 Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong, Golshifteh Farahani
Director: Ridley Scott
Year Of Release: 2008
Plot: Roger Ferris is the CIA’s man on the ground in ground in Middle East, who’s sent to Jordan to try and find terrorist mastermind Al-Saleem. He comes up with an audacious plan to trick Al-Qaeda into making contact, however while he realises he’ll need the help of the Jordanians – as they have a far better understanding of how to work in the area – Roger is constantly being stymied by his boss in America, Ed Hoffman, who despite being thousands of miles away, feels he should be able to dictate how things are done. This eventually results in Roger’s girlfriend, Aisha, being kidnapped. |
Iraq and terrorism are the big issues of our time. As a result, mainstream film has tried to respond, attempting to make films that feel relevant and deal with these topics. However almost without exception, they’ve failed to breakthrough at the box office. Despite being a fairly complex and interesting movie, Ridley Scott’s Body Of Lies was met with a decidedly mixed critical reaction and while it cost $70 million to make, it only grossed $39 million at the US box office.
It’s the same fate that most films have faced which have tried to deal with the Iraq conflict and terrorism. But why is this?
There are several problems. The first is how close we are in time to the situation. What’s happening on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan is constantly changing and immensely complicated, and so when filmmakers try to make movies about it that are both relevant and entertaining, they have a big problem. They’re trying to dissect an immensely complex political situation, which is very difficult to properly understand at the best of times, but they’ve only got a couple of hours to do it, and they’ve got to try and tell an entertaining story at the same time.
It’s a tough challenge, especially as those behind the films know that by simplifying things – which makes it easier just to concentrate on the story – they’ll be criticised for trivialising an ongoing life and death situation. Most films about old wars take this route, and only concern themselves with the most relevant bits of information while ignoring quite how complicated the situation was at the time, but it’s much more difficult to do that with something that’s still happening and which most people have strong opinions about.
There is another thing about old wars that helps filmmakers make movies about then, which is that with most past conflicts a general consensus has been reached about what happened and why, and so filmmakers can make movies about them without having to worry about wildly divergent opinions of the rights and wrongs. For example, with Second World War films it’s comparatively simple. The Nazis were the bad guys and the Allies the good guys. The full political situation at the time might have been complicated, but as soon as you make a film, you can already rely on that shorthand because it’s generally agreed that the Nazis were a bad thing.
However with the current situation it’s far more complex, especially as we can’t be certain that we know all the facts about what’s going on, or how it will all eventually turn out. For example, while we can all agree that terrorism is awful, the motivations behind what Al Qaeda is doing are tough to explain in a film. Similarly the West’s actions against terrorism can’t be described as unambiguously good. With World War II we can now ignore the less noble things the Allies did, because in the grand scheme of things the cause they were fighting was just. In 20 years time there will probably be shorthand about Al Qaeda and the Iraq War that filmmakers will be able to presume the audience understands, but it certainly doesn’t exist at the moment (and there’s no guarantee that history will see the West as the unambiguously good guys).
Because of this, films like Body Of Lies have a tough problem. They want to dissect what’s going on, but mainstream film generally relies on having clear cut good guys and bad guys, but the current situation doesn’t permit that. In Ridley Scott’s film, the terrorists are definitely the baddest of bad guys, but there is none of the sort of clear cut heroes cinema generally relies upon. The best it can say is that the people on the ground are trying to do their best in an intense life or death situation they didn’t create, and which is constantly under pressure from all sorts of outside forces.
However while the ends may or may not justify the means, it’s difficult to describe most of the protagonist’s actions as ‘good’, even if they’re understandable. Catching a terrorist leader is a good thing, but putting an innocent man in the line of fire to do it certainly isn’t. The CIA wants to stop a plague of bombings, buts end up inflaming the situation. It may be a more realistic look at just how complex the war on terror is (the film is based on a novel by a man who’s had two decades experience as a journalist in the middle east), but for right or wrong, audiences generally like to know what side they should be on, and to have a hero they can really root for. It’s difficult to have that in films about the War on Terror, especially because a clear-cut good guy won’t please those who are against the war.
With so many competing opinions about what’s going on, it’s tough for a filmmaker to make a mainstream film that’s going to satisfy a wide audience, because the moment you go beyond saying, ‘Isn’t this a really difficult situation?’ you’re likely to face a backlash. In fact it’s interesting to see how the recent films about terrorism and Iraq that have met with the most critical plaudits (although not necessarily commercial success) are those that are relatively depoliticised.
For example this year’s The Hurt Locker doesn’t get particularly involved with the complexities of the whys of the war in Iraq, and instead concentrates on something most people can agree upon, which is that whether they agree with the war or not, soldiers in the Middle East face a horribly dangerous situation and are doing their absolute best, no matter what the politics behind it. By taking the question of whether Westerners should be there in the first place out of it to a certain extent, Kathryn Bigelow managed to create a film that’s both powerful and entertaining. However if you trying to deal with the actual politics of the situation, you’re stepping into a minefield.
While war movies have always been popular, they tend to have their heyday once a conflict has finished. For example while quite a lot of movies about the Second World War were made while it was being fought, it wasn’t until the late 40s that they became really popular, and they stayed so through most of the 50s (and beyond). You might think the last thing people would have wanted to do just a few years after the war ended was be reminded of a conflict that had killed millions, but at the time they were immensely popular.
The same was true after Vietnam, with the major difference being that while WWII movies celebrated the Allies’ victory, post-Vietnam movies were far more critical. Movies about Vietnam were made while the war was being fought that were both for and against it, but it wasn’t until the conflict had ended that movies like Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter emerged, and more importantly found both critical and commercial success.
The reason for this is probably that while something as terrible as a war is still happening, people are reticent about anything that tries to turn it into entertainment. Body Of Lies may want to talk about the complexities of the Middle East situation, but it’s also supposed to entertain (despite Leonardo DiCaprio having the stupidest beard in cinema history). However with news of endless bombings and soldiers still dying in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a lot of people feel awkward about watching something that turns it into entertainment, no matter how politically astute it is.
I would expect in the future that we will see a lot more films about Iraq and the War on Terror (for example the Paul Greengrass directed, Matt Damon thriller Green Zone is out soon), but I’d be surprised if many found much critical and commercial success until Western troops have left Iraq and Afghanistan, and the fear of imminent terrorist attack has subsided. At that point, it’s likely people will be more accepting of seeing films about the situation as entertainment.
It’s certainly worth filmmakers like Ridley Scott trying to engage with terrorism and Iraq, because it is the major issue of our times, but it’s incredibly difficult to do successfully, and so far few have succeeded.
TIM ISAAC
PREVIOUS: Bob & Rose – Or, why the new Doctor Who is a bad thing
NEXT: The Bodyguard - Or, how the Costner flick was nearly made with Steve McQueen and Diana Ross in the mid-1970s
CLICK HERE to see the index of 909 films and TV shows the Movie-A-Day Project will be covering
CLICK HERE to find out more about the idea behind The Movie-A-Day Project
CLICK HERE to follow Movie_A_Day on Twitter
