It is by long training from my dad that on Saturday nights one heads to the movie early in Manhattan, so as not to end up on one of those front row seats on the far left or right of the theater. Alas, you could walk right into this Saturday night's screening of Kimberly Peirce's edgy, moving and necessary film Stop Loss and you could still get a seat seventh row center. I counted less than 25 fellow New Yorkers, and we all seemed to know we were doing a sort of civic duty by viewing a film focused on the controversial (read-unfair) backdoor draft during a far less controversial, and now widely repudiated war in Iraq.
Critics by and large liked and recommend this movie and largely got it right. The war scenes which were inspired by and edited to include actual video clips from our soldiers in Iraq have the desired effect of putting you instantly in confusion of urban combat, "where everybody has a gun" and you have NO WAY of knowing who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. Under different circumstances, our soldiers often faced similar problems of not knowing in Viet Nam and it was one of my primary concerns with putting our troops there in the first place--how can they fight a battle when they don't know the enemy from friendlies?
But I digress, it is all those empty seats. I come to film and debates about war as number 363 in the draft lottery in 1974 the year I graduated from High School, whenViet Nam was winding down. I went thorough my own strong internal debate as to whether I would serve in that war, but my high draft number and our withdrawal meant I never had to make my own decision on way of another.
I prepared for that decision the way most of my fellow teen males did, reading about the war, arguing about it and of course at the movies watching. I don't remember it became before or after my draft number, but movies like The Deer Hunter were standard fare and they may not have been blockbuster hits, but the did not suffer the same level of reality avoidance that Stop Loss appears to be suffering from now.
In the same way real life is edited into the final war tapestry of the movies fiction, so too is Stop Loss part Deer Hunter, part Thelma and Louise and yes with the edge of real life imperfections of her masterwork Boys Don't Cry.
I saw the film the week of ABC's Flag Pin, Bitter Debate and wonder if either of the moderators have been to this movie. Given Charles Gibson's tone deaf questions about college professor couples pulling down two hundred grand, one suspects he could use a solid does of this does of reality caught on film.
The film ends with a couple numbers, let me see if I can remember them right.
650 thousand Americans have served in Iraq and 80 thousand of those were stop loosed; which means they served there tour and were ordered back, or to stay longer by President Bush.
And in the recent surge....numbers have not yet been released as to how many of the soldiers Bush poured were in fact forced back in through stop loss.
Before you loos a lot of sleep over whether a candidate is patriotic enough to pin a flag replica on his lapel, I challenge you to test your own patriotism and take in this film. It is no Deer Hunter, not quite so stark or violent, but it is an effective telling of a tragedy that being largely shielded to the public by a combination of pentagon policy, an disinterested media and a public suffering from Iraq fatigue.
These are the young men and women who were pissed off enough by 9-11 that volunteered when the president said we need to strike back. And they fought for us, even after they got over there and figured out the people they were fighting were not the guys who hit us. Now, they are being shoveled again and again back into this fight, because of some fine print on the form they signed when they volunteered.
For those who feel it important to take the action of placing a pin upon their chest, or deem it necessary for a candidate to wear the flag-the next time you make that demand, or snap one I, I suggest you also take action concerning these volunteers being forced back into battle--at very least you could take the action of seeing the movie about their plight.
Critics by and large liked and recommend this movie and largely got it right. The war scenes which were inspired by and edited to include actual video clips from our soldiers in Iraq have the desired effect of putting you instantly in confusion of urban combat, "where everybody has a gun" and you have NO WAY of knowing who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. Under different circumstances, our soldiers often faced similar problems of not knowing in Viet Nam and it was one of my primary concerns with putting our troops there in the first place--how can they fight a battle when they don't know the enemy from friendlies?
But I digress, it is all those empty seats. I come to film and debates about war as number 363 in the draft lottery in 1974 the year I graduated from High School, whenViet Nam was winding down. I went thorough my own strong internal debate as to whether I would serve in that war, but my high draft number and our withdrawal meant I never had to make my own decision on way of another.
I prepared for that decision the way most of my fellow teen males did, reading about the war, arguing about it and of course at the movies watching. I don't remember it became before or after my draft number, but movies like The Deer Hunter were standard fare and they may not have been blockbuster hits, but the did not suffer the same level of reality avoidance that Stop Loss appears to be suffering from now.
In the same way real life is edited into the final war tapestry of the movies fiction, so too is Stop Loss part Deer Hunter, part Thelma and Louise and yes with the edge of real life imperfections of her masterwork Boys Don't Cry.
I saw the film the week of ABC's Flag Pin, Bitter Debate and wonder if either of the moderators have been to this movie. Given Charles Gibson's tone deaf questions about college professor couples pulling down two hundred grand, one suspects he could use a solid does of this does of reality caught on film.
The film ends with a couple numbers, let me see if I can remember them right.
650 thousand Americans have served in Iraq and 80 thousand of those were stop loosed; which means they served there tour and were ordered back, or to stay longer by President Bush.
And in the recent surge....numbers have not yet been released as to how many of the soldiers Bush poured were in fact forced back in through stop loss.
Before you loos a lot of sleep over whether a candidate is patriotic enough to pin a flag replica on his lapel, I challenge you to test your own patriotism and take in this film. It is no Deer Hunter, not quite so stark or violent, but it is an effective telling of a tragedy that being largely shielded to the public by a combination of pentagon policy, an disinterested media and a public suffering from Iraq fatigue.
These are the young men and women who were pissed off enough by 9-11 that volunteered when the president said we need to strike back. And they fought for us, even after they got over there and figured out the people they were fighting were not the guys who hit us. Now, they are being shoveled again and again back into this fight, because of some fine print on the form they signed when they volunteered.
For those who feel it important to take the action of placing a pin upon their chest, or deem it necessary for a candidate to wear the flag-the next time you make that demand, or snap one I, I suggest you also take action concerning these volunteers being forced back into battle--at very least you could take the action of seeing the movie about their plight.
Thanks for writing this.
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