I haven't read much of Garland's interviews on this, but to me the film itself didn't seem to show journalists as flawless arbiters of truth. It showed human beings trying to do that while knowing at the same time that this is impossible. At numerous points we see them blinker their view by choosing to take photos of certain things from certain perspectives or not. Sammy chastises Lee for losing faith, but to me that felt more like him telling her to keep her chin up than the movie showing their mission as correct and achievable.
I agree that this movie has so many interpretations is noteworthy. Is that an unsatisfying provocation? To many people yeah, and I don't think many particularly like getting provoked in this way. However, I think that ambiguity gets at a central part of the film and its conceit. We really don't know how to talk to each other or see things the same way. Can we find a consensus? The movie asks but doesn't answer that question, but I think it does argue that we have to find a way to, to avoid this world's fate.
Dear, I really liked your review and I share most of your opinions. However, it seems to me that your argument is based on the same premise as the director's argument. That is, the belief that the image alone would be capable of communicating something. In other words, as if it alone were its own meaning. What I'm arguing is that no matter the image made by the photographer or the form and story of the film, both only create meaning in the moment someone interacts with it. In other words, it is not the image that will propagate a vision or not, but the relationship created by its viewer with the image. Relationship that takes place in a specific historical and cultural context. This perspective does not exempt the photographer, but understands that he can at most induce a reading of people who share a cultural context in which he dominates the linguistic means of communication. In conclusion, I agree with your criticism of the director's position and the film's "innocence", but I believe that your criticism is based on the same premise as his that images can communicate something.
Hmm, interesting. So I agree with what you're saying here mostly, except I don't think I'm so postmodern as to think images communicate nothing aside from context. (I'm not sure if that's what you're saying exactly but that's what it seems like you imply by rejecting the "premise that images can communicate something."
I definitely think movies (as a sort of "image" of a narrative") can communicate things- I agree with you that this meaning only exists in relationship with the viewer. But I don't believe that just because the viewer's context informs how they read an image does it then follow that the images they see can mean anything. There are for many movies broadly accepted sets of meanings that the majority of viewers will agree on (if only to agree on what happens in the film, but even beyond that, for example most people don't think 2001 A Space Odyssey is actually about French Cooking). Just because meaning is defined within the historical and cultural context, does not mean that the meaning can be anything. And if it is not possible for it to mean anything and everything, then we can say that there are things it does and does not mean.
Beyond this I think a film has a lot of power (beyond that of individual images) to construct "context" over the course of it's own narrative for the images you've just seen. Of course there are varying interpretations for every work, but I'm making a pragmatic argument that if say 90% of people agree vaguely on what a film is about, we can treat that usefully as a kind of meaning. Absent of this, I'm not sure what the point of even talking about the meaning of art would possibly be. (My full argument for this position is a lot more nuanced and would take a lot more words, getting into the nature of art, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and truth itself).
Ultimately though I'm not even arguing that Garland could have made a film that would be definitively anti-war, just that I think he could have made a version of the movie that may have communicated that goal more clearly to more people.
Great read, gave me at least some kind of fulfillment for having wasted my time watching this. This WaPo opinion piece by an actual war photographer also captures the same points you're making from the more material and real side of the experience. It's really remarkable what a strange strawman these "coldhearted photojournalists just looking for the big score" are.
The fact that Garland would not look at the political aspects of things is both irresponsible and contradictory. When I heard that the two seceding states were California and Texas, I knew the filmmaker had no idea about America and the South's secession upon Lincoln's nomination. This ignorance was buttressed by his womanizing of war, another (more pernicious) form of politicizing. Having a woman as the lead amidst such danger is an affront to male journalists, who created the position because they were much more fit to withstand it.
This, in turn, gives us the tired, suburban trope about war, from people who've never fought much less won them. Virginia Woolfe and Susan Sontag were the beneficiaries of empires won by men. Naturally, they would abhor it. But guess what? Men abhor it too. Garland's film simply exposed Hollywood's blind spot. How to make a film about a problem I helped create?
It is not worth responding to your take, but for anyone else:
What female war photographers have in common with female anthropologists is that people are generally less threatened by them. This has advantages for both disciplines anyway, in either combat(-adjacent) situations or in contexts where you are a complete foreigner in a tense situation, appearing non-threatening is quite useful. Therefore their are lots of female war journos, photographers (and relatedly, anthropologist) who become prominent (and no doubt greatly value their male colleagues), making the lead character choice unremarkable.
The only reason why you deem my comment not worthy of a response is because it threatens you. So, you do a passive-aggressive routine of responding indirectly. Being ‘non-threatening’ is not necessarily a virtue in war reporting and in anthropology; but it’s a nice, opportunistic stereotype.
When men apply qualities to women (as I did), you dismiss it. But when you can connive a quality as an advantage, you use it. This opportunism was actually the crux of my comment on the mediocre movie.
I haven't read much of Garland's interviews on this, but to me the film itself didn't seem to show journalists as flawless arbiters of truth. It showed human beings trying to do that while knowing at the same time that this is impossible. At numerous points we see them blinker their view by choosing to take photos of certain things from certain perspectives or not. Sammy chastises Lee for losing faith, but to me that felt more like him telling her to keep her chin up than the movie showing their mission as correct and achievable.
I agree that this movie has so many interpretations is noteworthy. Is that an unsatisfying provocation? To many people yeah, and I don't think many particularly like getting provoked in this way. However, I think that ambiguity gets at a central part of the film and its conceit. We really don't know how to talk to each other or see things the same way. Can we find a consensus? The movie asks but doesn't answer that question, but I think it does argue that we have to find a way to, to avoid this world's fate.
Dear, I really liked your review and I share most of your opinions. However, it seems to me that your argument is based on the same premise as the director's argument. That is, the belief that the image alone would be capable of communicating something. In other words, as if it alone were its own meaning. What I'm arguing is that no matter the image made by the photographer or the form and story of the film, both only create meaning in the moment someone interacts with it. In other words, it is not the image that will propagate a vision or not, but the relationship created by its viewer with the image. Relationship that takes place in a specific historical and cultural context. This perspective does not exempt the photographer, but understands that he can at most induce a reading of people who share a cultural context in which he dominates the linguistic means of communication. In conclusion, I agree with your criticism of the director's position and the film's "innocence", but I believe that your criticism is based on the same premise as his that images can communicate something.
Hmm, interesting. So I agree with what you're saying here mostly, except I don't think I'm so postmodern as to think images communicate nothing aside from context. (I'm not sure if that's what you're saying exactly but that's what it seems like you imply by rejecting the "premise that images can communicate something."
I definitely think movies (as a sort of "image" of a narrative") can communicate things- I agree with you that this meaning only exists in relationship with the viewer. But I don't believe that just because the viewer's context informs how they read an image does it then follow that the images they see can mean anything. There are for many movies broadly accepted sets of meanings that the majority of viewers will agree on (if only to agree on what happens in the film, but even beyond that, for example most people don't think 2001 A Space Odyssey is actually about French Cooking). Just because meaning is defined within the historical and cultural context, does not mean that the meaning can be anything. And if it is not possible for it to mean anything and everything, then we can say that there are things it does and does not mean.
Beyond this I think a film has a lot of power (beyond that of individual images) to construct "context" over the course of it's own narrative for the images you've just seen. Of course there are varying interpretations for every work, but I'm making a pragmatic argument that if say 90% of people agree vaguely on what a film is about, we can treat that usefully as a kind of meaning. Absent of this, I'm not sure what the point of even talking about the meaning of art would possibly be. (My full argument for this position is a lot more nuanced and would take a lot more words, getting into the nature of art, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and truth itself).
Ultimately though I'm not even arguing that Garland could have made a film that would be definitively anti-war, just that I think he could have made a version of the movie that may have communicated that goal more clearly to more people.
Great read, gave me at least some kind of fulfillment for having wasted my time watching this. This WaPo opinion piece by an actual war photographer also captures the same points you're making from the more material and real side of the experience. It's really remarkable what a strange strawman these "coldhearted photojournalists just looking for the big score" are.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/20/civil-war-garland-movie-war-photojournalism-wrong/
Civil War treated war photography the same way that Challengers treated tennis.
The fact that Garland would not look at the political aspects of things is both irresponsible and contradictory. When I heard that the two seceding states were California and Texas, I knew the filmmaker had no idea about America and the South's secession upon Lincoln's nomination. This ignorance was buttressed by his womanizing of war, another (more pernicious) form of politicizing. Having a woman as the lead amidst such danger is an affront to male journalists, who created the position because they were much more fit to withstand it.
This, in turn, gives us the tired, suburban trope about war, from people who've never fought much less won them. Virginia Woolfe and Susan Sontag were the beneficiaries of empires won by men. Naturally, they would abhor it. But guess what? Men abhor it too. Garland's film simply exposed Hollywood's blind spot. How to make a film about a problem I helped create?
It is not worth responding to your take, but for anyone else:
What female war photographers have in common with female anthropologists is that people are generally less threatened by them. This has advantages for both disciplines anyway, in either combat(-adjacent) situations or in contexts where you are a complete foreigner in a tense situation, appearing non-threatening is quite useful. Therefore their are lots of female war journos, photographers (and relatedly, anthropologist) who become prominent (and no doubt greatly value their male colleagues), making the lead character choice unremarkable.
The only reason why you deem my comment not worthy of a response is because it threatens you. So, you do a passive-aggressive routine of responding indirectly. Being ‘non-threatening’ is not necessarily a virtue in war reporting and in anthropology; but it’s a nice, opportunistic stereotype.
When men apply qualities to women (as I did), you dismiss it. But when you can connive a quality as an advantage, you use it. This opportunism was actually the crux of my comment on the mediocre movie.
Enjoyed reading about war photography excellent