American armed forces are currently fighting in a military theater thousands of miles from home. They sail the Arabian Sea, they fly over South Asia, and a select few are dropped onto Afghan soil. Soon, however, American soldiers will light up theaters across the United States, as Hollywood prepares to release a plethora of big budget motion pictures depicting military conflicts past and present.
Beginning Nov. 30 and continuing through June, four films will be released that contain lengthy and intense military action scenes: Behind Enemy Lines, Black Hawk Down, We Were Soldiers and Windtalkers. Although their respective foci will be different, each of these four pictures boasts a $100 million budget. They will therefore feature the best scenes of military actions that money can buy, complete with realistic explosions and vividly graphic violence.
In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Hollywood was initially reluctant to unveil its newest collection of war movies. Concerned at the American public's potential to shy away from violence on the big screen, the major studios collectively pushed back their $100 investments to later dates. However, in the past few weeks, the studios have re-evaluated American audiences; now they have not only moved forward release dates, but also have begun huge promotional efforts.
Will Americans flock to movie theaters and absorb two hours of violent imagery and emotional conflict while American soldiers are conducting operations against an enemy country? They most certainly will, for a number of reasons.
First, it is important to note that while war is currently still en route to the big screen, it already occupies a position of extreme prominence on the small screen. Indeed, television has already capitalized on America's interest in military conflict. Millions tune in to CNN or MSNBC for the latest bombing footage. HBO's 10- part series Band of Brothers has attracted millions more. Just this past Sunday, ABC broadcast, uncut, the World War II epic Saving Private Ryan, which also received high ratings.
Second, films depicting war have achieved very high levels of success, both critically and commercially. They routinely star Hollywood's leading actors, such as John Wayne and Tom Hanks. Furthermore, such war-themed projects have attracted the attention of the industry's premier directors, ranging from Steven Spielberg to Oliver Stone.
Like their predecessors, Behind Enemy Lines, Black Hawk Down, We Were Soldiers and Windtalkers will also feature marquee talent. With stars like Mel Gibson and Nicolas Cage, these films will almost certainly draw huge box office crowds.
One can wonder, of course, how these films will be received given the tense climate that currently exists regarding military action. Past classics, such Stone's Oscar-winning Platoon or Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, depicted the American military in disturbing fashion, revealing drug use and general chaos. If a similarly pessimistic film were released today, it would undoubtedly create huge controversy.
Although Behind Enemy Lines, Black Hawk Down, We Were Soldiers and Windtalkers each cover four distinct military conflicts, and therefore collectively cover an expansive historical range, the films' emotional foci will be relatively uniform: American courage in the face of adversity.
From this standpoint, these four films could be uplifting to the American psyche. Even Black Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers, which portray two significant military debacles (the failed 1993 operation to retrieve a Somalian warlord and the 1965 defeat to North Vietnamese forces at Ia Drang), will focus on promoting the valiant acts of American soldiers, events made all the more tragic because of defeat.
What remains to be seen, however, is how the American public will react to seeing the horrors of war so vividly and graphically shown in surreal fashion.
Ridley Scott, director of the bloody Gladiator, is at the helm of Black Hawk Down. The film will feature a 100-minute-long firefight. This is no hyperbole. For over an hour and a half, audiences will literally be immersed in war's disturbing imagery.
Anyone who is familiar with the story--first told in Mark Bowden's account of the same title, which was the basis for the script--is aware that the carnage in the streets of Mogadishu was intense. Women with babies in their arms were used as human shields. Seemingly everyone had a weapon. American soldiers, in order to stay alive, were often forced to fire through masses of civilians.
How will America respond to such disturbing imagery--I really don't know. Seeing that currently the primary American ground troops in Afghanistan are special forces, the same branch who conducted the Somali mission, audiences will almost certainly draw parallels between the violent chaos that unfolds on screen and what Americans might be experiencing at that very moment.
The realism in these films will be astonishing, and the patriotic undercurrent will be similarly intense. Will America react with zeal, or will it respond with trepidation?
Nick Christie is a Trinity junior and a sports writer for The Chronicle.
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