those making biased propaganda, and there are the good “old-fashioned journalists” who he seems to have great faith in. One simply has to choose which one wants to be.

But while I agree with Sontag that we shouldn’t have too much faith in the power of these images on their own, my goal here is not really to critique war photography in general, which I think is a noble, necessary and obviously taxing and risky profession. While we cannot expect war photography to magically catalyze anti-war sentiment in everyone it touches, it at does serve as a valuable document of what is happening. When notable acts of war take place it’s useful for some neutral party to be there documenting it, so that the public, and political leaders can enforce accountability, make decisions about how to respond, or just stay informed. The images we see in Civil War however do not serve the function of being “a document of things that have happened.” However realistic and objective they appear they are an invented fiction. What I ultimately want to critique is the framing of Garland’s own image, and what he choose to place in his frame.

For me, the critical misstep in Civil War lies in Garlands overconfidence in the innate objectivity of photography, and his attempt to channel that kind of neutrality and objectivity in his own film. Even if you disagree with Sontag and I altogether in the critique of war photography I think it’s much easier to argue that cinema is even less innately neutral and objective than journalistic photography. It is possible, however for a film to strive to be journalistically neutral. And Garland stated that he wanted his film to “function like those old-fashioned reporters.” For him this means unbiased. And he certainly goes to great lengths to attempt to produce this effect. This is why he obscures so many of the political details of the story, for him it would bias the “objective” perspective he’s trying to take.

Garland hopes his attempt at telling this story with an unbiased lens will accomplish the same goal as the unbiased war photography he sees as valuable as a check against polarization, and anti-war.

“You wouldn’t want to accidentally make a pro-war film, and this is intended as an anti-war film. It’s not showing civil war as fun, desirable, or leading to a good outcome.” Alex Garland, in an interview with Dazed.com

However, if we take Sontag’s critique of images of the destructiveness of war seriously (which I do) then we know what Garland believes he is or isn’t showing, does not define what others will see.

If neutral images of the destructiveness of war do not automatically, innate communicate anti-war sentiment, then it follows that Garland’s attempt to make a fairly neutral portrait of the destructiveness of an imaginary second American Civil War, does not innately communicate an anti-war sentiment. Many will thankfully perceive the film as an anti-war film, but for whom the anti-war message is most needed, it will be the least likely to actually communicate that message.

Ultimately the film is a kind of cypher that has been interpreted in a variety of ways. Vox says, “Civil War has virtually nothing to say about real-world American politics.” (It’s actually about our perception of violence). While the BBC calls it, “a warning about the US political divide.” Matt Zoller Seitz calls it, “a thought experiment about journalistic ethics, set in a future United States.” Bloomberg calls it “apolitical.” The Daily Beast calls it “an Explosive Warning Against a Trump Takeover.” You have only to read reviews by the general public to see an even wider range of interpretations.

Some have claimed that this is the point. That the film acts as a kind of Rorschach test Americans can use to reveal their bias. I’m not sure how an image meant to explicitly provoke conflicting reviews is helpful in combatting polarization.

I need to note that I’m not critiquing the film because it’s subjective or open to interpretation. It’s not a requirement that directors make movies with clearly interpreted messages. These disparate readings however, seem like evidence in support of my claim that even an image that attempts to be neutral and unbiased can readily mean so many different things to different viewers. The film as a cultural object is a self-defeating argument against Garland’s own premise that unbiased images speak for themselves.

What I’m fascinated by in this case is that it seems the movie does have a message it wants to communicate about war and but it risks failing to actually communicate that message to many who watch it, and this failure is ultimately a result of the director’s lack of critical examination of the subject of his film: war photography.

I think unbiased, non-propagandistic journalism is a worthy goal to strive towards. But Garland has conflated that goal with an end that can be too-easily attained by his photographers, and even more dubiously by his own film. By believing in the innate power of these supposedly neutral images to “check polarization” and instill anti-war sentiment devoid of supporting context he has unwittingly created images that will likely serve not much purpose other than to be interpreted wildly at the whims of the viewer’s bias, and to provoke much discourse.

That is also not to say a movie’s only value lies in it’s ability to communicate a message effectively. But this is not the kind of movie that is setting out to be an entertaining escape, or an excuse to eat popcorn, it’s the kind of movie that aspires to communicate something. All it does is provoke. Perhaps provocation is enough, a starting ground for a “conversation” that will prove fruitful. In the film Lee says the photos are a document, it’s for others to ask the questions. It seems like that was part of Garland’s goal, to present us with a “document” that would provoke questions. But given the fact that, unlike a photograph, a film (much less a speculative fiction film) cannot strictly act as a document, what we get is a sort of vague set of abstract provocations with only a loose relationship with reality. Forgive me if I am hesitant to get excited about mere provocation with this kind of material, in the environment of the country I live in. If that provocation holds any real value, or is just the empty wielding of images that will grab us and shock us towards nothing in particular, remains to be seen.

In the spoiler section for my Patrons, or for the paid newsletter subscribers, I’m going to continue this essay to explore further the implications of the film’s misstep, how exactly I see that playing out on screen, and some of the other lenses through which we can view the film. Read Part II now on my patreon, or on substack as a paid member of this newsletter. (Feel free to sign up for the paid newsletter if you want, but please note I have no planned schedule for releasing paid content, while signing up for the Patreon gets you a variety of other perks and extra content).