Alex Garland's "Civil War" - An Introspective View of War Journalism

I was very fortunate to see an early screening of Alex Garland's "Civil War" last night, and was saving this blog assignment for after by viewing. of the film. Based on the trailer, I expected to be drawing a connection with this film and Dr. Strangelove, Slaughterhouse Five - after all, a film taking place in a dystopian United States after a harsh succession of multiple states that leads to violence and death seems perfectly aligned with some of the events in those projects. Yet, the entire duration of the film, I found myself recollecting my thoughts on Michael Herr's "Dispatches."

What "Civil War's" trailer failed to include was the fact that this film was told through the lens of war journalists as they go about their occupational activities during this civil war. The film has a Vonnegut feel to it, as during some of the most tense and violent moments, the audience was left laughing. Yet, the film also contained moments where the the audios and visuals seemingly took us into the mind of our protagonists - the film would go completely silent for minutes on end to empathize the horror the protagonists are experiencing and how humor can't mask the reality of certain situations.

Michael Herr's "Dispatches" goes into the horrors of war from as early as its first section - discussing how our journalist protagonist would see himself on helicopters with dead bodies, how he watched people get blown up, and how through all this trauma, he pleaded to leave and escape it all. At the time of me writing this, the film has yet to be fully released, so to avoid being known as the jerk student who spoiled a movie for an entire class, all I will say on the matter is that what our journalists in "Civil War" experience can be paralleled to what those in "Dispatches" experience.

Like I said, I expected to be writing entirely on pieces like Dr. Strangelove and Slaughterhouse Five based on the trailer, but the film wound up feeling like a large adaptation of Dispatches. I do think, however, there are some connections that can be made to those works, as well. I stated earlier that the film had Vonnegut elements of humor similar to that of Slaughterhouse Five, but it also contained a similar way of romanticizing some of the violence of war. The quote "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt" is reflected a number of times in this film and felt like a visual representation of Vonnegut's quote. On the other hand, the most famous quote from "Civil War" comes from the blonde gentleman below, when he asks one of our protagonists "What kind of American are you?" A discussion on what that quote means would exceed 650 words, 1650 words, maybe even 16500 words, but it was hard not to think back to the scenes in Doctor Strangelove of American soldiers killing each other when hearing it.

I think the general movie-goer who watches this film is going to ask themselves "Why does this matter?" I think a better question to ask is "How, after all these years of literature, film, and media, are we stuck talking about the same thing?" The easy answer is "America sucks and we're stuck in a vicious cycle of war and insurrection that constantly needs to be talked about." I don't think that answer is wrong, but it doesn't explain why films are actively being released talking about the future of the United States talking about the same things that were being talked about in past wars. Is it an effort to direct change when others couldn't? Is it a way to generate profit off a topic that is historically profit? Is it a means of etching a director or author's name in the history of American film and literature? 

I would like to think the answer to all of this is less ego-centric. I think that as a country, we have changed so much that what we have seen and read historically does not apply to the world we live in today. This film features modern dialect, cell phones, modern media, modern weaponry, and resonates with audiences in a way that previous literature cannot. It's a look into the dystopian future of the United States based on the tensions of our modern world, and that story can't be told without the technology, media, and socioeconomic and political tensions that exist today.