I’m sorry but I hated the movie it’s not that I only like action movies I like movies that don’t have action I like movies that make me think I like when you don’t know who’s bad or good. But I can’t wrap my head around why I hate this movie. I just hate how it plays like how the 1 guy asked the sniper who were they shooting at it made me feel stupid because what did you expect did he think they would say “oh it’s bob that lives across from the McDonalds” it was like watching a horror I don’t watch horror movies because I’m scared of them but the main character make me feel stupid because they do stupid inhuman things like hide in a freezer that they can get locked in. Now I’m very difficult from normal people I have autism, ADHD, multiple mental health problems and some forever depression that makes it so I only get enjoyment from outside forces. So Lee crying at the end of the movie I felt it was stupid in my brain I said “ why are you breaking down you’ve seen hundreds died you’ve been through hell with no problems so why now” I just don’t understand it didn’t make sense to me.
I'm a journalist in print media (which means I have plenty of experience with photography, but I'm a writer at heart). I'd also say that I'm from what I call the "look out the F'ing window" school of journalism ("a journalists job isn't writing that x believes it is raining, and y does not; journalism is looking out the f**king window"). FWIW, I think this is one of the best critiques of any movie I've ever heard, and certainly the best of this movie in particular. My take on it was that it is very clear that Alex Garland either conflates or confuses photojournalism and photography. Photojournalism is the art form of photography, but with the expressed intent of conveying context and information, not just aesthetics. He appears to believe that the apex of photojournalism is who gets the "most iconic" picture, and that is the apex of photography as an art form. A photojournalist considers the quality of his work on how accurately and comprehensively the photograph conveys the subject of the story. Aesthetics of the actual photograph are always secondary to this, or at least should be in my opinion. As a direct result of this confusion, he made this movie intentionally limiting the context and information conveyed to his audience behind the actions of the characters on screen. It's practically the antithesis of journalism.
@@akshayde Sure, I suppose that's a valid interpretation. It would be both tremendously offensive to virtually every photojournalist ever and breathtakingly ignorant, and insult the very people he claims to revere for their heroism in documenting conflicts at great personal risk, to suggest that all they cared about was taking a pretty picture... but I suppose it's possible.
For an example of excellent photography and terrible photojournalism. The famous Vietnam execution photo, which the photojournalist regrets having taken due to the misleading impression it imparted and subsequent effects it had on the subject
@@andrewjhollins I don't think that's true either but it can be. And photojournalists don't need to be offended since there are good one and bad ones and everyone in between with their own intentions in every field. Anyways
I like your points about empathy in war journalism. I'm a journalist and wrote my first war adjacent story interviewing kids in a refugee camp last week over zoom. Nothing close to what's in the movie, but after interviewing the kids i felt an intense need to tell their story as best I can - anything less and I felt like I was failing them. I'm still thinking about those kids man. Story goes live soon and I hope it does some good. Something felt kinda off when I first watched the movie. There's a weird reverence for journalism as a profession but simultaneously a complete unwillingness to engage with how the job actually works. Like making a movie about plumbers but not showing any toilets.
Spent time with DoD PAO, in my experience 99% of war journos are nothing more than propagandists for one side or the other. Meanwhile actual combat footage is widely available on just about every social media platform.
I think you're right on the money. It's not a film that says nothing, it clearly has a message, it's just not a very compelling or convincing one. "War photographers are the silent jury in the trial of mankind," is the sort of message that is simultaneously boring, blunt, and not even particularly true. At least as they're portrayed in this film, more like gawkers of the war than chroniclers of it. If a better version of this movie exists, it's one that is much slower and more naturalistic. More of a Nomadland road trip through a war-torn nation, where people actually DO live, despite everything. A rugged and lonely, but mostly normal existence, punctuated by sudden shocking violence. That's the experience of war. That's what a war reporter should communicate to the people who have never known the banal horror of it.
The decision to make the is about war correspondents instead of civilians is so baffling to me and so telling about how Alex garland imagines himself. The better version of this movie practically writes itself.
It's a message that they don't really explore very much either. We don't see the war journalists do anything with the photos and footage they capture, we don't know what kind of stories they're telling, so we have no idea how they're representing it.
If you want a movie that depicts war in the way you described, albeit without the reporter aspect, you should watch Sergei Bondarchuks War and Peace trilogy
@themorbidzoo 'This war of mine' is a video game that perfectly captures the experience of being a civilian in a civil war. I'd really recommend playing it if you are interested in that perspective.
“What I'm concerned with is the intense fixation this movie has on war as being defined by the destruction and violation of American symbols rather than American people” OH MY GOD YES, THAT'S SO WELL OBSERVED!
But how does this movie do that? Because I got the exact opposite. I didn't really see to many American symbols being destroyed. But I did see a lot of broken Americans. The three main journalists are jaded at best, and two of them have basically lost their humanity, their other journo friends have absolutely no empathy for the situation they are in until they are being executed by racists; Every body in the movie was an American and there were so many images of American people being violated. I used to write propaganda, I didn't see or hear any symbols in fact avoiding politics and what started the war and what side is good or bad was left out for the express reason to not connect with symbols and rather the violence of the people. The American public has connected with the Ukraine war because it looks like a lot of the white population of the USA. The US public respects the European public more. This movie is supposed to take that affect and multiply it by showing you this war in your home country. In the racist soldier seen we do not know what side he fights for, I felt like that's because his ideology is on every side of the war. He is an American people went to that movie and identified with HIM, he wasn't meant to be "the bad guy" but another side of YOU, of us, and in the coming conflict that mindset will be intrinsically American along side man other ideas. This to me at least, showed the splintering of people along cultural lines rather than politcal, which is what is really tearing us apart.
Fixating on the destruction of American iconography is not so much to lament their destruction as the true tragedy of the conflict, but to highlight the surreality of a civil war in the United States. For as much as militia-LARPers and 2nd Amendment fans would like to say otherwise, war on American soil is a viscerally foreign idea. Wars happen elsewhere, far away. Something like our monuments and shopping malls being destroyed shakes our paradigm of American stability, that there is something fundamentally wrong with what we are seeing. The problem with this is that by making the violence surreal, it perversely creates distance between the audience and the violence being depicted. When we play the Washington DC level of Modern Warfare II, we aren't horrified by the burning landscape of the nation's capital. In many ways, it's wish fulfillment: giving America a new war worthy of epic poetry and righteous glory; a sublime machine that produces legions of patriots, heroes, and martyrs; and from its ashes will arise an even stronger and more glorious nation. Both in Civil War and Modern Warfare II, by accident or design, we are invited to watch in awe, not horror.
@@Cactusnolia I would maybe recommend rewatching around the 43:48 minute mark where this point is made again. The main example is the Lincoln memorial, the football field, the shopping mall, the suburbs. Plus the road with all the Christmas decor. People obviously occupy and interact in these spaces but their not really people in the sense that they're not really characters, there's no interiority. They are less a people than a body politic. By avoiding the politics, the movie makes it harder to empathize with people because politics are a big part of our interiority. The result is that human victims of violence become symbols in themselves, rather than people. So even when we are seeing people, I still think the point holds that this movie is more concerned with what those people represents than the actual people as people. A better movie, if you ask me, would show why politics or ideology pales in comparison to the actually realities of violence, instead of just kinda shrugging it off. Don't just tell me the thing is bad, tell me why the thing is bad. We relate to things better and more strongly when they're specific, not broad. By removing any particularities of politics or ideology, you make things more abstract and less meaningful. With a lack of contextuality, the war might as well be taking place anywhere else besides my home country. There's not really anything concrete to really viscerally move me except for two scenes: the racist soldiers and when Lee gets shot. But even that emotional reaction gets blunted by the obvious pontification going on here. Also, two questions: How is the racist soldier not murdering civilians not meant to be the bad guy? I don't think anyone came away from that scene being super self reflexive about how racist they are. I'm also curious to know, what do you think the difference between cultural groups and political groups are?
as a counterpoint - what if Alex intentionally wanted the movie to avoid coherent interpretation? What if that take is _exactly_ the point? War is rarely coherently interpretable, the idea that it is is a fallacy we've picked up from fiction. I think it is intentionally incoherent. It IS meant to make you feel sick and disturb you, that's it.
"Having watched this movie several times now, I just can't shake the notion that this film is trying really hard to make a point." thank you you've grasped the words right out of my brain. My initial take on this film was that it was a film trying to be a love letter to journalists that accidentally lauded journalis(m/ts) as self-centered, jealous, and willingly ignoring the stories popping up around them (driving past families evacuating combat zones, ignoring the impromptu classroom in the refugee camp) and it made me imagine the story as being told through the medium of a long form story published at the end of the war. It made me think that our characters were making the story solely about themselves, because Garland made the story solely about them. The fact that Garland said he didn't change the story after January 6th lets me place him in the shoes of these journalists: people that have already picked their sides and will not change their coverage based on new information. The movie is an arbitrary answer to an old question already answered by the rioters that entered the Capitol that day, and that's why we can't parse it today. It serves as the final consensus thought among centrists from before the insurrection and is therefore indelible documentary evidence of the ignorance of people afraid of political debate, like Garland, from before January 6th became a date we can refer to by itself like September 11. I think it takes a stance that isn't viable in our modern political reality and it vexes us while we're trying to find an answer.
I felt like it was an allegory for the media’s struggles under Trump, with the president’s execution corresponding with Trump’s own loss in 2020. The Bechdel Cast discussion of Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina made me realize Alex Garland doesn’t have characters; he has archetypes. Lee isn’t a person, she’s a career, a vector for news.
Goodness, this is so excellent. I struggle a lot with war movies. Having lived through war as a child in Iraq, war perpetrated by the United States, then finding myself twenty years later living in said U.S. after enduring the utter breakage that living through war does to your pscyh puts me in this strange positiion where I'm constantly seeking an explanation for something that happened to me from the people who never will have any kind of real and valuable meaning that they can offer me, not as their victim. And instead, I find myself constantly in the position of instead understanding so much about the psyche of those who perpetrated the destruction of my country, not an understanding of war or suffering or the cost of such violence and death. I remember leaving this movie thinking how painfully obvious to me that the director had never experienced war (something that i hope he does not ever have to go through or that really no one ever has to go through) but much more cynically, this is a filmmaker who had no real interest in the abject horror that experiencing war has on our very humanness. This is a person who, like so many of his kinfolk be they filmmakers, westerners, U.S.-americans or U.S.-american-biased, posessed no feeling for the endurer of violence beyond the most basic pity. Pity that persistently denies people their humanity and affirms their inherent lesser than position. The arrogance displayed by the cool detachement of the filmmaker that determines himself above society is also what makes it impossible for many U.S.-americans to truly understand the extent to which violence and war are horrifying and idiosynctratic. They cannot imagine the utter humannees that leads to the complete fragmentation of society, because they deny their victims the humanness. And if you see these people as beneath you somehow, you will never act in the same way that they do. We, the Americans, are the enlightened bunch that will not suffer such violence and death, but will be ultimately the only ones capable of saying anything philosophical or coherent about such violence and death. But talk to anyone who had lived through war. Talk to people who did not do the killing or the reporting. Talk to the background characters of those movies. And you'll find they have no real groundbreaking insights to offer. The war becomes as boring and mundane as it is horrific. There is nothing coherent to gain from it, no philosophical conclusion, no narrative pay off, because it is an inherently incomprehensible act. Any want to communicate falls apart the moment you try to angle it. Every angle is insufficient. Every horrific event is incomplete. And language, spoken seen heard or any other variation of its existence, will faill, repeatedly, at truly capturing what is ultimately incomprehensible.
As an Iraqi too myself, this might be the most coherent factual conclusion of american/hollywood war-filmmaking The people who prosper and benefit from the annihilation and destruction of other free peoples, will never comprehend such thing happening to them themselves.
As a veteran who served 4 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, my perspective is the journalists in the movie represent the different types of people who are able to conduct, or at least cope with, war. Lee is the weary veteran who has learned to detach herself from the gruesome reality of war, but, in doing so, forgot the reason she's joined in the first place. Forgot her core, idealistic self. Jessie helps remind her of this. Jessie is the idealistic rookie, full of spunk without the scars of experience. Joel is a rare, but crazy, breed of people who excel in chaos. Not necessarily relish in the violence but able to operate at peak fitness during times of crisis. Sam is the weary veteran just waiting to retire. He's getting too old for this sh*t but also driven to mentor and develop the next generation. All of the characters in this movie, including side characters, represent a type of person who can engage in war. I think that was what Civil War was exploring. What the movie doesn't do a good job of, and possibly why it didn't strike a chord with you, the OP, is it does not focus on or adequately show the suffering on the civilian population caused by war.
Just finished the video, and what I find so satisfying about your work is that you carry an idea all the way to its conclusion rather than depositing us at some simplistic, appealing halfway point. You have a brilliant, brutal analytical mind and have changed the way I try to evaluate art in general--not just the topics you cover. Much love from a patron!
"doesn't everything just get a lot easier when we say the map is the same as the territory" go OFF dude. i started typing a comment about the widely held conception that photography is "objective fact," only to realize as I continued listening that you had been building to (and leading me to) that exact point. and simultaneously getting ready to work that idea, as well as the current popularity of generative ai, into a thesis about the current cultural moment in america that would straight up knock my socks off. which is just to say-you're a really good teacher. like you're really really smart, but a lot of people are in like a million different ways, and i think being a good teacher is something else. but it's good for all of us when someone has both at once. take care of yourself. the work you are doing and will do matters.
My take on the recursive male birth scene in MEN was that it was showing how misogyny is self-replicating among men without actually requiring any female involvement. In the final confrontation the Men are just doing this disgusting thing *at* her, trying to get a reaction. We watch her face go from afraid to grossed out, to eventually just tired. Ultimately what they’re doing has nothing to do with her at all.
Agreed. Additionally, I saw it as how misogyny views childbirth: as a disgusting, repulsive process that shouldn't be seen but is necessary to bring forth what it wants, which, in the film, is replications of itself.
Bland platitudes about the horror that is actually happening in many places around the world at various times. Detached and privileged. Pretending to be profound by portraying a nonsense fantasy, that is boring and utterly lacking insight.
Alex Garland dreamed up his very own pretend civil war in a nation whose politics he has clearly not thought about with any seriousness. He populated this imaginary war with his own imaginary version of journalists. And then he dusts off his hands, calls himself objective, and dismisses those who say he has created nothing of substance. This video is so cathartic to watch. You have given me a lot to think about, and it finally made me get my act together and join your Patreon.
Because the movie isn’t bout any of that, it’s purely bout the reality of what other nations go though & that we’re no less vulnerable to tha future If they made it political shit would have been bias,
@@dark_unit2409 The movie isn't about the "reality" of jack shit, because it's fictional. And it's not even the kind of fiction that's particularly true to life. As demonstrated thoroughly by the journalists that were interviewed for this video, this film does a poor job accurately depicting the actual job of war journalists and photojournalists. These are reporters who had no interest in talking to the inhabitants of a refugee camp! Also, I fundamentally disagree with the idea that a movie about a civil war that takes place in a specific country is improved by removing politics. When you say that the movie is good because it shows how we in the US are vulnerable to civil war, are you seriously not interested in WHY we might be? What political changes have occurred to make Alex Garland think that a movie about a second American Civil War would be topical right now? In reality, avoiding any politics was a cowardly attempt to ensure that no one felt at all challenged or criticized by the content of the movie. After all, that might have decreased ticket sales.
gotta say as a non-American, finding out now that American critics watched a movie where a major event in the protagonist's backstory was her photograph of "The Antifa Massacre" and then came away saying it was good because it "isn't political" is absolutely fucking headspinning
But even that title is completely devoid of meaning. Did ANTIFA activists get massacred by a bunch of nazis or did the ANTIFA activists massacre a bunch of nazis? It would be like saying "The abolitionist Massacre" in a movie about the actual civil war. It is a statement acknowledging a thing without telling us a single thing about it.
I’m an absolute moron when it comes to analyzing films so feel free to correct me but it just didn’t sit right with me how they basically gave a “nightcrawler” arc to the journalists in the film. Especially seeing and hearing about multiple journalist dying in Gaza. Despite me enjoying the films, I just felt like it was made by someone who believes they are smarter than they actually are.
Your last sentence is describing Alex Garland, rather accurately. His films are well made, usually have a couple of genuinely great scenes and a compelling idea or two..... they are meant to look, sound and feel deep, and to some degree they are, but not enough to justify Garland's desire to be revered on the same level as Kubrick or Lynch; in fact he's more like a pale imitation. Which, in this day and age, is still kind of impressive I suppose....
Nightcrawler deals with the same exact themes of this movie, but better IMO. Both are essentially just examinations of the ethics of journalism, and the background psychopathy that it requires. Or foreground psychopathy if you’re Jake Gyllenhaal. Jessie sees her hero gunned down in the “line-of-duty” as it were, snaps a pic, and steps over her body, which is the thesis statement. This video is pure over-analysis and philosophical word salad - it’s not that deep! The fact that this analysis even exists means Mr. Garland won. Either way, we’re not analyzing Spiderman: Far From Home in this depth, so I’m for it.
The problem with Civil War is that it seeks to depict a modern civil conflict with no understanding with how such conflicts occur now. A second American civil war would be incredibly messy with so many factions taking chunks out off whatever bits of the country they could. There will be no Texas acting as its own solid entity
Exactly the biggest issue is it shows two fairly united fronts and forces pitted against one another. In reality it would be every man for themselves forming in small pockets of ultraviolent militias holding their small section of land with a death grip while those who try to stay uninvolved are crushed between.
I love how I know just enough about the US to enjoy the scenery and some infos, but not the deep political context. It's as if the Libyan or the Central African civil war are set in the US, couldn't remember which factions fought which but at the end of the day it's a messy situation, horrible altogether to the civvies
@@TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive32 it shows quite a few people like that, though? the first people they run into are just running a gas station and torturing looters. there's a scene with men shooting into a house because someone in the house was shooting at them and they're all just stuck there even though they have no clue who has what allegiance. not saying the movie is good, but it does at least show that. i don't find it that unlikely that people would end up with two major larger factions at some point either
The idea that Americans are uniquely unsettled by watching their home and national symbols be destroyed is honestly kind of hilarious, considering watching the most iconic cities in the country being decimated by nefarious evildoers is basically a stock plot point in every single superhero, alien, or disaster movie which we all love lmfao
Yeah, that was weird. I don't think any of us really care that much about the setting of a movie. If anything, I actually prefer these movies to be set in familiar surroundings.
The fact that 9/11 jokes and references are so common in American humor nowadays and that those jokes center so much around the towers and planes- not the people in them- kinda exemplifies how ineffective desecrating American symbols and statues are as a message.
Cant agree. The rhetoric that crops up around removing confederate statues, the shock and awe inspired by a REPLICA of the liberty bell getting graffitied on- the never ending moaning about acts of petty vandelism done tonpublic arts as statements of protest. These things shake up idiots who respect the flag more then a homeless man- the souless husks who worship symbols of their imagined america. So basically center libs and no thought "apolotical" folks.
@@undercookedtoast1479I strongly disagree with your comment, like obviously 9/11 isn’t seen as seriously and is often treated as a joke now, but at the time it was fucking huge to American culture and was used as a justification for war and insane anti-Arab racism. in fact the reason people make jokes about it now could be in part because it was treated so seriously for so long. Maybe the atmosphere in America is less idealistically patriotic than it was in 2001 so even if the same thing happened now to another national landmark, it’d work out differently, but it had an insane impact on American culture at the time
the bit about plemons' character's politics is wild because the only thing i've seen from this movie is the still of him asking "what kind of american are you?" and it unambiguously reads as right wing. of course you don't need to rely on intuition and political savvy to have this same understanding if the rest of the scene has him ranting about latin americans, but it's just so odd to say he has no clear politics when, even without that context of the rest of the scene, his politics are still apparent.
I think the further issue is that even if it is clear he is racist it is not clear which army he is a part of so we still have no idea if the western forces are the insane racists or the federal army. But I guess given you see black women in the western forces at the end you are probably supposed to assume he was part of the federal army.
This reminds me of stupid shit my white friends say (the no clear politics thing, not what you wrote). I know they're not all bad people or racist, but the're also the same ones who say stupid shit like "Why does it always have to be about politics." when obviously, they're not part of the group that is being oppressed, so they don't see the harm.
As Mariana says about the Plemons character in the video: "Just because the politics are not very provocative, it doesn't mean they're not there." Everyone knew what the Plemons character's political beliefs were (even Nerdrotic figured it out just from watching Plemons in the trailer), but when people say "it wasn't political" they mean "it wasn't provocative." And what they mean by "it wasn't provocative" is that they wanted this movie to be a "centrist" mouthpiece condemning both sides of the current American political divide. People are expressing their disappointment in the movie not presenting the politics of the Plemons character with the kind of "centrist" tolerance that leads one to understand why the conflict began. They want the movie to tell them "one side believes racism is bad, and the other side is racist, but here's why the other side is racist - it's because their struggles were ignored." This is a... sympathetically reductive position to take, and not a new one by any stretch. It only feels provocative to "centrists" because social media algorithms amplify extreme positions to rage bait their engagement for data mining, so they feel such a position needs to be expressed because they believe most people haven't already heard that position, when in reality most people have already heard that position. The movie affords no nuance to the conflict, and that disappoints them. The Plemons character is racist and evil - end of story. The movie is not interested in exploring the cause of the war, and the audience shouldn't hope to understand it from a nuanced perspective either, because the movie is about journalism, not about pandering to "centrists," although, as Mariana points out in the video, Alex Garland's portrayal of journalism is very centrist.
I won't lie though, it really pissed me off how most reviews I saw before seeing the film mention that bit as a deeply introspective moment - "When we push past the divisive rhetoric our leaders embellish everything in, how different are we really?" - only to watch it myself and the very next words out of his mouth leaves nothing to interpretation: he's just a racist fuck.
Putting aside the substance of your videos for a second (which is also fantastic), the way you write your scripts is just so beautiful. I cant really put my finger on it but theres a rhythm and flow to it that I think most other video essayists miss.
I agree, maybe it's the brisk pace of it while also making sure to put substance into it throughout. Like how summaries in this vid are done as quickly while conveying important information and most explanations always serve to establish and support the points being made. I think it's really impressive.
Imagine writing a movie about a civil war in a country as polarised as the states and including nothing of the ideology, struggle, political context or issues involved. Like the country just spontaneously burst into team blue and team red and there was no real driving force behind that.
I really don't think the politics of the movie are as vague or ambiguous as everyone says. Granted, they are expressed in a way where you only see the "outline" of them... but you can see them. For one, I don't see the belligerents as "Team Blue vs Team Red." It's more like "Team Black vs. Coalition Rainbow" (the WF secessionists consisting of TX and CA suggests that "blue and red" are fighting on the same side). Team Black murders journalists on sight, the Coalition doesn't. That's a hint... It's not trying to comment on the specific tenets of any particular ideology, because ideology isn't the only driving force behind a conflict like this. It's probably not even the primary one. The primary driving force is a willingness to seize power by any means... (much as it would be if this really happened). Ideology is the means. For example, look at the president. You can draw parallels to Trump, but he's not simply a stand-in for Trump. This is a president who 1) "somehow" was on his 3rd term, 2) disbanded the FBI, 3) ordered airstrikes on American civilians, and 4) flagrantly denies the shape of reality. "We are now closer to victory than we have ever been. _Some_ are already calling it the greatest victory in the history of military campaigns!" - President ______, about two days before his obviously impending doom. That's another hint... Also listen to Sammy as he very matter-of-factly places this president as next in the sequence of "Gaddafi, Mussolini, Ceausescu, President ______." Another hint... it's really not that ambiguous lol. I think Garland's decision to downplay ideology as much as possible is a very interesting and deft one. It's a "show don't tell" approach, and I think it's more effective that way. But anyway I'll finish watching the video now so Mother can explain why I'm wrong.
What gets me about the Echo Park image is that beyond every other glaring error in the image, it’s a gun boat in Echo Park lake. A lake that’s length is not more than maybe two dozen suburban homes. It’s a meaningless area which, even if it actually had some inconceivable strategic importance which needed guarding, could easily be done by simply posting a small number of soldiers around it. There’s no contextual point for a boat in this tiny man made lake unconnected to even a minuscule river. The material reality of this image is entirely nonexistent, and also entirely irrelevant in the intention of its posting. That in an of itself speaks to the entire upper end production team’s understanding of conflict, there is no material aspect to war they’re concerned with, they simply understand it as a thing that looks cool. It’s one of those images which is designed to “make you think” not in an intellectual or artistic way, but in a way that is conducive to getting them money. Because even if you accept the stupidity of the image itself at face value and ignore the absurdity of a giant swan, thinking about the location and its context at all ruins any semblance of a message it’s trying to convey. You’re not meant to think, you’re just meant to watch and say, “damn, wouldn’t it be bad if what was happening overseas was happening here?”
I don't know if it's just me, but some part of the Civil War movie and the discussion around it (which, full disclaimer, I didn't watch or keep track of, but based off your video) reminds me of the "facts dont care about your feelings" crowd. Both in the response to the movie ("oh all you weak willed slobs just want to be spoon fed Good and Bad") and also the journalists themselves. War doesn't care about anybodys feelings, it's war. Except this neglects the fact that war is primarily influenced by people with feelings. This ties into your point about reality and how its shaped. There isnt a single Truth or Fact uninfluenced by people that is waiting to be discovered. Anyway, long day so my point isnt entirely legible. Regardless, a masterful video essay as always. You inspire me to be better and more thorough in my own analyses. You're a wonderful writer and communicator. Thank you so much for giving RUclips so much work we love to see it!!
@@S1ipperyJim Hehe, good point! I was a bit tired when I wrote that, but what I meant was the discussion around the movie (and the movie itself) as presented by the essayist. It wasn't supposed to be a serious analysis, judt a random thought I had. Wanted to get it out there as a direct reply to the essay. Thank you for pointing that out, though. I'll go edit the comment ^-^
Yeah, their sneering had that quality for sure! At best they’re just as out for validation as they say others are, but are just validated centrists - but tbh it smacks more of a satisfaction at the film refusing to say ‘dictatorship is bad’. And if you think that’s an open question, then sir, you have some serious politics.
As a mass communications graduate student, a lot of what you said here really resonated with my take on the movie. The way Garland talks about and portrays photojournalism shows, in equal parts, a great deal of respect for journalists and a fundamental misunderstanding of what they do. I've shared this essay with some of my peers in the program and our journalism professor. Good luck with your dissertation!!
kinda funny how so many people said this movie was “important” and “exactly what america needed” and now, a couple months later, i feel it is completely outside of the culture conversation. no one’s thinking about it anymore. i rlly dont think itll be fondly looked back on in the future. i think itll have the same treatment avatar has, if that makes sense
Props to Jesse Plemons for his acting chops. When the dude plays a creepy psychopath... I get chills for all of his screen time. Breaking Bad, Black Mirror and Civil War. Mr. Plemons is a scary ass dude on screen.
He's got range too. He plays one of the leads in season 2 of the Fargo TV show and it's wild seeing the same guy who usually plays amoral murderers playing a dumbass small-town Minnesota guy in over his head.
@@noviatoria2436 I think so much of it comes from the fact that a lot of his characters are acting themselves. Like, when he shows up as a normal guy, you can't help but anticipate the moment he pulls out a gun.
This is absolutely essential, Mariana. You’ve really complicated the adoration I felt for this film walking out of the theater (and you did very much call me out when criticizing some of the film’s ardent defenders lmao). It seems very clear to me now that the film Garland thinks and says he made is not the film that I saw and fell in love with. I love your research and invocation of the realities of journalism in complicating the narratives around the film from so many perspectives, but I still kinda found myself thinking, “yeah, I liked that about it.” This is especially true with your discussion of the lack of any real coherent perspectives of the journalists. I personally loved (and maybe still love) that about the film, but you make it clear that it is not representative of real journalism, in pretty direct contrast with what Garland seems to say about the film. Part of me wants to dismiss all of this and continue to love the film the way I did back in April, but somehow I feel that may be impossible. Keep it up, you have a lifelong fan! (ps. I’ve just started a film MA to which you were and continue to be an inspiration) ❤
Thanks! I’m so glad it hit for you, I really did try not to be too mean about people I disagree with. I do think Alex garland and his team have talent and that there’s a lot to like in this movie. I don’t begrudge anyone for finding things to enjoy in it, but I do kind of begrudge him and a24 for making it with no research into the topic at all and I do think we’re capable of making better movies and not just accepting whatever we’re given, which I think is of overall declining quality due to our cultural zeitgeist’s disdain for art. That’s amazing about your MA, good luck!!! Welcome to the bullshit academic grind 😄
I saw this movie when it first came out and dear lord I got out of the cinema room feeling almost shell-shocked. It was so crude and cruel that I just wasn't sure what I felt after watching it. After a while, it just seemed it had been an incredible experience, but one that just didn't say much? Almost the same I felt after playing Far Cry 5. It tries so, so hard at being deep and with meaning, but it manages to not say anything at all. There are multiple times throughout the movie that I saw a genuine try at conveying a real message, but every time it ended up being something as deep as "war is bad". That said, I've been eager to watch your review ever since you said it would be your next topic of video, when you mentioned it on Xwitter. You're an amazing video essayist, perhaps my favorite, Mariana, and I'm sure this video will be illuminating, to say the least.
From some of ths stuff I've read on Civil War, it seems that it was deliberately trying NOT to put a specific message towards the viewers, and I think it's supposed to be up for interpretation. If there's one thing that I think it explicitly says, I think it displays the dystopian lack of humanity that can occur if we allow for conflict, like Cailee's character snapping a pic of her mentor reporter that saved her, and the soldiers posing for a picture with the dead body of the president. Beyond that, I think they didn't want to overstep what they believe were their boundaries, in communicating a message, so they leave it up for interpretation what the underlying aesops are. So I understand what they were trying to do with that, but it places an upper limit on how impactful the movie can be
I had the same feeling, like that I didn't initially understand it (I guess because in the end there's not much there there), but it also left some red hot iron burn across my brain I couldn't shake.
@@EpicBeard815if it was about politics or smth he’d be right to point out you shouldn’t reach a dead end… but it’s about criticism of a movie… there’s nothing wrong in declaring it as a waste of your own brain space
@@nohbuddy1he made and ran a press tour for a movie about the importance of documenting wars, in which he ostensibly frames himself as anti-war, and yet as he does a press tour congratulating himself for this he has nothing to say about the current war (genocide/ethnic cleaning/land grab) being backed by US/UK?
Comments on what? On killing terrorists and freeing hostages? Or that fact that the msm is painting the IDF as the bad guys somehow because they're blinded by their hatred for Jews?
Even without any historical evidence to the contrary, Garland's presumption of journalism as a force against fascism and the role it had in turning public opinion against the war in Vietnam flies in the face of our current reality seeing Israel commit the most stomach churning atrocities humanly possible on a weekly basis for the past year with no consequence. Photography is so hard to conceptualize bc not only do you have to consider the role of the subject and the abstraction of an event presented in a still image but also the power dynamic between the person holding the camera and the subject, the act of performing for a camera, and the role of the person holding the camera and what their place is in whatever narrative they're presenting. In other words, do they belong there? I saw one of the most celebrated artists of our time, Catherine Opie, deliver a talk on a series of photographs she did covering the uprisings in Ferguson, MO and thought it was the most out of touch body of work I've ever seen her make. It's frustrating to think we are passive observers living through history and not in some ways complicit with our own destruction.
Maybe I’m missing something, but, without journalists showing the atrocities israel is committing, would people be as ready to protest against? Would people be as willing to help if they didn’t know the genuine reality of the situation? I don’t think they would. You could deny Israel is bombing hospitals in Gaza when it’s word of mouth, but it’s real hard for someone to deny it when you can show them a video of it happening.
@@TheNwr1except journalists are rarely the ones capturing what’s happening in Gaza. The IDF suppresses all journalism that isn’t biased in favor of them; the information is coming from *the people there.* the people actually suffering.
It's similar to the Vietnam situation mentioned in the vid. It's not about whether protest or not, or whether the information sent by the journalist or not, It's that the protests holds no meaning than being public disturbance to their respective countries, but failed to impose change on anything that happened in the Middle East. There's not a magically "Iconic picture made the public and POTUS stop the war" narrative because it just didnt exist. Pictures dont stop the US aid to Israel. Pictures dont stop the pager attacks. Pictures dont stop the current new waves of attack, air and ground alike, against Lebanon. Pictures are pictures.
God damn I was not expecting that Ai tear down at the end but as an artist, it was so cathartic and cuts to the core of why I genuinely hate “Ai art” even if you put the ethical issues aside, the massive cost that comes with it, even if it got better and started making visual sense. It is fundamentally mass appeal and slop, it will never have anything to say, and no good story will ever be told with it because those who find it appealing do not have good ideas.
I am not an Artist myself, so sorry if I say something silly. I feel like AI art can be used in hyper-specific contexts. I heard of an Analog Horror series that includes photos of children in it, but the kids are all AI-generated. I feel like such a use makes sense due to the potential ethics of using real kids' pictures (though that can be walked around through stock photos and such), as well as AI Human faces having something weirdly off about them in some cases, which adds to the vibe Analog Horror usually plays with.
@@IchigoShinagami this is true. but a lot of people use the specific use case argument to imply that someday we can vastly expand the uses of AI and it always turns into a weird slippery slope thing. you can definitely say that AI can be useful in generating "real" things that arent real. people or environments or creatures or objects, so that these pieces can be used by actual artists to create a coherent whole. i think thats the most convincing point towards AI being okay. but how to regulate that use and prevent it from turning into a mass misinformation generator and enshitifying everything... i dont know... so thats kind of a rough scale to balance
@@herb4n7egend I agree strongly. It may be a hyperbolic statement from me, but it would somehow be better if AI was all bad, irredeemable, instead of being mostly bad with a very small number of legitimate uses.
i think thats why ai art and why ai will really fail tbh. humans have taken for granted how much human emotion have contributed to their entertainment. instead they will just be pumped with the equivalent of meme printed sayings on t shirts.
As u mentioned this all rings in an interesting way against the backdrop of Palestine where journalists have been killed en masse by IDF forces while all the journalists in the Western press remained mum about it. Additionally thinking how much of that war is just filmed on peoples phones, from combat to book burning or home looting by IDF forces. while the film is clearly of a modern setting it has no interest in how much phones have altered the way we see war or transmit information - I kept wanting an anti climax where the journalists make it to the white house and get scooped by the soldiers agead of them filming their whole execution of the president vertically on their phone rendering the whole thing futile
I was shocked that they didn’t mention the fact that war photography is dying and no one gives a shit about print photos on newspapers of wars anymore becuz everyone scrolls past the news with a cursory glance at pictures as they appear on a feed. I mean seriously. War photographers that used to win prizes and have photos iconic around the world that everyone has seared into their brain, just dont exist like that anymore. No one cares about singular photographs anymore, wars aren’t defined by newspapers anymore in fact most young ppl get news online or through social media and are absolutely not gonna buy paper newspapers. Just weird as hell they didn’t mention this, they pretend like its the 1970s
“Journalists” in the western press are mostly war stenographers. The US government made sure that the flow of information and the coverage of these conflicts are in their favor as much as possible, look at the headlines when the IDF commits war crimes for example. They’ve learned from what happened in the 70s.
@leontrotsky9268 to the extent they had a consistent message yeah! Like jts interesting as morbid zoo points out the film has a clear photographic aesthetic and the photography of vietnam was a clear reference but that wasnt because of artistic demands narrowly- like there was an aesthetic movement for black and white photographs even where color film was an option but it was largely becahse black and white film wss cheaper to print. The memory of the war was shaped as much by composition as by the limitations to visual media. If the film wanted to try it might make an interesting examination of how phones or visual media alter our memories and how we politicize images but it simply isnt interested in looking at how this profession fits inside a political economy
"journalists have been killed en masse by IDF forces while all the journalists in the Western press remained mum about it" That's your takeaway of what's happening? Hamas literally massacres hundreds of teens and 20 somethings at music festival while filming it all on their go pros. Hamas then proceeds to hold hundreds of Israelis hostage and use them as human shields to protect their leadership while forcing Gazans to stay out of the tunnels to maximize casualties so they can cry victim to the media that has been covering the war non stop. And while all this happens, 2+ million people are expected to die in the next year in Sudan and yet they can't even get 1% of the media coverage that Gaza has, and yet you're conclusion is 'nobody is talking about how mean the IDF is while waging war'?
Anyone who can admit that America only left Vietnam because they started to suffer, not because they thought it was morally wrong, deserves some respect.
It was both. By the time America pulled out they were inflicting heavier casualties and gaining less. But by this time America suffered enough that people at home started seeing it as morally wrong and threatened the politicians by lowering their popularity causing them to pull the troops out.
@@SuperStella1111 that may be true but it isn't about the majority but being loud enough. The college protesters just needed to do enough movements and recognition of the press to spook the politicians. Edit: plus if normal civilians look on the news and keep hearing about the protests they'll think the protests are larger then they are.
Right, this movie... Maybe it's just me, but if a movie keeps making me feel like I'm watching a cutscene out of Call of Duty, it probably isn't going to be really effective condemnation of war. It's a well put-together movie, but at the same time, it's more concerned with using the language of big, bombastic disaster movies(something I normally adore) than of approaching this concept with some semblance of tact.
@@occam7382 please don't give cod that much credit. The closest we got was something like world at war with its bluntness and horrors of war, but now its cash cow fortnitifcation of war. Look into spec ops the line or do a blind playthrough of it.
“The result of this election was basically federal approval of the ability for southern white people to exploit, disenfranchise, and murder black people legally for another hundred years. We didn’t just ‘get over it.’ The Hayes election is not an argument for our ability to center ourselves back to reality after a confusing political snafu. More than anything the Hayes election is an argument for the efficacy of terrorism.” Some people would drop this kind of a line at the end of a video, but here we are, halfway through. "This is the kind of attitude that’s extremely reliant on faith in the status quo. It’s basically an assumption that any peace we’ve experienced is because of the inherent stability of the system as a whole and not our personal good luck to not be a black person in the post-Reconstruction South. It’s an appeal to the idea that America’s history is defined by its best intentions." I love this. More devastating criticism of liberal palingenetic ultranationalist founding myths from everyone, please.
I know this essay is a dense treatise full of valuable tangents on history, philosophy and science. But damn girl, that magenta dress with that hairdo looks amazing.
"The whole point of this movie (outside of being a very well done re-envisioning of Nightcrawler) is that without knowing it, the director glaringly falls into the classic centrist moralist trap of not realizing that apoliticism is still political."
Not everything under the sun needs to be political dude. If you need a Hollywood director to tell you who to support in the next election or in a fictional civil war, the problem is you 🤷♂️
@@TWE_2000THE movie Is literally called "civil war. My guy you kinda have to explain why it happened and more often than not. War is just a political response
@@danboru_bakooo1966 LITERALLY the entire point of the movie is that it doesn't matter what political side is winning or losing, a civil war would suck for everyone. It doesn't matter if the gun is being fired by a fascist, a conservative, a liberal, or a communist, the bullet will still put you into the ground because YOU'RE NOT BULLET PROOF! Only the most insufferable tunnel visioned partisan could completely miss the entire point of movie because they were too busy going "but wait, what are the specific economic and social policies the dude filling the mass graves support? How am I supposed to know that war is hell if I don't know whether shoplifters being tortured deserved it based on whether they share my political beliefs?" 🤦♂️
@@TWE_2000 ...bro what? Like this is just such a centrist non argument. Yes, war is bad but framing it as "Yes but it sucks mo matter who is winning bc war is inherently bad" is such a weird take. Sure then give me an anti war movie about how mean the americans who were marching on the reich was. Did you even watch the video? War is not this thing you can just have an objective outside perspective of or an enlightened victim inside perspective of. Why is the fascist shooting me? Why did a liberal put a hole in me? Was I in a bad place bad time? Why was this a bad place? Why was this a bad time? This all seems nitpicky yes but its all in the end governed by politics.
I'm flabbergasted at how such a confused perspective can go through so many levels of scrutiny, from script to production to distribution, and the writer's worldview is basically: "Things happening elsewhere in the world just sort of happen for no reason and don't make sense, but things happening here make sense because they're in English".
The movie presents its photo journalists more like paparazzi: busybodies sticking their noses and cameras in spaces they don't belong and aren't want in. When Lee talked about how she'd hoped with each picture of a warzone she sent back that people would learn not to do that, I found myself asking, "not to do what?" By her own admission, she didn't add any context to the photos and left it to the viewer to decipher their meaning. How is anyone supposed to avoid recreating what's happening in the pictures if they don't know what lead to it?
to be fair I think just setting a war movie in the us to remind americans that the places wars take place are places people lived a normal life in and not just batttlefield maps is already a pretty valid artistic move on its own no matter how much more the same movie also has to say
This is a generous read, it feels more like a marketing tactic to me to capitalize on the “political division” without actually drawing any boundaries around a consistent ideology in order to not offend anyone and draw a large audience. Kind of explains the use of those AI generated posters
The whole bit about the movie just being a collage of different messages stitched together with all its contradictions reminded me of a Saltburn critique. Some newer movies are just Instagram fodder - a collage of clips you can publish on social media so everyone can comment on how deep/moving/beautiful it is. These movies succeed in wowing an audience at first glance because everyone can cherrypick whatever they like out of the candy bowl while consuming but as a coherent vision they naturally fail. I don't think Civil War was made this way intentionally as a cash grab, but rather because of Garland's limited vision and lack of deeper understanding of what a Civil War entails. The interview quotes - as much PR as they might be - make Garland look like a new iteration of Aaron Sorkin. Only this times its not about "talking things through sensibly" as a shtick, now its about "showing the world as it is (even though I created it)".
It's weird that this movie's way of conveying the message, "Don't do a civil war" is to show me a bunch of cool action sequences and play catchy music. It's like a video game with our main characters doing some side quests on the way to their main objective. The closest I got to true discomfort was with the mass grave the younger journalist falls into. Everything else is just so... comfortably cinematic?
"overworked and lazy". 100%. i think this can generally be applied to many things about popular american culture, the arts, big tech, media, news, journalism and on and on. Civil War strikes me as a vehicle for a press tour so someone can talk about big things the thing they made is supposed to be about but not that actual thing they made because it doesn't achieve its goal. it's a hoodwink that americans especially are ready to digest. the "simple trick" to revelation that people can't resist because they're bored and without community or something... "The Act of Killing" is one of the hardest things i watched. it's a rough time.
I live in the Netherlands, and one part of the movie doesn't make much sense to me. Because I think Reuter would rely more on foreign journalists to cover a civil war in the U.S . The journalists in this movie are Americans and yet also neutral. It's rather difficult to remain neutral in one's own country.I think using French , Australian, etc journalists would have worked better. Also, the journalism feels a bit dated. You see the classic foto shoots for newspapers (i guess ?) without using cloud to safeguard the content . It all feels a bit 1990's.Ignoring the practicality of the internet and the influence of social-media .
I can't wait for this! Your videos are so well-researched, and I love your rhetorical style and humor. I have really enjoyed Alex Garland's previous work and saw so many explosively glowing reviews of this film and found it wanting in so many ways. As an American, it felt tone-deaf to give us no background or explanation for the conflict outside of a "president's third term" and some ambiguous "Antifa riot" given our current climate but I'm aware Alex isn’t American. The scene with the sniper really seemed to be a 4th wall break when the sniper makes the point that “whose fighting isn’t relevant, it’s who’s shooting at you.” The glowing reviews and discourse online were repetitively, “IT’S NOT ABOUT THE WAR! IT’S ABOUT JOURNALISM!” but is it? What arguments were made to show the importance of an unbiased press? In the text, they say that they’re not there to take sides and it is important to show the reality of the events. But I don’t remember any examples of bad reporting causing conflict. The lack of information regarding the conflict only exacerbates this. It felt like self-sabotage. Hell, one character was insulted when the elder journalist insinuated that he would ask a softball question if he got to interview the president and at the end, he had an action movie one-liner. There was no curiosity. There was no inquisition. I don’t even think you really say they’re unbiased or apolitical in the photographs we see them take. I think people that defend it saying the above fundamentally do not understand politics or biases. Like, they’re the same people who were shocked to realize The Boys had political and anti-capitalist messaging prior to this most recent season. I really didn’t get much more than “War is hell” from this movie. Because I didn’t see much in the story, I thought about the characters and that also made me sad. Outside of Dunst’s final action and the young journalist, who had an arc or much of an impact on the story? I don’t know, maybe I’m just frustrated because I wanted something else entirely. Maybe I’m just frustrated because I love so many of his other films. I’m hoping you can show me something I didn’t see or express similar confusion as to why some people are raving about it and why it felt weak compared to 28 Days Later, Ex Machina, Sunshine, Annihilation, or Men.
@@themorbidzoo Oh my god that makes me so happy! I feel like I had taken crazy pills reading the discourse online and that just made me engage more and more. I genuinely wanted someone to come up with a reading that opened my eyes in a way that changed the film for me. I've never engaged more with a film I didn't particularly like than this one.
One of the most disturbing things about this video is the partial bagel sitting on a napkin folded back enough that it looks like there's contact with the carpet. Also I'm about 30 min into the video and I wanted to commend you for the succinct writing & great presentation.
your conclusion nailed it. It's an antiwar film that seems to be entirely ineffective at changing any minds against war. Just pointing at a bunch of violence and going, "see? War bad." isn't going to have an impact on any of the people actually cheering for a civil war. They know war is going to be violent. They know Americans are going to die. They think it will be necessary, or that it won't happen in any significant way to people they care about. The film doesn't even try to engage with them on their terms, to meaningfully challenge their beliefs. Part of that is that the director/writer has such a hard-on for totally divorcing the movie from the real world, which in my eyes is sheer narcissistic cowardice. Part of that is also his insistence on focusing just on this little group of photographers. The combined effect means that basically nobody can look at this film, go "oh hey, X person is me," and then be challenged by what happens to X person. Nobody can measure the importance of what they care about against the costs of war because the director categorically refuses to let anyone say what this war is about for them. And so it's entirely incapable of actually dissuading anyone that knows war is bad but thinks it will be inevitable or worth it, which is... everybody who wants a civil war. Whoops. Then again, I don't think convincing anybody was what this movie was made for. This movie was made as a purely masturbatory exercise on the part of the director as the most enlightenedest centrist in the land. EDIT: As a journalist, the line "we don't ask questions, we present facts so other people can ask questions" is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Like, the only way you can arrive at those words is by not talking to any actual journalists or by intentionally lying to valorize the profession
I love a video essay where the essayist goes as deep as she can, shows what she finds as clearly as she can, and then just shrugs at the viewer: "Keep up if you can." Brilliant - no pandering to the algorithm or the audience, uncompromising questioning of every assumption, circling around the issues again and again, always probing, always seeking. There's enough here to feast for days.
Amazing work! You are by far the video essayist whose work I am most excited about these days. Posting a complimentary bit of text in the hope it boosts you in the algorithm. Can't wait to see what's next.
Folding Ideas had a really short dismissal of the movie on his Patreon. Didn't really dig deeply into why he didn't like it, though, so I appreciate Morbid Zoo picking up that slack.
@@Duiker36 I actually didn't know he talked about it on his Patreon. I moreso just meant how he critiques stuff on his RUclips; his manner of speech I guess
I’ll be perfectly honest, I walked out of this movie really liking it. It’s become strikingly apparent that I got swept up in the surface level aesthetics and really injected my own meaning and beliefs where…maybe there wasn’t that much to actually build upon ? I really appreciate this video for challenging my world view, despite having clicked on it thinking “oh ! I liked that movie, maybe this video will help me articulate what I liked about it”. You absolutely get my subscription and, maybe when I’m liquid enough, my patreon support. That being said, I think I still like it ? Not as a piece of commentary, or as a movie that really sticks it to the status quo, but just as an aesthetic work with some directorial tips and tricks that I can use in my journey to make better art (although I will be leaving the writing advice from this movie on the cutting room floor)
"we should not accept cynisism as a routine element of our artistic experiences" I think of shows like The Boys immediately. I get so put off sometimes by how The Boys will just revel in the violence and tragedy depicted in every episode and many scenes for the sheer spectacle of it or even just straight up locker room humor. Its so disappointing too, because I know I want to make enough effort to understand or sit with more horrifying(an/or sometimes new to me) aspects of the human condition or just the chance to sit in someone else's awfulness through the craftsmenship of individuals &/or teams. It's not that cynisism should never be touched in art, it's just that cynisism isn't an effective default mode of analysis or literarcy. When art is only cynical, it can and will hand wave away any atrocity it feels like through whatever means the creatives or executives decide. Thank you for the video as well, its so so good
To add to what you're saying, I think there's also been a slow tying together of cynicism and intellect in media, so now incredibly cynical takes, shows, movies, are all regarded as "smart". Rick and Morty and Sherlock being the two most famous examples in recent memory to me. It's tiring because the smartest people I know are all exceedingly kind and broadly optimistic.
@@Badmanpuntbaxter omg so truue. Rick is smart enough to build portals or Sherlock is smart enough to deconstruct any crime he finds but none of these characters are smart enough to give being kind a chance, like cmon
I don't really think that's the kind of cynicism she was talking about, there's a big of difference between making something where the text has a cynical tone relevant to it as a work and what it's trying to be as opposed to cranking something out specifically because you know it's entirely an economically viable product.
Propaganda exists in many forms and journalism is one of them but we are taught a fiction that journalism is a pure and right thing that completely ignores the underlying structures and obvious motives that go into it
I can only pray the algorithm continues to bless me with content like this. 🙏 Entering my late 20s, now early 30s, I felt obligated enough as an adult to read my dad's favorite nonfiction (e.g. Chris Hedges/Naomi Klein). The journalistic style had a trend: personal accounts as tributaries flowing into a macronarrative. Then I got to War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. It focused on those whose homes were consumed by war and touched on the journalists obsessed with perfectly documenting their stories. Civil War could have explored that obsession at home, where the subjects' thoughts on and willingness to engage with journalism are so polarized. It could have gone into having access in an anti-fascist uprising doing a weird parallel to Vice's work interviewing terrorist organizations. Instead we got a neoliberal morality tale.
I love hearing peoples reads on movies that many dislike. This is the first time I have ever heard anything positive about MEN and I really appreciate the perspective
it reminds me to what Slavoj Žižek has said in different forms; that we tend to be blind to ideology. In his pursue to objectivity, Garland showed us the ideology of what he thinks is objective
A movie that tackled the same subject of a second American Civil War with great intelligence, perfect acting, incredible storytelling, and still pertinent lessons about political divisions was the 2017 production "Bushwick." The story follows a young lady who, with her boyfriend head back to New York City so she can introduce him to her grandmother and sister. Yet, they emerge in the midst of a war zone and Lucy, losing her boyfriend, bumps into an army veteran named Stupe and together the two characters determine to reach the safe zone that hear on the radio before being trapped in the city's ruins. The movie has a clear-cut rationale given for why the secession occurred, the makeup of the separatist faction, and why New York City was targeted. The relationship between Lucy and Stupe does take center stage, but the directors and writers of the story never fail to show how people react to the tragedy, with some creating makeshift militias, being refugees, showing great heroism or acting upon their darker natures.
This is an incredible essay that I will definitely be contemplating for the next few weeks. Your video was recommended on my homepage the moment I finished Civil War. I came into the movie expecting nothing of substance but to experience the catharsis of an action thriller. I certainly got that, and I was also surprised at how real the tension in those scenes felt and how relatable they were, in the feeling they evoked, not the substance, to my own experiences in the GWOT. I watched the film like I would ride a Universal Studios roller coaster. I was there for the feelings that the coaster gave, not asking what the coaster's opinion on war atrocities might be. I had little to no actual knowledge about the history of journalism, beyond my acceptance of the same myth that the film's creator had. I watched the movie enjoyed the tension and release, and thought ,"yea, seems about right, war bad, people at home don't know what it's like," and the same 1000 other typical pedestrian thoughts I have about these kinds of movies. If I don't engage with them expecting deep conversation, I get to hop into a little capsule eat popcorn and experience some feelings personal to myself, and this movie did that well. Your essay called me out practically by name. I am the crowd that the movie went to please. I wasn't looking to engage in meaningful discourse about connecting with fellow man or what the meaning of it all is. I was skin deep as I watched it ,and now I'm pondering YOUR VIDEO and asking myself some tough questions about my own assumed bias. Wow. I suppose I learned a little about a lot listening to you, and you started some new self-reflection for the next little while. I'll be digging through some of your other videos and maybe you'll do that again. What I say about the movie and why i think i still like it? From an experiential POV, I will say that the movie does well at evoking the emotion of trepidation and the adrenaline rush of either being okay, or it not being your problem anymore. That experience is difficult to relate to people at home, and the point, skin deep as it is, to me, is just that. Americans don't want this in their home; they don't get what it would be like not to have the luxury of distance emotionally and physically between them and that kind of violence. I saw in Lee a bit of myself, someone who believed and went so far as to devote themselves to something, but for it to suck the soul out of them with reality after reality. She treated Jessie the way she wishes she could have treated her younger self. Talk her out of it and make her understand that it won't be what she wants. When she saves Jessie and dies, I took it as the inevitability of that cycle. Young people enamored with the fantasy of war and the experience of those who see it never being enough to stop them from going after it. Is that me editing and projecting the movie: I think yes? Does that make it emotionally resonate with me less: no. Will I be watching more of your videos and looking for other deep self-reflection inducing ideas and takes: resounding yes.
I'm in the army and my biggest critique of the film was how the journalist are allowed to be breathing down the necks of soldiers in a firefight while simultaneously being cartoonishly inept at maneuvering around the active warzone. The movie tries to portray war journalism as a "this ain't for the weak" job that turns people into cynical adrenaline junkies seeking the next pulitzer, with the main cast all at different stages of the path. But with the exception Sammy (the old guy) they all just comes off as braindead sociopaths who are only alive by sheer luck. The sound effects they had when guns were being fired and the CQB scenes were easily some of the most realistic portrayals of combat I've seen on film; but it was completely undercut by Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest as they followed the spec ops teams into a firefight and then proceed to peak their heads into a door frame that had rounds flying through it literally 1 second before! 🤦♂️ The movie wants you to feel sad and shocked when Kirsten Dunst' character dies from her selfless act to save Jessie. But all I felt was a mix of anger at Jessie for acting like someone who gets put into a room with grippy socks and no belts, and being underwhelmed when one of the fools jumping in front of a firing squad finally gets killed.
the feeling i got from the discourse around this movie is that its just another heavily acclaimed piece of art that in a few years everyone would have forgotten about, like Green Book
"Any coherent interpretation of it requires you to either ignore something that's there, or add something that isn't." And like it or not, that is the point. Coherent interpretation of war is itself a fallacy. This film doesn't want to be your friend or teach you things. None of the characters are endearing. It doesn't want to be studied for its "message". It is intentionally evasive. It seeks to do one job: stimulate your thinking. Which, given you have a (well defended) 1 hour 36 minute criticism of it, it seems to have done its job.
You have such a talent not just for argumentation itself, but for building a point of view bit by bit without tipping your hand. I always appreciate listening to your perspective unfold.
I just watched Civil War last night because it dropped on Max for the first time, so this video essay truly came at the best time. I've been trying to more actively analyze movies/shows as I watch them lately (rather than just read analyses after the fact) and I was worried that I was really flunking it with Civil War when I was watching it closely and totally unable to detect a single consistent point or perspective offered by the movie. It's very comforting to hear though that that wasn't just me. But also as a history and former journalism student, I really enjoyed your breakdown of the inherent subjectivity of both. Alex Garland clearly knows his stuff as a director so it's a bit bewildering that he can't grasp how true objectivity in journalism isn't any more possible than true objectivity in art (something that Civil War proves)
Maybe its just me but it feels particularly tone deaf to make a movie called "Civil War" about journalists documenting a civil war that is bereft of specific examples of the political climate leading up to the conflict (instead making it about a nebulous resistance to a dictator) when most of the talk about civil war in actual US politics is dominated by right wing idealogues stoking agitation among their audience as a backlash to the social and economic justice of marginalized communities.
Incredible video. I grew up in Indonesia, so thank you for sharing about that documentary, I'll check it out asap. As for the Civil War film, I walked out of the movie with a very different impression, and I'm surprised to learn that there was such divisive discourse about the movie's meaning. As an artist/creator, my initial thought was that the movie at its core was about "art for art's sake," and that meaning could be transmitted to any art form, they simply chose to focus on one artistic medium in the movie. Throughout the movie the character's reasons for creating/photographing all fall away, until we realize that what they do essentially serves no purpose, they just seem to do it either out of pure passion or because that's how they want to spend what time they have left while they're alive. My interpretation doesn't really fall in line with the director's interviews, but it was my impression that the context of war and the imminence of death seemed to serve the purpose of stripping away any excuses and bring to the forefront the question of whether creating art or pursuing a craft is worth doing even in the case of it being futile or meaningless.
I think anybody who says something "isn't political" doesn't know what politics is. Watching people TRY to be "not political" is a very surreal experience. Oh, maybe that's the surreal part of Civil War. We found it guys, Alex Garland is a genius.
I stumbled across your channel today and boy am I lucky to have found it. Your writing, delivery, and originality of thought... it's been a refreshing change of pace from the average level of critical thought I am exposed to on the internet (partly by choice and partly not :']) Thank you for sharing your analysis with us!
Somehow I feel validated knowing that this movie was essentially a first draft, as it really gives draft-quality. The themes are only roughly sketched in, the characters lack depth and judgment and so the dialogue feels stilted, the worldbuilding is shoddy at best, the plot is just a series of roughly related events rather than a causally-linked story. I wonder what more time in writhing and development would’ve done for this movie. But somehow I doubt Garland actually has much to say about the subject of his own movie, and it shows. Really enjoyed your analysis, it was so refreshing to hear such a well-thought-out take on a movie that people seem to get really reactionary about.
I wasn't on board with this argument against this movie until you pointed out that they never acted as journalists in any moment that wasn't about war. In the refugee camp, they should have been asking people about their experience, but instead, they just hung out and danced and talked. They were fundamentally uninterested in the situation the war created, and only interested in the war. That sucks. And I hate that about this movie now.
This is incredible. Truly one of the greatest video essays that I have ever had the pleasure of viewing. It actually has something to say about life and the human experience while still firmly rooted in why the film Civil War leaves much to be desired. I am a man that probably has deep seeded belief that contradict what Morbid Zoo holds and even that of essay. I am a conservative leaning Christian but I still love art, philosophy and the examination of why we make what we make and believe what we believe. I love how thoroughly you examined the stances this film and it's creator hold and examined both why it makes the film have the problems it does but also how its views inherent failings. No there is no truly objective journalism and war journalism is not here to remind Americans that war is bad. All of art is made with a view point of the subject. You cannot extract that subjective view from art, is essential to its being. This still true for journalism, it does not exist ad an objective giving of pure information, it comes from at late the journalist's viewpoint on the subject and with humans should not eliminate the human subject's view on itself. You rob the subject of it's humanity when you take as simple an item to reveal something about yourself. Anything subject concerning humanity belongs to humans that have gone through it. War journalism is not about "War Bad" it is never just that. It is here to confront us with the hardship and suffering that real individual people are going through and the journalists job to try to evoke something in its audience with that experience. Journalism though is not just to make that specific feeling an audience member it is to transfer that story of the people to another. That is something Civil War is fundamentally disinterested in. The Journalists here do not spend time with the civilians in this war or even care about soldiers and why they are fighting it. The film wants to be about journalists showing that "America, war here would be bad" abandoning the human subjects habiting that war.
I'm spitballing, but I don't know how one could come away from watching this movie without a more cynical view of journalism and journalists specifically when every main character is a reflection of some of the lesser aspects of journalism. Jesse is a bright-eyed noobie who internalizes Lee's weary trauma about journalism until that point where she "hey man, nice shot"s Lee at the former's moment of death. A moment that in any other story is a sacrifice becomes in this movie just another exploitation, another life ended to help sell more copy. And I don't have to get that deep into the war junkie Joel who fist bumps with a bunch of boogaloo boys right as they commit a war crime. Oddly enough, Sammy, the metaphor for establishment journalism, is perhaps the most "human" character in the cast as at least he has a somewhat heroic arc in the movie, but his position as elder mentor to Lee and through Lee Jesse limits this as his experience ultimately fails to save himself and later Lee. Not a single one of our characters offers an example of where their journalism succeeded in changing something for the better. None. Instead they talk about "legendary" shots and completely turn everyone around them into subjects for their exploitation. If it wasn't a movie about war journalism, these characters would be movie stars or football players just for the latent narcissism of their personalities. Love that its Lee btw who leads the western forces into the white house to kill President Nick Offerman. Certainly not an indictment there of how journalists can shift and otherwise influence events in order to pursue the "story", forgetting all the dangers physical and moral in transforming from an observer of history making moments to being an active participant in them. I can't see how Garland can still think this movie valorizes war journalists when EVERY SINGLE FRAME of this movie is about them destroying themselves and their colleagues and ultimately the world around them just for a single shot. Like, that's some classic "piss on my leg and tell me it's raining" gaslighting there of the ethical mores of an entire profession. I don't think this movie isn't about actual journalists, or actual journalism. It's about paparazzi finding out that they were only larping as SUPER SERIOUS AND IMPORTANT WAR REPORTERS in the surreal dystopia of the movie's setting.
You are spitting fire. 🔥🔥🔥 Somewhere outside of space and time, Susan Sontag is slowly nodding her head eyes closed, with her left arm held up, approvingly snapping her fingers.
I am SO HAPPY I got recommended this video. Throughout watching the entire movie I kept trying to figure out what the point of it was, what it was saying. When I was almost all the way done, I was convinced it wasn’t saying anything at all. Then I saw the last scene, the slowly developing photo of american soldiers standing over a dead president like a deer they killed. I swear, in that moment I believed the whole movie had just been a giant prank. And that the intended message had always been “Americans killing each other is funny and we deserve it”. I spent the next day trying to justify to myself that this couldn’t possibly be the real answer. But any other explanation I could come up with would walk straight into walls put up by the movie, directly contradicting any meaning I tried to assign to it. In the end, I gave up and just decided to passively hate this movie for wasting so much of my time and energy. Your video gave me the much needed closure. Also, thanks for the book recs!
The focus on the neoliberal/ softliberal faith in status quo and how they perceive foreign conflicts as being depoliticized because they get to just consume conflict through the lens of isolated high quality photos that don't assault the senses is really on point. I think there's something to be said regarding the section on restricting journalism access on the ground is relevant in currently ongoing conflicts. People who watch TV aren't usually as pro-palestine as the people who are seeing the severely graphic damage by the IOF through social media. Again, could have been an interesting angle to have in the movie.
My favorite take on "the troops" is season 1 of Bojack Horseman. Thank you 1000x over for calling out this film's failings and shortfalls. It could/should/needed to push for a more complete message with today's political climate in the U.S. This movie has so much wasted potential and your video was leaps and bounds above the type of brain-rot quality most people expect of YT. I can't wait to see what you make next
When I watched Civil War I remember leaving the theatre pretty satisfied. I was especially surprised by the honest attempt at tackling the theme of war journalism, having initially bought a ticket expecting a mediocre sci fi war film (I guess it was just the poster). Watching this video has reminded me of another feeling I had that day that I had previously forgotten, which is that, although I liked the movie and there were themes I could recognize, I still felt like I didn’t really get it. At the time I thought it was just Too complicated for me and went on with my life. But this video has Made me consider that it might have been a flaw of the movie itself. I can’t help But having changed my mind on the movie’s quality. I’ll need Too see it again to check, I know I can be easily manipulated by the latest essay I watch. PS The part about AI and it’s appeal to Hollywood excecutives gave me chills. You write in a very powerful way
Ending this with footage of actual swans was somehow perfect. The video is excellent in general, but somehow that just put a cap on the whole thing - the unapologetic misuse of AI, the vague message in the movie being discussed, the weird emotional distance of its creator. Yep -swans says it all.
"The point was not to change opinion so that America never looks like Vietnam - the point was to change opinion so that *Vietnam* didn't look like Vietnam." It is really notable how formative and primal that war is in the conception of the modern liberal, and probably because of that, it's such an enormous blind spot. Tied in with the American exceptionalism you noted - other countries are supposed to get wrecked like that, or at least them doing so is a regrettable reality of the world. Our country isn't supposed to be like others ever, and when it is, that's responded to by libs about how a transphobe reacts to somebody wanting to become more feminine.
Photojournalism is not about getting the perfect shot, it's about trying to gather as much information as possible with a camera, and if you're lucky one of those photos will convey a lot of information. It's a job, photojournalists are working under time and budget limits, there's no space to be intentionally artsy. Even before digital technology made it easier to take many shots photojournalists still tried to get as many pictures as they could, they didn't go to Vietnam saying "I'll just take one roll of film, maybe two if the first one gets wet."
Especially with how a lot of people's understanding of the palestinian genocide is coming from victims just filming whatever they can and posting it. As opposed to the more curated look people receive from mainstream corporate journalism.
This is an amazing essay ! I haven't seen the movie, but as another journalism scholar, I can't help but wonder : is there a character whose role would be akin to a fixer or local correspondant ? It feels like placing the action in the US also have the unfortunate effect to completely hide the fact that war reporters are heavily reliant on local intermediaries (fixers or interpreters, for example), whose work often get underrecognize despite being essantial, and no less risky (arguably more, since their options to leave are limited). Which in turn reinforces this idea of the possibility of detached objectivity, because someone who lives where the war happens would absolutely have an opinion about it.
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no
I’m sorry but I hated the movie it’s not that I only like action movies I like movies that don’t have action I like movies that make me think I like when you don’t know who’s bad or good. But I can’t wrap my head around why I hate this movie. I just hate how it plays like how the 1 guy asked the sniper who were they shooting at it made me feel stupid because what did you expect did he think they would say “oh it’s bob that lives across from the McDonalds” it was like watching a horror I don’t watch horror movies because I’m scared of them but the main character make me feel stupid because they do stupid inhuman things like hide in a freezer that they can get locked in. Now I’m very difficult from normal people I have autism, ADHD, multiple mental health problems and some forever depression that makes it so I only get enjoyment from outside forces. So Lee crying at the end of the movie I felt it was stupid in my brain I said “ why are you breaking down you’ve seen hundreds died you’ve been through hell with no problems so why now” I just don’t understand it didn’t make sense to me.
I'm a journalist in print media (which means I have plenty of experience with photography, but I'm a writer at heart). I'd also say that I'm from what I call the "look out the F'ing window" school of journalism ("a journalists job isn't writing that x believes it is raining, and y does not; journalism is looking out the f**king window").
FWIW, I think this is one of the best critiques of any movie I've ever heard, and certainly the best of this movie in particular.
My take on it was that it is very clear that Alex Garland either conflates or confuses photojournalism and photography. Photojournalism is the art form of photography, but with the expressed intent of conveying context and information, not just aesthetics. He appears to believe that the apex of photojournalism is who gets the "most iconic" picture, and that is the apex of photography as an art form. A photojournalist considers the quality of his work on how accurately and comprehensively the photograph conveys the subject of the story. Aesthetics of the actual photograph are always secondary to this, or at least should be in my opinion. As a direct result of this confusion, he made this movie intentionally limiting the context and information conveyed to his audience behind the actions of the characters on screen. It's practically the antithesis of journalism.
Very astute. Fetishizing aesthetics at the expense of context seems like exactly how a filmmaker would misinterpret photojournalism.
Could it be him saying that photojournalists themselves have conflated photojournalism with photographic aesthetics?
@@akshayde Sure, I suppose that's a valid interpretation. It would be both tremendously offensive to virtually every photojournalist ever and breathtakingly ignorant, and insult the very people he claims to revere for their heroism in documenting conflicts at great personal risk, to suggest that all they cared about was taking a pretty picture... but I suppose it's possible.
For an example of excellent photography and terrible photojournalism. The famous Vietnam execution photo, which the photojournalist regrets having taken due to the misleading impression it imparted and subsequent effects it had on the subject
@@andrewjhollins I don't think that's true either but it can be. And photojournalists don't need to be offended since there are good one and bad ones and everyone in between with their own intentions in every field. Anyways
I like your points about empathy in war journalism. I'm a journalist and wrote my first war adjacent story interviewing kids in a refugee camp last week over zoom. Nothing close to what's in the movie, but after interviewing the kids i felt an intense need to tell their story as best I can - anything less and I felt like I was failing them. I'm still thinking about those kids man. Story goes live soon and I hope it does some good.
Something felt kinda off when I first watched the movie. There's a weird reverence for journalism as a profession but simultaneously a complete unwillingness to engage with how the job actually works. Like making a movie about plumbers but not showing any toilets.
I like this analogy because it accidentally implies that the Super Mario Bros movies were a more faithful depiction of its subject.
Spent time with DoD PAO, in my experience 99% of war journos are nothing more than propagandists for one side or the other.
Meanwhile actual combat footage is widely available on just about every social media platform.
I think you're right on the money. It's not a film that says nothing, it clearly has a message, it's just not a very compelling or convincing one. "War photographers are the silent jury in the trial of mankind," is the sort of message that is simultaneously boring, blunt, and not even particularly true. At least as they're portrayed in this film, more like gawkers of the war than chroniclers of it.
If a better version of this movie exists, it's one that is much slower and more naturalistic. More of a Nomadland road trip through a war-torn nation, where people actually DO live, despite everything. A rugged and lonely, but mostly normal existence, punctuated by sudden shocking violence. That's the experience of war. That's what a war reporter should communicate to the people who have never known the banal horror of it.
The decision to make the is about war correspondents instead of civilians is so baffling to me and so telling about how Alex garland imagines himself. The better version of this movie practically writes itself.
It's a message that they don't really explore very much either. We don't see the war journalists do anything with the photos and footage they capture, we don't know what kind of stories they're telling, so we have no idea how they're representing it.
If you want a movie that depicts war in the way you described, albeit without the reporter aspect, you should watch Sergei Bondarchuks War and Peace trilogy
@themorbidzoo 'This war of mine' is a video game that perfectly captures the experience of being a civilian in a civil war. I'd really recommend playing it if you are interested in that perspective.
They are gawkers... chronicaling doesn't make you less of a gawker
“What I'm concerned with is the intense fixation this movie has on war as being defined by the destruction and violation of American symbols rather than American people”
OH MY GOD YES, THAT'S SO WELL OBSERVED!
But how does this movie do that? Because I got the exact opposite. I didn't really see to many American symbols being destroyed. But I did see a lot of broken Americans. The three main journalists are jaded at best, and two of them have basically lost their humanity, their other journo friends have absolutely no empathy for the situation they are in until they are being executed by racists; Every body in the movie was an American and there were so many images of American people being violated. I used to write propaganda, I didn't see or hear any symbols in fact avoiding politics and what started the war and what side is good or bad was left out for the express reason to not connect with symbols and rather the violence of the people.
The American public has connected with the Ukraine war because it looks like a lot of the white population of the USA. The US public respects the European public more. This movie is supposed to take that affect and multiply it by showing you this war in your home country.
In the racist soldier seen we do not know what side he fights for, I felt like that's because his ideology is on every side of the war. He is an American people went to that movie and identified with HIM, he wasn't meant to be "the bad guy" but another side of YOU, of us, and in the coming conflict that mindset will be intrinsically American along side man other ideas. This to me at least, showed the splintering of people along cultural lines rather than politcal, which is what is really tearing us apart.
Fixating on the destruction of American iconography is not so much to lament their destruction as the true tragedy of the conflict, but to highlight the surreality of a civil war in the United States. For as much as militia-LARPers and 2nd Amendment fans would like to say otherwise, war on American soil is a viscerally foreign idea. Wars happen elsewhere, far away. Something like our monuments and shopping malls being destroyed shakes our paradigm of American stability, that there is something fundamentally wrong with what we are seeing.
The problem with this is that by making the violence surreal, it perversely creates distance between the audience and the violence being depicted. When we play the Washington DC level of Modern Warfare II, we aren't horrified by the burning landscape of the nation's capital. In many ways, it's wish fulfillment: giving America a new war worthy of epic poetry and righteous glory; a sublime machine that produces legions of patriots, heroes, and martyrs; and from its ashes will arise an even stronger and more glorious nation. Both in Civil War and Modern Warfare II, by accident or design, we are invited to watch in awe, not horror.
@@Cactusnoliawho did you write propaganda for?
@@CactusnoliaI think Morbid Zoo explained it, so start there
@@Cactusnolia I would maybe recommend rewatching around the 43:48 minute mark where this point is made again. The main example is the Lincoln memorial, the football field, the shopping mall, the suburbs. Plus the road with all the Christmas decor. People obviously occupy and interact in these spaces but their not really people in the sense that they're not really characters, there's no interiority. They are less a people than a body politic. By avoiding the politics, the movie makes it harder to empathize with people because politics are a big part of our interiority. The result is that human victims of violence become symbols in themselves, rather than people. So even when we are seeing people, I still think the point holds that this movie is more concerned with what those people represents than the actual people as people.
A better movie, if you ask me, would show why politics or ideology pales in comparison to the actually realities of violence, instead of just kinda shrugging it off. Don't just tell me the thing is bad, tell me why the thing is bad. We relate to things better and more strongly when they're specific, not broad. By removing any particularities of politics or ideology, you make things more abstract and less meaningful. With a lack of contextuality, the war might as well be taking place anywhere else besides my home country. There's not really anything concrete to really viscerally move me except for two scenes: the racist soldiers and when Lee gets shot. But even that emotional reaction gets blunted by the obvious pontification going on here.
Also, two questions: How is the racist soldier not murdering civilians not meant to be the bad guy? I don't think anyone came away from that scene being super self reflexive about how racist they are.
I'm also curious to know, what do you think the difference between cultural groups and political groups are?
"any coherent interpretation of it requires you to either ignore something that's there, or add something that isnt."
Flawlessly put. Bravo.
as a counterpoint - what if Alex intentionally wanted the movie to avoid coherent interpretation? What if that take is _exactly_ the point? War is rarely coherently interpretable, the idea that it is is a fallacy we've picked up from fiction. I think it is intentionally incoherent. It IS meant to make you feel sick and disturb you, that's it.
"Having watched this movie several times now, I just can't shake the notion that this film is trying really hard to make a point." thank you you've grasped the words right out of my brain.
My initial take on this film was that it was a film trying to be a love letter to journalists that accidentally lauded journalis(m/ts) as self-centered, jealous, and willingly ignoring the stories popping up around them (driving past families evacuating combat zones, ignoring the impromptu classroom in the refugee camp) and it made me imagine the story as being told through the medium of a long form story published at the end of the war. It made me think that our characters were making the story solely about themselves, because Garland made the story solely about them.
The fact that Garland said he didn't change the story after January 6th lets me place him in the shoes of these journalists: people that have already picked their sides and will not change their coverage based on new information. The movie is an arbitrary answer to an old question already answered by the rioters that entered the Capitol that day, and that's why we can't parse it today. It serves as the final consensus thought among centrists from before the insurrection and is therefore indelible documentary evidence of the ignorance of people afraid of political debate, like Garland, from before January 6th became a date we can refer to by itself like September 11.
I think it takes a stance that isn't viable in our modern political reality and it vexes us while we're trying to find an answer.
I felt like it was an allegory for the media’s struggles under Trump, with the president’s execution corresponding with Trump’s own loss in 2020.
The Bechdel Cast discussion of Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina made me realize Alex Garland doesn’t have characters; he has archetypes. Lee isn’t a person, she’s a career, a vector for news.
Goodness, this is so excellent. I struggle a lot with war movies. Having lived through war as a child in Iraq, war perpetrated by the United States, then finding myself twenty years later living in said U.S. after enduring the utter breakage that living through war does to your pscyh puts me in this strange positiion where I'm constantly seeking an explanation for something that happened to me from the people who never will have any kind of real and valuable meaning that they can offer me, not as their victim. And instead, I find myself constantly in the position of instead understanding so much about the psyche of those who perpetrated the destruction of my country, not an understanding of war or suffering or the cost of such violence and death. I remember leaving this movie thinking how painfully obvious to me that the director had never experienced war (something that i hope he does not ever have to go through or that really no one ever has to go through) but much more cynically, this is a filmmaker who had no real interest in the abject horror that experiencing war has on our very humanness. This is a person who, like so many of his kinfolk be they filmmakers, westerners, U.S.-americans or U.S.-american-biased, posessed no feeling for the endurer of violence beyond the most basic pity. Pity that persistently denies people their humanity and affirms their inherent lesser than position. The arrogance displayed by the cool detachement of the filmmaker that determines himself above society is also what makes it impossible for many U.S.-americans to truly understand the extent to which violence and war are horrifying and idiosynctratic. They cannot imagine the utter humannees that leads to the complete fragmentation of society, because they deny their victims the humanness. And if you see these people as beneath you somehow, you will never act in the same way that they do. We, the Americans, are the enlightened bunch that will not suffer such violence and death, but will be ultimately the only ones capable of saying anything philosophical or coherent about such violence and death. But talk to anyone who had lived through war. Talk to people who did not do the killing or the reporting. Talk to the background characters of those movies. And you'll find they have no real groundbreaking insights to offer. The war becomes as boring and mundane as it is horrific. There is nothing coherent to gain from it, no philosophical conclusion, no narrative pay off, because it is an inherently incomprehensible act. Any want to communicate falls apart the moment you try to angle it. Every angle is insufficient. Every horrific event is incomplete. And language, spoken seen heard or any other variation of its existence, will faill, repeatedly, at truly capturing what is ultimately incomprehensible.
❤️❤️❤️
That is beautifully written. Thank you.
As an Iraqi too myself, this might be the most coherent factual conclusion of american/hollywood war-filmmaking
The people who prosper and benefit from the annihilation and destruction of other free peoples, will never comprehend such thing happening to them themselves.
wow, what an amazing comment. I really appreciate you sharing that, you gave me a lot to think about :)
As a veteran who served 4 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, my perspective is the journalists in the movie represent the different types of people who are able to conduct, or at least cope with, war.
Lee is the weary veteran who has learned to detach herself from the gruesome reality of war, but, in doing so, forgot the reason she's joined in the first place. Forgot her core, idealistic self. Jessie helps remind her of this.
Jessie is the idealistic rookie, full of spunk without the scars of experience.
Joel is a rare, but crazy, breed of people who excel in chaos. Not necessarily relish in the violence but able to operate at peak fitness during times of crisis.
Sam is the weary veteran just waiting to retire. He's getting too old for this sh*t but also driven to mentor and develop the next generation.
All of the characters in this movie, including side characters, represent a type of person who can engage in war. I think that was what Civil War was exploring. What the movie doesn't do a good job of, and possibly why it didn't strike a chord with you, the OP, is it does not focus on or adequately show the suffering on the civilian population caused by war.
Just finished the video, and what I find so satisfying about your work is that you carry an idea all the way to its conclusion rather than depositing us at some simplistic, appealing halfway point. You have a brilliant, brutal analytical mind and have changed the way I try to evaluate art in general--not just the topics you cover. Much love from a patron!
"doesn't everything just get a lot easier when we say the map is the same as the territory" go OFF dude. i started typing a comment about the widely held conception that photography is "objective fact," only to realize as I continued listening that you had been building to (and leading me to) that exact point. and simultaneously getting ready to work that idea, as well as the current popularity of generative ai, into a thesis about the current cultural moment in america that would straight up knock my socks off. which is just to say-you're a really good teacher. like you're really really smart, but a lot of people are in like a million different ways, and i think being a good teacher is something else. but it's good for all of us when someone has both at once. take care of yourself. the work you are doing and will do matters.
Thank you ☺️
My take on the recursive male birth scene in MEN was that it was showing how misogyny is self-replicating among men without actually requiring any female involvement. In the final confrontation the Men are just doing this disgusting thing *at* her, trying to get a reaction. We watch her face go from afraid to grossed out, to eventually just tired. Ultimately what they’re doing has nothing to do with her at all.
💯
Men come from women.
@@redzzz51 who gave birth to you?
Agreed. Additionally, I saw it as how misogyny views childbirth: as a disgusting, repulsive process that shouldn't be seen but is necessary to bring forth what it wants, which, in the film, is replications of itself.
@@andrewohalloran1050 read again...
Truly the "Both Sides" of war movies.
If someone sneers at critics for wanting their ‘confirmation bias’ validated, that’s a validated centrist.
Bland platitudes about the horror that is actually happening in many places around the world at various times. Detached and privileged. Pretending to be profound by portraying a nonsense fantasy, that is boring and utterly lacking insight.
Alex Garland dreamed up his very own pretend civil war in a nation whose politics he has clearly not thought about with any seriousness. He populated this imaginary war with his own imaginary version of journalists. And then he dusts off his hands, calls himself objective, and dismisses those who say he has created nothing of substance.
This video is so cathartic to watch. You have given me a lot to think about, and it finally made me get my act together and join your Patreon.
Thanks so much ☺️
@@KO-vb4tg Brilliant comment. Exactly thiis.
Because the movie isn’t bout any of that, it’s purely bout the reality of what other nations go though & that we’re no less vulnerable to tha future
If they made it political shit would have been bias,
@@dark_unit2409 The movie isn't about the "reality" of jack shit, because it's fictional. And it's not even the kind of fiction that's particularly true to life. As demonstrated thoroughly by the journalists that were interviewed for this video, this film does a poor job accurately depicting the actual job of war journalists and photojournalists. These are reporters who had no interest in talking to the inhabitants of a refugee camp!
Also, I fundamentally disagree with the idea that a movie about a civil war that takes place in a specific country is improved by removing politics. When you say that the movie is good because it shows how we in the US are vulnerable to civil war, are you seriously not interested in WHY we might be? What political changes have occurred to make Alex Garland think that a movie about a second American Civil War would be topical right now?
In reality, avoiding any politics was a cowardly attempt to ensure that no one felt at all challenged or criticized by the content of the movie. After all, that might have decreased ticket sales.
gotta say as a non-American, finding out now that American critics watched a movie where a major event in the protagonist's backstory was her photograph of "The Antifa Massacre" and then came away saying it was good because it "isn't political" is absolutely fucking headspinning
But even that title is completely devoid of meaning. Did ANTIFA activists get massacred by a bunch of nazis or did the ANTIFA activists massacre a bunch of nazis? It would be like saying "The abolitionist Massacre" in a movie about the actual civil war. It is a statement acknowledging a thing without telling us a single thing about it.
Cut to the loading ring cat gif*
@@ryri51 With the way the term is thrown around these days, Antifa might not have been involved at all.
We are the most politically- and media-illiterate people on Earth.
That's not a coherent political reference, it's just a namedrop.
I’m an absolute moron when it comes to analyzing films so feel free to correct me but it just didn’t sit right with me how they basically gave a “nightcrawler” arc to the journalists in the film. Especially seeing and hearing about multiple journalist dying in Gaza. Despite me enjoying the films, I just felt like it was made by someone who believes they are smarter than they actually are.
This indicates you are clearly not a moron
Your last sentence is describing Alex Garland, rather accurately.
His films are well made, usually have a couple of genuinely great scenes and a compelling idea or two..... they are meant to look, sound and feel deep, and to some degree they are, but not enough to justify Garland's desire to be revered on the same level as Kubrick or Lynch; in fact he's more like a pale imitation.
Which, in this day and age, is still kind of impressive I suppose....
“Like it was made by someone who believes they are smarter than they actually are.” Sounds like an Adam McKay film.
Nightcrawler deals with the same exact themes of this movie, but better IMO. Both are essentially just examinations of the ethics of journalism, and the background psychopathy that it requires. Or foreground psychopathy if you’re Jake Gyllenhaal. Jessie sees her hero gunned down in the “line-of-duty” as it were, snaps a pic, and steps over her body, which is the thesis statement. This video is pure over-analysis and philosophical word salad - it’s not that deep! The fact that this analysis even exists means Mr. Garland won. Either way, we’re not analyzing Spiderman: Far From Home in this depth, so I’m for it.
Exactly, I enjoyed it for the spectacle but certainly not what it was attempting to says. It definitely reeked of “I’m so smart and deep”.
The problem with Civil War is that it seeks to depict a modern civil conflict with no understanding with how such conflicts occur now. A second American civil war would be incredibly messy with so many factions taking chunks out off whatever bits of the country they could. There will be no Texas acting as its own solid entity
Exactly the biggest issue is it shows two fairly united fronts and forces pitted against one another. In reality it would be every man for themselves forming in small pockets of ultraviolent militias holding their small section of land with a death grip while those who try to stay uninvolved are crushed between.
I love how I know just enough about the US to enjoy the scenery and some infos, but not the deep political context. It's as if the Libyan or the Central African civil war are set in the US, couldn't remember which factions fought which but at the end of the day it's a messy situation, horrible altogether to the civvies
@@TwoPlusTwoEqualsFive32 it shows quite a few people like that, though? the first people they run into are just running a gas station and torturing looters. there's a scene with men shooting into a house because someone in the house was shooting at them and they're all just stuck there even though they have no clue who has what allegiance.
not saying the movie is good, but it does at least show that. i don't find it that unlikely that people would end up with two major larger factions at some point either
The idea that Americans are uniquely unsettled by watching their home and national symbols be destroyed is honestly kind of hilarious, considering watching the most iconic cities in the country being decimated by nefarious evildoers is basically a stock plot point in every single superhero, alien, or disaster movie which we all love lmfao
Yeah, that was weird. I don't think any of us really care that much about the setting of a movie.
If anything, I actually prefer these movies to be set in familiar surroundings.
The fact that 9/11 jokes and references are so common in American humor nowadays and that those jokes center so much around the towers and planes- not the people in them- kinda exemplifies how ineffective desecrating American symbols and statues are as a message.
Cant agree. The rhetoric that crops up around removing confederate statues, the shock and awe inspired by a REPLICA of the liberty bell getting graffitied on- the never ending moaning about acts of petty vandelism done tonpublic arts as statements of protest. These things shake up idiots who respect the flag more then a homeless man- the souless husks who worship symbols of their imagined america. So basically center libs and no thought "apolotical" folks.
OMG I never really noticed that! It's...darkly ironic.
@@undercookedtoast1479I strongly disagree with your comment, like obviously 9/11 isn’t seen as seriously and is often treated as a joke now, but at the time it was fucking huge to American culture and was used as a justification for war and insane anti-Arab racism. in fact the reason people make jokes about it now could be in part because it was treated so seriously for so long. Maybe the atmosphere in America is less idealistically patriotic than it was in 2001 so even if the same thing happened now to another national landmark, it’d work out differently, but it had an insane impact on American culture at the time
the bit about plemons' character's politics is wild because the only thing i've seen from this movie is the still of him asking "what kind of american are you?" and it unambiguously reads as right wing. of course you don't need to rely on intuition and political savvy to have this same understanding if the rest of the scene has him ranting about latin americans, but it's just so odd to say he has no clear politics when, even without that context of the rest of the scene, his politics are still apparent.
I think the further issue is that even if it is clear he is racist it is not clear which army he is a part of so we still have no idea if the western forces are the insane racists or the federal army. But I guess given you see black women in the western forces at the end you are probably supposed to assume he was part of the federal army.
This reminds me of stupid shit my white friends say (the no clear politics thing, not what you wrote). I know they're not all bad people or racist, but the're also the same ones who say stupid shit like "Why does it always have to be about politics." when obviously, they're not part of the group that is being oppressed, so they don't see the harm.
As Mariana says about the Plemons character in the video: "Just because the politics are not very provocative, it doesn't mean they're not there."
Everyone knew what the Plemons character's political beliefs were (even Nerdrotic figured it out just from watching Plemons in the trailer), but when people say "it wasn't political" they mean "it wasn't provocative." And what they mean by "it wasn't provocative" is that they wanted this movie to be a "centrist" mouthpiece condemning both sides of the current American political divide. People are expressing their disappointment in the movie not presenting the politics of the Plemons character with the kind of "centrist" tolerance that leads one to understand why the conflict began. They want the movie to tell them "one side believes racism is bad, and the other side is racist, but here's why the other side is racist - it's because their struggles were ignored." This is a... sympathetically reductive position to take, and not a new one by any stretch. It only feels provocative to "centrists" because social media algorithms amplify extreme positions to rage bait their engagement for data mining, so they feel such a position needs to be expressed because they believe most people haven't already heard that position, when in reality most people have already heard that position.
The movie affords no nuance to the conflict, and that disappoints them. The Plemons character is racist and evil - end of story. The movie is not interested in exploring the cause of the war, and the audience shouldn't hope to understand it from a nuanced perspective either, because the movie is about journalism, not about pandering to "centrists," although, as Mariana points out in the video, Alex Garland's portrayal of journalism is very centrist.
I won't lie though, it really pissed me off how most reviews I saw before seeing the film mention that bit as a deeply introspective moment - "When we push past the divisive rhetoric our leaders embellish everything in, how different are we really?" - only to watch it myself and the very next words out of his mouth leaves nothing to interpretation: he's just a racist fuck.
@@youtubeviolatedme7123Blue team - Genocidal neoliberals
Red team - Openly Genocidal neoliberals
Putting aside the substance of your videos for a second (which is also fantastic), the way you write your scripts is just so beautiful. I cant really put my finger on it but theres a rhythm and flow to it that I think most other video essayists miss.
This is a lovely compliment to receive, thank you :)
I agree, maybe it's the brisk pace of it while also making sure to put substance into it throughout. Like how summaries in this vid are done as quickly while conveying important information and most explanations always serve to establish and support the points being made. I think it's really impressive.
Imagine writing a movie about a civil war in a country as polarised as the states and including nothing of the ideology, struggle, political context or issues involved. Like the country just spontaneously burst into team blue and team red and there was no real driving force behind that.
The movie has End the Ukraine War now energy without understanding Russia's imperialist history in Ukraine or how Ukraine struggles for its identity.
Kind of the point lol.
Agreed, idk if they....listened to the first part of the video@@MrGameSecrets
I really don't think the politics of the movie are as vague or ambiguous as everyone says. Granted, they are expressed in a way where you only see the "outline" of them... but you can see them.
For one, I don't see the belligerents as "Team Blue vs Team Red." It's more like "Team Black vs. Coalition Rainbow" (the WF secessionists consisting of TX and CA suggests that "blue and red" are fighting on the same side). Team Black murders journalists on sight, the Coalition doesn't. That's a hint...
It's not trying to comment on the specific tenets of any particular ideology, because ideology isn't the only driving force behind a conflict like this. It's probably not even the primary one. The primary driving force is a willingness to seize power by any means... (much as it would be if this really happened). Ideology is the means.
For example, look at the president. You can draw parallels to Trump, but he's not simply a stand-in for Trump. This is a president who 1) "somehow" was on his 3rd term, 2) disbanded the FBI, 3) ordered airstrikes on American civilians, and 4) flagrantly denies the shape of reality. "We are now closer to victory than we have ever been. _Some_ are already calling it the greatest victory in the history of military campaigns!" - President ______, about two days before his obviously impending doom. That's another hint...
Also listen to Sammy as he very matter-of-factly places this president as next in the sequence of "Gaddafi, Mussolini, Ceausescu, President ______." Another hint... it's really not that ambiguous lol.
I think Garland's decision to downplay ideology as much as possible is a very interesting and deft one. It's a "show don't tell" approach, and I think it's more effective that way.
But anyway I'll finish watching the video now so Mother can explain why I'm wrong.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is set during the Civil War and never mentions the politics of the war! It must suck!
What gets me about the Echo Park image is that beyond every other glaring error in the image, it’s a gun boat in Echo Park lake. A lake that’s length is not more than maybe two dozen suburban homes. It’s a meaningless area which, even if it actually had some inconceivable strategic importance which needed guarding, could easily be done by simply posting a small number of soldiers around it. There’s no contextual point for a boat in this tiny man made lake unconnected to even a minuscule river. The material reality of this image is entirely nonexistent, and also entirely irrelevant in the intention of its posting. That in an of itself speaks to the entire upper end production team’s understanding of conflict, there is no material aspect to war they’re concerned with, they simply understand it as a thing that looks cool. It’s one of those images which is designed to “make you think” not in an intellectual or artistic way, but in a way that is conducive to getting them money. Because even if you accept the stupidity of the image itself at face value and ignore the absurdity of a giant swan, thinking about the location and its context at all ruins any semblance of a message it’s trying to convey. You’re not meant to think, you’re just meant to watch and say, “damn, wouldn’t it be bad if what was happening overseas was happening here?”
Maybe it was a flex?
I don't know if it's just me, but some part of the Civil War movie and the discussion around it (which, full disclaimer, I didn't watch or keep track of, but based off your video) reminds me of the "facts dont care about your feelings" crowd. Both in the response to the movie ("oh all you weak willed slobs just want to be spoon fed Good and Bad") and also the journalists themselves. War doesn't care about anybodys feelings, it's war. Except this neglects the fact that war is primarily influenced by people with feelings.
This ties into your point about reality and how its shaped. There isnt a single Truth or Fact uninfluenced by people that is waiting to be discovered.
Anyway, long day so my point isnt entirely legible. Regardless, a masterful video essay as always. You inspire me to be better and more thorough in my own analyses. You're a wonderful writer and communicator. Thank you so much for giving RUclips so much work we love to see it!!
Very legible, I completely agree
"This movie I didn't watch reminds me of..." yeah I'd say that's a huge flaw in your approach to 'analysis'
@@S1ipperyJim Hehe, good point! I was a bit tired when I wrote that, but what I meant was the discussion around the movie (and the movie itself) as presented by the essayist. It wasn't supposed to be a serious analysis, judt a random thought I had. Wanted to get it out there as a direct reply to the essay. Thank you for pointing that out, though. I'll go edit the comment ^-^
Yeah, their sneering had that quality for sure! At best they’re just as out for validation as they say others are, but are just validated centrists - but tbh it smacks more of a satisfaction at the film refusing to say ‘dictatorship is bad’. And if you think that’s an open question, then sir, you have some serious politics.
@@samf4112 all good!
I was LITERALLY thinking "oh, support the troops" RIGHT BEFORE YOU SAID "this is just support the troops language." I love your takes.
As a mass communications graduate student, a lot of what you said here really resonated with my take on the movie. The way Garland talks about and portrays photojournalism shows, in equal parts, a great deal of respect for journalists and a fundamental misunderstanding of what they do. I've shared this essay with some of my peers in the program and our journalism professor. Good luck with your dissertation!!
@@jaymm1260 amazing, thank you! Good luck to yours too (or thesis, whatever your case may be)!
Is it really a deep respect for journalists if the journalists he respects don’t exist?
kinda funny how so many people said this movie was “important” and “exactly what america needed” and now, a couple months later, i feel it is completely outside of the culture conversation. no one’s thinking about it anymore. i rlly dont think itll be fondly looked back on in the future. i think itll have the same treatment avatar has, if that makes sense
Props to Jesse Plemons for his acting chops. When the dude plays a creepy psychopath... I get chills for all of his screen time. Breaking Bad, Black Mirror and Civil War. Mr. Plemons is a scary ass dude on screen.
You’ll love his roles in Kinds of Kindness from 2024.
He's got range too. He plays one of the leads in season 2 of the Fargo TV show and it's wild seeing the same guy who usually plays amoral murderers playing a dumbass small-town Minnesota guy in over his head.
Which episode of black mirror was he in?
@@sebastianbillings7807 S4 E1 USS Callister It was a great episode and also the second time I ever saw the man on screen anywhere.
@@noviatoria2436 I think so much of it comes from the fact that a lot of his characters are acting themselves. Like, when he shows up as a normal guy, you can't help but anticipate the moment he pulls out a gun.
This is absolutely essential, Mariana. You’ve really complicated the adoration I felt for this film walking out of the theater (and you did very much call me out when criticizing some of the film’s ardent defenders lmao). It seems very clear to me now that the film Garland thinks and says he made is not the film that I saw and fell in love with. I love your research and invocation of the realities of journalism in complicating the narratives around the film from so many perspectives, but I still kinda found myself thinking, “yeah, I liked that about it.” This is especially true with your discussion of the lack of any real coherent perspectives of the journalists. I personally loved (and maybe still love) that about the film, but you make it clear that it is not representative of real journalism, in pretty direct contrast with what Garland seems to say about the film. Part of me wants to dismiss all of this and continue to love the film the way I did back in April, but somehow I feel that may be impossible. Keep it up, you have a lifelong fan! (ps. I’ve just started a film MA to which you were and continue to be an inspiration) ❤
Thanks! I’m so glad it hit for you, I really did try not to be too mean about people I disagree with. I do think Alex garland and his team have talent and that there’s a lot to like in this movie. I don’t begrudge anyone for finding things to enjoy in it, but I do kind of begrudge him and a24 for making it with no research into the topic at all and I do think we’re capable of making better movies and not just accepting whatever we’re given, which I think is of overall declining quality due to our cultural zeitgeist’s disdain for art.
That’s amazing about your MA, good luck!!! Welcome to the bullshit academic grind 😄
I saw this movie when it first came out and dear lord I got out of the cinema room feeling almost shell-shocked. It was so crude and cruel that I just wasn't sure what I felt after watching it. After a while, it just seemed it had been an incredible experience, but one that just didn't say much? Almost the same I felt after playing Far Cry 5. It tries so, so hard at being deep and with meaning, but it manages to not say anything at all. There are multiple times throughout the movie that I saw a genuine try at conveying a real message, but every time it ended up being something as deep as "war is bad".
That said, I've been eager to watch your review ever since you said it would be your next topic of video, when you mentioned it on Xwitter. You're an amazing video essayist, perhaps my favorite, Mariana, and I'm sure this video will be illuminating, to say the least.
I agree completely, my mission here is to try and figure out what it’s saying, I went through this same confusion loop. Hope you like the video :)
From some of ths stuff I've read on Civil War, it seems that it was deliberately trying NOT to put a specific message towards the viewers, and I think it's supposed to be up for interpretation. If there's one thing that I think it explicitly says, I think it displays the dystopian lack of humanity that can occur if we allow for conflict, like Cailee's character snapping a pic of her mentor reporter that saved her, and the soldiers posing for a picture with the dead body of the president. Beyond that, I think they didn't want to overstep what they believe were their boundaries, in communicating a message, so they leave it up for interpretation what the underlying aesops are.
So I understand what they were trying to do with that, but it places an upper limit on how impactful the movie can be
I didn't even find it that shocking, so it failed on both counts.
@@jonnypaspulaI agree, I am just disappointed, it could have been so much more, I mean this is the guy who made Ex-Machina ffs 😢
I had the same feeling, like that I didn't initially understand it (I guess because in the end there's not much there there), but it also left some red hot iron burn across my brain I couldn't shake.
It's so nice when someone else articulates all my thoughts on a movie or filmmaker or topic so that I never have to talk about it ever again
This comment gave me a very ereri vibe.
Decisions should come after articulation. Discussion should start at articulation, it should not end there.
@@ConQuixoteIt’s a movie, not a political ideology. I think they get a pass to avoid talking about it.
@ConQuixote my point is I'm tired of explaining to people why Civil War is a failure and this video hits on all the points as to why I think that
@@EpicBeard815if it was about politics or smth he’d be right to point out you shouldn’t reach a dead end… but it’s about criticism of a movie… there’s nothing wrong in declaring it as a waste of your own brain space
excellent video and commentary! loved that you included that the director has made no comments on Gaza
Why is he obligated to?
@@nohbuddy1yes
@@nohbuddy1he made and ran a press tour for a movie about the importance of documenting wars, in which he ostensibly frames himself as anti-war, and yet as he does a press tour congratulating himself for this he has nothing to say about the current war (genocide/ethnic cleaning/land grab) being backed by US/UK?
@@nohbuddy1 If there is a single director on the planet who’s obligated to on the basis of their recent work and statements, it’s him.
Comments on what? On killing terrorists and freeing hostages? Or that fact that the msm is painting the IDF as the bad guys somehow because they're blinded by their hatred for Jews?
Even without any historical evidence to the contrary, Garland's presumption of journalism as a force against fascism and the role it had in turning public opinion against the war in Vietnam flies in the face of our current reality seeing Israel commit the most stomach churning atrocities humanly possible on a weekly basis for the past year with no consequence.
Photography is so hard to conceptualize bc not only do you have to consider the role of the subject and the abstraction of an event presented in a still image but also the power dynamic between the person holding the camera and the subject, the act of performing for a camera, and the role of the person holding the camera and what their place is in whatever narrative they're presenting. In other words, do they belong there? I saw one of the most celebrated artists of our time, Catherine Opie, deliver a talk on a series of photographs she did covering the uprisings in Ferguson, MO and thought it was the most out of touch body of work I've ever seen her make. It's frustrating to think we are passive observers living through history and not in some ways complicit with our own destruction.
American soldiers were dying in Vietnam. That's the difference
Well said!!
Maybe I’m missing something, but, without journalists showing the atrocities israel is committing, would people be as ready to protest against? Would people be as willing to help if they didn’t know the genuine reality of the situation? I don’t think they would. You could deny Israel is bombing hospitals in Gaza when it’s word of mouth, but it’s real hard for someone to deny it when you can show them a video of it happening.
@@TheNwr1except journalists are rarely the ones capturing what’s happening in Gaza. The IDF suppresses all journalism that isn’t biased in favor of them; the information is coming from *the people there.* the people actually suffering.
It's similar to the Vietnam situation mentioned in the vid. It's not about whether protest or not, or whether the information sent by the journalist or not, It's that the protests holds no meaning than being public disturbance to their respective countries, but failed to impose change on anything that happened in the Middle East. There's not a magically "Iconic picture made the public and POTUS stop the war" narrative because it just didnt exist. Pictures dont stop the US aid to Israel. Pictures dont stop the pager attacks. Pictures dont stop the current new waves of attack, air and ground alike, against Lebanon. Pictures are pictures.
God damn I was not expecting that Ai tear down at the end but as an artist, it was so cathartic and cuts to the core of why I genuinely hate “Ai art” even if you put the ethical issues aside, the massive cost that comes with it, even if it got better and started making visual sense. It is fundamentally mass appeal and slop, it will never have anything to say, and no good story will ever be told with it because those who find it appealing do not have good ideas.
I am not an Artist myself, so sorry if I say something silly.
I feel like AI art can be used in hyper-specific contexts. I heard of an Analog Horror series that includes photos of children in it, but the kids are all AI-generated. I feel like such a use makes sense due to the potential ethics of using real kids' pictures (though that can be walked around through stock photos and such), as well as AI Human faces having something weirdly off about them in some cases, which adds to the vibe Analog Horror usually plays with.
@@IchigoShinagami this is true. but a lot of people use the specific use case argument to imply that someday we can vastly expand the uses of AI and it always turns into a weird slippery slope thing.
you can definitely say that AI can be useful in generating "real" things that arent real. people or environments or creatures or objects, so that these pieces can be used by actual artists to create a coherent whole. i think thats the most convincing point towards AI being okay. but how to regulate that use and prevent it from turning into a mass misinformation generator and enshitifying everything... i dont know... so thats kind of a rough scale to balance
@@herb4n7egend I agree strongly. It may be a hyperbolic statement from me, but it would somehow be better if AI was all bad, irredeemable, instead of being mostly bad with a very small number of legitimate uses.
@@herb4n7egendAI in horror needs to be explored
The human and creation contrasting.
i think thats why ai art and why ai will really fail tbh. humans have taken for granted how much human emotion have contributed to their entertainment. instead they will just be pumped with the equivalent of meme printed sayings on t shirts.
Morbid Zoo Gang, rise. 🎉She returns with more banger commentary soon. Also, love you, Queen 👸
@@ericasumrall omg love you too
This video is 96 minutes and when it ended I was still like "wait, I need more..."
As u mentioned this all rings in an interesting way against the backdrop of Palestine where journalists have been killed en masse by IDF forces while all the journalists in the Western press remained mum about it. Additionally thinking how much of that war is just filmed on peoples phones, from combat to book burning or home looting by IDF forces. while the film is clearly of a modern setting it has no interest in how much phones have altered the way we see war or transmit information - I kept wanting an anti climax where the journalists make it to the white house and get scooped by the soldiers agead of them filming their whole execution of the president vertically on their phone rendering the whole thing futile
Honestly if it had done that, I feel the message they were going for even would have been more powerful.
I was shocked that they didn’t mention the fact that war photography is dying and no one gives a shit about print photos on newspapers of wars anymore becuz everyone scrolls past the news with a cursory glance at pictures as they appear on a feed. I mean seriously. War photographers that used to win prizes and have photos iconic around the world that everyone has seared into their brain, just dont exist like that anymore. No one cares about singular photographs anymore, wars aren’t defined by newspapers anymore in fact most young ppl get news online or through social media and are absolutely not gonna buy paper newspapers. Just weird as hell they didn’t mention this, they pretend like its the 1970s
“Journalists” in the western press are mostly war stenographers. The US government made sure that the flow of information and the coverage of these conflicts are in their favor as much as possible, look at the headlines when the IDF commits war crimes for example. They’ve learned from what happened in the 70s.
@leontrotsky9268 to the extent they had a consistent message yeah! Like jts interesting as morbid zoo points out the film has a clear photographic aesthetic and the photography of vietnam was a clear reference but that wasnt because of artistic demands narrowly- like there was an aesthetic movement for black and white photographs even where color film was an option but it was largely becahse black and white film wss cheaper to print. The memory of the war was shaped as much by composition as by the limitations to visual media. If the film wanted to try it might make an interesting examination of how phones or visual media alter our memories and how we politicize images but it simply isnt interested in looking at how this profession fits inside a political economy
"journalists have been killed en masse by IDF forces while all the journalists in the Western press remained mum about it"
That's your takeaway of what's happening? Hamas literally massacres hundreds of teens and 20 somethings at music festival while filming it all on their go pros. Hamas then proceeds to hold hundreds of Israelis hostage and use them as human shields to protect their leadership while forcing Gazans to stay out of the tunnels to maximize casualties so they can cry victim to the media that has been covering the war non stop. And while all this happens, 2+ million people are expected to die in the next year in Sudan and yet they can't even get 1% of the media coverage that Gaza has, and yet you're conclusion is 'nobody is talking about how mean the IDF is while waging war'?
Anyone who can admit that America only left Vietnam because they started to suffer, not because they thought it was morally wrong, deserves some respect.
It was both. By the time America pulled out they were inflicting heavier casualties and gaining less. But by this time America suffered enough that people at home started seeing it as morally wrong and threatened the politicians by lowering their popularity causing them to pull the troops out.
@@lephinor2458 untrue. At no point was the war opposed by a majority of Americans.
@@SuperStella1111 that may be true but it isn't about the majority but being loud enough. The college protesters just needed to do enough movements and recognition of the press to spook the politicians.
Edit: plus if normal civilians look on the news and keep hearing about the protests they'll think the protests are larger then they are.
Right, this movie...
Maybe it's just me, but if a movie keeps making me feel like I'm watching a cutscene out of Call of Duty, it probably isn't going to be really effective condemnation of war. It's a well put-together movie, but at the same time, it's more concerned with using the language of big, bombastic disaster movies(something I normally adore) than of approaching this concept with some semblance of tact.
You can argue Call of Duty does a better job of being an effective condemnation of war than this movie.
@@occam7382 please don't give cod that much credit. The closest we got was something like world at war with its bluntness and horrors of war, but now its cash cow fortnitifcation of war.
Look into spec ops the line or do a blind playthrough of it.
“The result of this election was basically federal approval of the ability for southern white people to exploit, disenfranchise, and murder black people legally for another hundred years. We didn’t just ‘get over it.’ The Hayes election is not an argument for our ability to center ourselves back to reality after a confusing political snafu. More than anything the Hayes election is an argument for the efficacy of terrorism.”
Some people would drop this kind of a line at the end of a video, but here we are, halfway through.
"This is the kind of attitude that’s extremely reliant on faith in the status quo. It’s basically an assumption that any peace we’ve experienced is because of the inherent stability of the system as a whole and not our personal good luck to not be a black person in the post-Reconstruction South. It’s an appeal to the idea that America’s history is defined by its best intentions."
I love this. More devastating criticism of liberal palingenetic ultranationalist founding myths from everyone, please.
This is such elegant vitriol. Real top shelf bile spewing. Verbose, insightful and cutting.
I'm glad the algorithm has shown me your channel.
I know this essay is a dense treatise full of valuable tangents on history, philosophy and science. But damn girl, that magenta dress with that hairdo looks amazing.
🥹
This is the kind of engagement with the movie I was missing. This video scratched an itch I could not reach. Absolutely worth the wait.
💯 I may not agree with everything, but there is thought behind this that I didn’t see since the movie came out.
@@sharkbelly1169 Yeah, the last 25% of this video definitely got some eyebrow raises from me, but the sincerity is so admirable.
"The whole point of this movie (outside of being a very well done re-envisioning of Nightcrawler) is that without knowing it, the director glaringly falls into the classic centrist moralist trap of not realizing that apoliticism is still political."
Not everything under the sun needs to be political dude. If you need a Hollywood director to tell you who to support in the next election or in a fictional civil war, the problem is you 🤷♂️
@@TWE_2000THE movie Is literally called "civil war. My guy you kinda have to explain why it happened and more often than not. War is just a political response
@@danboru_bakooo1966 LITERALLY the entire point of the movie is that it doesn't matter what political side is winning or losing, a civil war would suck for everyone. It doesn't matter if the gun is being fired by a fascist, a conservative, a liberal, or a communist, the bullet will still put you into the ground because YOU'RE NOT BULLET PROOF! Only the most insufferable tunnel visioned partisan could completely miss the entire point of movie because they were too busy going "but wait, what are the specific economic and social policies the dude filling the mass graves support? How am I supposed to know that war is hell if I don't know whether shoplifters being tortured deserved it based on whether they share my political beliefs?" 🤦♂️
@@TWE_2000 ...bro what? Like this is just such a centrist non argument. Yes, war is bad but framing it as "Yes but it sucks mo matter who is winning bc war is inherently bad" is such a weird take. Sure then give me an anti war movie about how mean the americans who were marching on the reich was.
Did you even watch the video? War is not this thing you can just have an objective outside perspective of or an enlightened victim inside perspective of. Why is the fascist shooting me? Why did a liberal put a hole in me? Was I in a bad place bad time? Why was this a bad place? Why was this a bad time? This all seems nitpicky yes but its all in the end governed by politics.
@@TWE_2000That’s still a political discussion!
I'm flabbergasted at how such a confused perspective can go through so many levels of scrutiny, from script to production to distribution, and the writer's worldview is basically: "Things happening elsewhere in the world just sort of happen for no reason and don't make sense, but things happening here make sense because they're in English".
It’s because that perspective is the status quo in the circles of people who make movies
The movie presents its photo journalists more like paparazzi: busybodies sticking their noses and cameras in spaces they don't belong and aren't want in. When Lee talked about how she'd hoped with each picture of a warzone she sent back that people would learn not to do that, I found myself asking, "not to do what?" By her own admission, she didn't add any context to the photos and left it to the viewer to decipher their meaning. How is anyone supposed to avoid recreating what's happening in the pictures if they don't know what lead to it?
to be fair I think just setting a war movie in the us to remind americans that the places wars take place are places people lived a normal life in and not just batttlefield maps is already a pretty valid artistic move on its own no matter how much more the same movie also has to say
This is why I hate talks of battles in history classes like it's an RTS game.
If a movie only has 1 thing to say, then why not make it a painting instead? How boring is that
@@davidgjam7600 doesn't necessarily work the same
but yes I'd hope a movie has more than oen thing to say
but that one deicison still makes sense
A bar so low, it might as well be in hell
This is a generous read, it feels more like a marketing tactic to me to capitalize on the “political division” without actually drawing any boundaries around a consistent ideology in order to not offend anyone and draw a large audience. Kind of explains the use of those AI generated posters
The whole bit about the movie just being a collage of different messages stitched together with all its contradictions reminded me of a Saltburn critique. Some newer movies are just Instagram fodder - a collage of clips you can publish on social media so everyone can comment on how deep/moving/beautiful it is. These movies succeed in wowing an audience at first glance because everyone can cherrypick whatever they like out of the candy bowl while consuming but as a coherent vision they naturally fail. I don't think Civil War was made this way intentionally as a cash grab, but rather because of Garland's limited vision and lack of deeper understanding of what a Civil War entails. The interview quotes - as much PR as they might be - make Garland look like a new iteration of Aaron Sorkin. Only this times its not about "talking things through sensibly" as a shtick, now its about "showing the world as it is (even though I created it)".
What do you think a civil war would entail?
@@Anthony-xy3wr *gestures at video essay* Mainly the bit around 1:13:25
It's weird that this movie's way of conveying the message, "Don't do a civil war" is to show me a bunch of cool action sequences and play catchy music. It's like a video game with our main characters doing some side quests on the way to their main objective. The closest I got to true discomfort was with the mass grave the younger journalist falls into. Everything else is just so... comfortably cinematic?
"overworked and lazy". 100%. i think this can generally be applied to many things about popular american culture, the arts, big tech, media, news, journalism and on and on. Civil War strikes me as a vehicle for a press tour so someone can talk about big things the thing they made is supposed to be about but not that actual thing they made because it doesn't achieve its goal. it's a hoodwink that americans especially are ready to digest. the "simple trick" to revelation that people can't resist because they're bored and without community or something... "The Act of Killing" is one of the hardest things i watched. it's a rough time.
I live in the Netherlands, and one part of the movie doesn't make much sense to me. Because I think Reuter would rely more on foreign journalists to cover a civil war in the U.S . The journalists in this movie are Americans and yet also neutral. It's rather difficult to remain neutral in one's own country.I think using French , Australian, etc journalists would have worked better. Also, the journalism feels a bit dated. You see the classic foto shoots for newspapers (i guess ?) without using cloud to safeguard the content . It all feels a bit 1990's.Ignoring the practicality of the internet and the influence of social-media .
American audiences would not have gone for that.
@@Alty-Souls True. American main characters get shoehorned into every movie that's made in the U.S.
I watched this movie JUST so I could be ready for this video
I watched this video JUST so i could be ready for this comment
Shut up you did not
@@sbindoctor6414I had to do the assigned readings
@@sbindoctor6414 I had to do the assigned readings
@@sbindoctor6414I had to do the assigned readings
I am so happy you included Generation Kill in the very first shot. R.I.P Evan Wright, he was a fantastic journalist
I haven’t seen the movie but when I saw the trailer my first thought when I saw that pink glasses guy was “he looks like he’d kill me for being queer”
I can't wait for this! Your videos are so well-researched, and I love your rhetorical style and humor.
I have really enjoyed Alex Garland's previous work and saw so many explosively glowing reviews of this film and found it wanting in so many ways. As an American, it felt tone-deaf to give us no background or explanation for the conflict outside of a "president's third term" and some ambiguous "Antifa riot" given our current climate but I'm aware Alex isn’t American. The scene with the sniper really seemed to be a 4th wall break when the sniper makes the point that “whose fighting isn’t relevant, it’s who’s shooting at you.”
The glowing reviews and discourse online were repetitively, “IT’S NOT ABOUT THE WAR! IT’S ABOUT JOURNALISM!” but is it? What arguments were made to show the importance of an unbiased press? In the text, they say that they’re not there to take sides and it is important to show the reality of the events. But I don’t remember any examples of bad reporting causing conflict. The lack of information regarding the conflict only exacerbates this. It felt like self-sabotage. Hell, one character was insulted when the elder journalist insinuated that he would ask a softball question if he got to interview the president and at the end, he had an action movie one-liner. There was no curiosity. There was no inquisition. I don’t even think you really say they’re unbiased or apolitical in the photographs we see them take. I think people that defend it saying the above fundamentally do not understand politics or biases. Like, they’re the same people who were shocked to realize The Boys had political and anti-capitalist messaging prior to this most recent season.
I really didn’t get much more than “War is hell” from this movie. Because I didn’t see much in the story, I thought about the characters and that also made me sad. Outside of Dunst’s final action and the young journalist, who had an arc or much of an impact on the story?
I don’t know, maybe I’m just frustrated because I wanted something else entirely. Maybe I’m just frustrated because I love so many of his other films. I’m hoping you can show me something I didn’t see or express similar confusion as to why some people are raving about it and why it felt weak compared to 28 Days Later, Ex Machina, Sunshine, Annihilation, or Men.
@@Orestes728 you just summarized my entire mental breakdown about this movie haha
@@themorbidzoo Oh my god that makes me so happy! I feel like I had taken crazy pills reading the discourse online and that just made me engage more and more. I genuinely wanted someone to come up with a reading that opened my eyes in a way that changed the film for me. I've never engaged more with a film I didn't particularly like than this one.
One of the most disturbing things about this video is the partial bagel sitting on a napkin folded back enough that it looks like there's contact with the carpet. Also I'm about 30 min into the video and I wanted to commend you for the succinct writing & great presentation.
I was very careful, I wanted to eat it later 🥺 thanks for watching!
your conclusion nailed it. It's an antiwar film that seems to be entirely ineffective at changing any minds against war. Just pointing at a bunch of violence and going, "see? War bad." isn't going to have an impact on any of the people actually cheering for a civil war. They know war is going to be violent. They know Americans are going to die. They think it will be necessary, or that it won't happen in any significant way to people they care about.
The film doesn't even try to engage with them on their terms, to meaningfully challenge their beliefs. Part of that is that the director/writer has such a hard-on for totally divorcing the movie from the real world, which in my eyes is sheer narcissistic cowardice. Part of that is also his insistence on focusing just on this little group of photographers. The combined effect means that basically nobody can look at this film, go "oh hey, X person is me," and then be challenged by what happens to X person.
Nobody can measure the importance of what they care about against the costs of war because the director categorically refuses to let anyone say what this war is about for them. And so it's entirely incapable of actually dissuading anyone that knows war is bad but thinks it will be inevitable or worth it, which is... everybody who wants a civil war. Whoops. Then again, I don't think convincing anybody was what this movie was made for. This movie was made as a purely masturbatory exercise on the part of the director as the most enlightenedest centrist in the land.
EDIT: As a journalist, the line "we don't ask questions, we present facts so other people can ask questions" is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Like, the only way you can arrive at those words is by not talking to any actual journalists or by intentionally lying to valorize the profession
💯
I love a video essay where the essayist goes as deep as she can, shows what she finds as clearly as she can, and then just shrugs at the viewer: "Keep up if you can."
Brilliant - no pandering to the algorithm or the audience, uncompromising questioning of every assumption, circling around the issues again and again, always probing, always seeking. There's enough here to feast for days.
Amazing work! You are by far the video essayist whose work I am most excited about these days. Posting a complimentary bit of text in the hope it boosts you in the algorithm.
Can't wait to see what's next.
I love the way you deliver criticism. Reminds me a lot of Folding Ideas.
Folding Ideas had a really short dismissal of the movie on his Patreon. Didn't really dig deeply into why he didn't like it, though, so I appreciate Morbid Zoo picking up that slack.
@@Duiker36 I actually didn't know he talked about it on his Patreon. I moreso just meant how he critiques stuff on his RUclips; his manner of speech I guess
I’ll be perfectly honest, I walked out of this movie really liking it. It’s become strikingly apparent that I got swept up in the surface level aesthetics and really injected my own meaning and beliefs where…maybe there wasn’t that much to actually build upon ? I really appreciate this video for challenging my world view, despite having clicked on it thinking “oh ! I liked that movie, maybe this video will help me articulate what I liked about it”. You absolutely get my subscription and, maybe when I’m liquid enough, my patreon support.
That being said, I think I still like it ? Not as a piece of commentary, or as a movie that really sticks it to the status quo, but just as an aesthetic work with some directorial tips and tricks that I can use in my journey to make better art (although I will be leaving the writing advice from this movie on the cutting room floor)
Couldn’t quite put my finger on what didn’t work for me about this movie…i appreciate the amount of thought and insight you brought to the subject.
"we should not accept cynisism as a routine element of our artistic experiences"
I think of shows like The Boys immediately. I get so put off sometimes by how The Boys will just revel in the violence and tragedy depicted in every episode and many scenes for the sheer spectacle of it or even just straight up locker room humor. Its so disappointing too, because I know I want to make enough effort to understand or sit with more horrifying(an/or sometimes new to me) aspects of the human condition or just the chance to sit in someone else's awfulness through the craftsmenship of individuals &/or teams. It's not that cynisism should never be touched in art, it's just that cynisism isn't an effective default mode of analysis or literarcy. When art is only cynical, it can and will hand wave away any atrocity it feels like through whatever means the creatives or executives decide. Thank you for the video as well, its so so good
To add to what you're saying, I think there's also been a slow tying together of cynicism and intellect in media, so now incredibly cynical takes, shows, movies, are all regarded as "smart". Rick and Morty and Sherlock being the two most famous examples in recent memory to me. It's tiring because the smartest people I know are all exceedingly kind and broadly optimistic.
@@Badmanpuntbaxter omg so truue. Rick is smart enough to build portals or Sherlock is smart enough to deconstruct any crime he finds but none of these characters are smart enough to give being kind a chance, like cmon
I don't really think that's the kind of cynicism she was talking about, there's a big of difference between making something where the text has a cynical tone relevant to it as a work and what it's trying to be as opposed to cranking something out specifically because you know it's entirely an economically viable product.
Propaganda exists in many forms and journalism is one of them but we are taught a fiction that journalism is a pure and right thing that completely ignores the underlying structures and obvious motives that go into it
Yeah the idea of journalism being pure misses the fundamental collusion with power and wealth that is necessary for journalism to exist.
I can only pray the algorithm continues to bless me with content like this. 🙏
Entering my late 20s, now early 30s, I felt obligated enough as an adult to read my dad's favorite nonfiction (e.g. Chris Hedges/Naomi Klein). The journalistic style had a trend: personal accounts as tributaries flowing into a macronarrative. Then I got to War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. It focused on those whose homes were consumed by war and touched on the journalists obsessed with perfectly documenting their stories.
Civil War could have explored that obsession at home, where the subjects' thoughts on and willingness to engage with journalism are so polarized. It could have gone into having access in an anti-fascist uprising doing a weird parallel to Vice's work interviewing terrorist organizations. Instead we got a neoliberal morality tale.
I love hearing peoples reads on movies that many dislike. This is the first time I have ever heard anything positive about MEN and I really appreciate the perspective
it reminds me to what Slavoj Žižek has said in different forms; that we tend to be blind to ideology. In his pursue to objectivity, Garland showed us the ideology of what he thinks is objective
A movie that tackled the same subject of a second American Civil War with great intelligence, perfect acting, incredible storytelling, and still pertinent lessons about political divisions was the 2017 production "Bushwick." The story follows a young lady who, with her boyfriend head back to New York City so she can introduce him to her grandmother and sister. Yet, they emerge in the midst of a war zone and Lucy, losing her boyfriend, bumps into an army veteran named Stupe and together the two characters determine to reach the safe zone that hear on the radio before being trapped in the city's ruins. The movie has a clear-cut rationale given for why the secession occurred, the makeup of the separatist faction, and why New York City was targeted. The relationship between Lucy and Stupe does take center stage, but the directors and writers of the story never fail to show how people react to the tragedy, with some creating makeshift militias, being refugees, showing great heroism or acting upon their darker natures.
Love that movie. 💯💯💯
Bushwick is absolutely fantastic and one of the best films of 2017.
I love discovering a new youtuber, i love clicking on a video essay and it ends up being great
This is an incredible essay that I will definitely be contemplating for the next few weeks.
Your video was recommended on my homepage the moment I finished Civil War. I came into the movie expecting nothing of substance but to experience the catharsis of an action thriller. I certainly got that, and I was also surprised at how real the tension in those scenes felt and how relatable they were, in the feeling they evoked, not the substance, to my own experiences in the GWOT. I watched the film like I would ride a Universal Studios roller coaster. I was there for the feelings that the coaster gave, not asking what the coaster's opinion on war atrocities might be. I had little to no actual knowledge about the history of journalism, beyond my acceptance of the same myth that the film's creator had. I watched the movie enjoyed the tension and release, and thought ,"yea, seems about right, war bad, people at home don't know what it's like," and the same 1000 other typical pedestrian thoughts I have about these kinds of movies. If I don't engage with them expecting deep conversation, I get to hop into a little capsule eat popcorn and experience some feelings personal to myself, and this movie did that well.
Your essay called me out practically by name. I am the crowd that the movie went to please. I wasn't looking to engage in meaningful discourse about connecting with fellow man or what the meaning of it all is. I was skin deep as I watched it ,and now I'm pondering YOUR VIDEO and asking myself some tough questions about my own assumed bias. Wow.
I suppose I learned a little about a lot listening to you, and you started some new self-reflection for the next little while. I'll be digging through some of your other videos and maybe you'll do that again.
What I say about the movie and why i think i still like it? From an experiential POV, I will say that the movie does well at evoking the emotion of trepidation and the adrenaline rush of either being okay, or it not being your problem anymore. That experience is difficult to relate to people at home, and the point, skin deep as it is, to me, is just that. Americans don't want this in their home; they don't get what it would be like not to have the luxury of distance emotionally and physically between them and that kind of violence. I saw in Lee a bit of myself, someone who believed and went so far as to devote themselves to something, but for it to suck the soul out of them with reality after reality. She treated Jessie the way she wishes she could have treated her younger self. Talk her out of it and make her understand that it won't be what she wants. When she saves Jessie and dies, I took it as the inevitability of that cycle. Young people enamored with the fantasy of war and the experience of those who see it never being enough to stop them from going after it.
Is that me editing and projecting the movie: I think yes? Does that make it emotionally resonate with me less: no. Will I be watching more of your videos and looking for other deep self-reflection inducing ideas and takes: resounding yes.
I'm in the army and my biggest critique of the film was how the journalist are allowed to be breathing down the necks of soldiers in a firefight while simultaneously being cartoonishly inept at maneuvering around the active warzone. The movie tries to portray war journalism as a "this ain't for the weak" job that turns people into cynical adrenaline junkies seeking the next pulitzer, with the main cast all at different stages of the path. But with the exception Sammy (the old guy) they all just comes off as braindead sociopaths who are only alive by sheer luck. The sound effects they had when guns were being fired and the CQB scenes were easily some of the most realistic portrayals of combat I've seen on film; but it was completely undercut by Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest as they followed the spec ops teams into a firefight and then proceed to peak their heads into a door frame that had rounds flying through it literally 1 second before! 🤦♂️
The movie wants you to feel sad and shocked when Kirsten Dunst' character dies from her selfless act to save Jessie. But all I felt was a mix of anger at Jessie for acting like someone who gets put into a room with grippy socks and no belts, and being underwhelmed when one of the fools jumping in front of a firing squad finally gets killed.
ive met a few portland maoists, they were all alcoholics in the DIY music scene
the feeling i got from the discourse around this movie is that its just another heavily acclaimed piece of art that in a few years everyone would have forgotten about, like Green Book
"Any coherent interpretation of it requires you to either ignore something that's there, or add something that isn't."
And like it or not, that is the point. Coherent interpretation of war is itself a fallacy. This film doesn't want to be your friend or teach you things. None of the characters are endearing. It doesn't want to be studied for its "message". It is intentionally evasive. It seeks to do one job: stimulate your thinking. Which, given you have a (well defended) 1 hour 36 minute criticism of it, it seems to have done its job.
You have such a talent not just for argumentation itself, but for building a point of view bit by bit without tipping your hand. I always appreciate listening to your perspective unfold.
I just watched Civil War last night because it dropped on Max for the first time, so this video essay truly came at the best time. I've been trying to more actively analyze movies/shows as I watch them lately (rather than just read analyses after the fact) and I was worried that I was really flunking it with Civil War when I was watching it closely and totally unable to detect a single consistent point or perspective offered by the movie. It's very comforting to hear though that that wasn't just me. But also as a history and former journalism student, I really enjoyed your breakdown of the inherent subjectivity of both. Alex Garland clearly knows his stuff as a director so it's a bit bewildering that he can't grasp how true objectivity in journalism isn't any more possible than true objectivity in art (something that Civil War proves)
Imagine Maoists being the dominant faction in Portland, a city full of anarchists. 😂
It's even funnier because the New People's Army is an actual Maoist group in the Phillipines.
To be fair the anarchist to maoist pipeline does exist
Man what the hell are all these pipelines yo
@@baddreams4368 I alone, am Chairman Mario
Actually I think it was "heartland Maoists".
Civil War: but why da swan so big
sorry this comment isn't more thoughtful, I've had nothing but sugar to eat today, but also this felt like a strangely apt metaphor for the movie lol
Fun fact, there used to be gigantic swans living on Sicily, alongside dwarf elephants
Maybe its just me but it feels particularly tone deaf to make a movie called "Civil War" about journalists documenting a civil war that is bereft of specific examples of the political climate leading up to the conflict (instead making it about a nebulous resistance to a dictator) when most of the talk about civil war in actual US politics is dominated by right wing idealogues stoking agitation among their audience as a backlash to the social and economic justice of marginalized communities.
Incredible video. I grew up in Indonesia, so thank you for sharing about that documentary, I'll check it out asap. As for the Civil War film, I walked out of the movie with a very different impression, and I'm surprised to learn that there was such divisive discourse about the movie's meaning. As an artist/creator, my initial thought was that the movie at its core was about "art for art's sake," and that meaning could be transmitted to any art form, they simply chose to focus on one artistic medium in the movie. Throughout the movie the character's reasons for creating/photographing all fall away, until we realize that what they do essentially serves no purpose, they just seem to do it either out of pure passion or because that's how they want to spend what time they have left while they're alive. My interpretation doesn't really fall in line with the director's interviews, but it was my impression that the context of war and the imminence of death seemed to serve the purpose of stripping away any excuses and bring to the forefront the question of whether creating art or pursuing a craft is worth doing even in the case of it being futile or meaningless.
I think anybody who says something "isn't political" doesn't know what politics is. Watching people TRY to be "not political" is a very surreal experience. Oh, maybe that's the surreal part of Civil War. We found it guys, Alex Garland is a genius.
I stumbled across your channel today and boy am I lucky to have found it. Your writing, delivery, and originality of thought... it's been a refreshing change of pace from the average level of critical thought I am exposed to on the internet (partly by choice and partly not :']) Thank you for sharing your analysis with us!
@@YoonHan35 aw, thanks for watching ☺️
Somehow I feel validated knowing that this movie was essentially a first draft, as it really gives draft-quality.
The themes are only roughly sketched in, the characters lack depth and judgment and so the dialogue feels stilted, the worldbuilding is shoddy at best, the plot is just a series of roughly related events rather than a causally-linked story. I wonder what more time in writhing and development would’ve done for this movie. But somehow I doubt Garland actually has much to say about the subject of his own movie, and it shows.
Really enjoyed your analysis, it was so refreshing to hear such a well-thought-out take on a movie that people seem to get really reactionary about.
Why did they even use AI for the promotional posters...? There were SO many beautiful shots from the film they could've used??
Commenting for the algorithm because I can’t articulate my thoughts coherently
I feel this comment lol
Just like me frfr
I wasn't on board with this argument against this movie until you pointed out that they never acted as journalists in any moment that wasn't about war. In the refugee camp, they should have been asking people about their experience, but instead, they just hung out and danced and talked. They were fundamentally uninterested in the situation the war created, and only interested in the war. That sucks. And I hate that about this movie now.
this movie isn't about journalists.
If anyone here wants something of substance after watching Civil War play Spec Ops: The Line
This is incredible. Truly one of the greatest video essays that I have ever had the pleasure of viewing. It actually has something to say about life and the human experience while still firmly rooted in why the film Civil War leaves much to be desired. I am a man that probably has deep seeded belief that contradict what Morbid Zoo holds and even that of essay. I am a conservative leaning Christian but I still love art, philosophy and the examination of why we make what we make and believe what we believe.
I love how thoroughly you examined the stances this film and it's creator hold and examined both why it makes the film have the problems it does but also how its views inherent failings. No there is no truly objective journalism and war journalism is not here to remind Americans that war is bad. All of art is made with a view point of the subject. You cannot extract that subjective view from art, is essential to its being. This still true for journalism, it does not exist ad an objective giving of pure information, it comes from at late the journalist's viewpoint on the subject and with humans should not eliminate the human subject's view on itself. You rob the subject of it's humanity when you take as simple an item to reveal something about yourself. Anything subject concerning humanity belongs to humans that have gone through it. War journalism is not about "War Bad" it is never just that. It is here to confront us with the hardship and suffering that real individual people are going through and the journalists job to try to evoke something in its audience with that experience. Journalism though is not just to make that specific feeling an audience member it is to transfer that story of the people to another. That is something Civil War is fundamentally disinterested in. The Journalists here do not spend time with the civilians in this war or even care about soldiers and why they are fighting it. The film wants to be about journalists showing that "America, war here would be bad" abandoning the human subjects habiting that war.
I'm spitballing, but I don't know how one could come away from watching this movie without a more cynical view of journalism and journalists specifically when every main character is a reflection of some of the lesser aspects of journalism. Jesse is a bright-eyed noobie who internalizes Lee's weary trauma about journalism until that point where she "hey man, nice shot"s Lee at the former's moment of death. A moment that in any other story is a sacrifice becomes in this movie just another exploitation, another life ended to help sell more copy. And I don't have to get that deep into the war junkie Joel who fist bumps with a bunch of boogaloo boys right as they commit a war crime. Oddly enough, Sammy, the metaphor for establishment journalism, is perhaps the most "human" character in the cast as at least he has a somewhat heroic arc in the movie, but his position as elder mentor to Lee and through Lee Jesse limits this as his experience ultimately fails to save himself and later Lee. Not a single one of our characters offers an example of where their journalism succeeded in changing something for the better. None. Instead they talk about "legendary" shots and completely turn everyone around them into subjects for their exploitation. If it wasn't a movie about war journalism, these characters would be movie stars or football players just for the latent narcissism of their personalities.
Love that its Lee btw who leads the western forces into the white house to kill President Nick Offerman. Certainly not an indictment there of how journalists can shift and otherwise influence events in order to pursue the "story", forgetting all the dangers physical and moral in transforming from an observer of history making moments to being an active participant in them. I can't see how Garland can still think this movie valorizes war journalists when EVERY SINGLE FRAME of this movie is about them destroying themselves and their colleagues and ultimately the world around them just for a single shot. Like, that's some classic "piss on my leg and tell me it's raining" gaslighting there of the ethical mores of an entire profession.
I don't think this movie isn't about actual journalists, or actual journalism. It's about paparazzi finding out that they were only larping as SUPER SERIOUS AND IMPORTANT WAR REPORTERS in the surreal dystopia of the movie's setting.
I am unreasonably excited
You are spitting fire. 🔥🔥🔥 Somewhere outside of space and time, Susan Sontag is slowly nodding her head eyes closed, with her left arm held up, approvingly snapping her fingers.
I am SO HAPPY I got recommended this video. Throughout watching the entire movie I kept trying to figure out what the point of it was, what it was saying. When I was almost all the way done, I was convinced it wasn’t saying anything at all. Then I saw the last scene, the slowly developing photo of american soldiers standing over a dead president like a deer they killed. I swear, in that moment I believed the whole movie had just been a giant prank. And that the intended message had always been “Americans killing each other is funny and we deserve it”.
I spent the next day trying to justify to myself that this couldn’t possibly be the real answer. But any other explanation I could come up with would walk straight into walls put up by the movie, directly contradicting any meaning I tried to assign to it. In the end, I gave up and just decided to passively hate this movie for wasting so much of my time and energy. Your video gave me the much needed closure. Also, thanks for the book recs!
I'm so glad you talked about The Act of Killing Documentary
lets go! this movie frustrated me so much, i felt like it had no idea what kind of statement it wanted to make
The focus on the neoliberal/ softliberal faith in status quo and how they perceive foreign conflicts as being depoliticized because they get to just consume conflict through the lens of isolated high quality photos that don't assault the senses is really on point.
I think there's something to be said regarding the section on restricting journalism access on the ground is relevant in currently ongoing conflicts. People who watch TV aren't usually as pro-palestine as the people who are seeing the severely graphic damage by the IOF through social media. Again, could have been an interesting angle to have in the movie.
This is why this is one of the best channels on RUclips
My favorite take on "the troops" is season 1 of Bojack Horseman.
Thank you 1000x over for calling out this film's failings and shortfalls. It could/should/needed to push for a more complete message with today's political climate in the U.S.
This movie has so much wasted potential and your video was leaps and bounds above the type of brain-rot quality most people expect of YT. I can't wait to see what you make next
When I watched Civil War I remember leaving the theatre pretty satisfied. I was especially surprised by the honest attempt at tackling the theme of war journalism, having initially bought a ticket expecting a mediocre sci fi war film (I guess it was just the poster).
Watching this video has reminded me of another feeling I had that day that I had previously forgotten, which is that, although I liked the movie and there were themes I could recognize, I still felt like I didn’t really get it. At the time I thought it was just Too complicated for me and went on with my life. But this video has Made me consider that it might have been a flaw of the movie itself.
I can’t help But having changed my mind on the movie’s quality. I’ll need Too see it again to check, I know I can be easily manipulated by the latest essay I watch.
PS The part about AI and it’s appeal to Hollywood excecutives gave me chills. You write in a very powerful way
Ending this with footage of actual swans was somehow perfect. The video is excellent in general, but somehow that just put a cap on the whole thing - the unapologetic misuse of AI, the vague message in the movie being discussed, the weird emotional distance of its creator. Yep -swans says it all.
"The point was not to change opinion so that America never looks like Vietnam - the point was to change opinion so that *Vietnam* didn't look like Vietnam." It is really notable how formative and primal that war is in the conception of the modern liberal, and probably because of that, it's such an enormous blind spot. Tied in with the American exceptionalism you noted - other countries are supposed to get wrecked like that, or at least them doing so is a regrettable reality of the world. Our country isn't supposed to be like others ever, and when it is, that's responded to by libs about how a transphobe reacts to somebody wanting to become more feminine.
Photojournalism is not about getting the perfect shot, it's about trying to gather as much information as possible with a camera, and if you're lucky one of those photos will convey a lot of information. It's a job, photojournalists are working under time and budget limits, there's no space to be intentionally artsy. Even before digital technology made it easier to take many shots photojournalists still tried to get as many pictures as they could, they didn't go to Vietnam saying "I'll just take one roll of film, maybe two if the first one gets wet."
Especially with how a lot of people's understanding of the palestinian genocide is coming from victims just filming whatever they can and posting it. As opposed to the more curated look people receive from mainstream corporate journalism.
This is an amazing essay !
I haven't seen the movie, but as another journalism scholar, I can't help but wonder : is there a character whose role would be akin to a fixer or local correspondant ? It feels like placing the action in the US also have the unfortunate effect to completely hide the fact that war reporters are heavily reliant on local intermediaries (fixers or interpreters, for example), whose work often get underrecognize despite being essantial, and no less risky (arguably more, since their options to leave are limited). Which in turn reinforces this idea of the possibility of detached objectivity, because someone who lives where the war happens would absolutely have an opinion about it.
There is not :D
@@themorbidzoo I'm not surprised 😅