It is now official: the combat mission is over. No longer will we have the War in Iraq. We may still have an interminable war in Afghanistan, but hopefully this will help the country better allocate its resources and resolve the conflict.
How will this war be remembered? For all the atrocities of the Vietnam War, auteur filmmakers created some incredible stories and broadened the power of celluloid. Think about the first time you saw Marty Sheen staring at the ceiling fans with The Doors blaring into helicopter blades or Robert Duvall and the Flight of the Valkyries in the legendary Apocalypse Now. Or maybe Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket opened your eyes to the cruelness of war. Perhaps the Russian roulette games in The Deer Hunter are enough to churn your stomach. For me, it was the heart-wrenching scenes of Robin Williams addressing the troops in Good Morning, Vietnam. But the catalog of films from that messy and sordid chapter of American history only begins there. Platoon, Casualties of War, Born on the Fourth of July, Forrest Gump, The Quiet American and Across the Universe are just a few of the films that have explored some of the heartbreak and incredible cost of war at home and abroad. Will we see such an array of films about Operation Iraqi Freedom ten, twenty, thirty years from now?
Can’t you just imagine Benicio Del Toro playing the deposed dictator in Saddam on the Lam? Perhaps that might be too irreverent. A more poignant film might see the chaos of the Bush Administration’s infighting before Terence Howard (as Colin Powell) addresses the United Nations. Michael Douglas could portray the meddling Don Rumsfeld and you can dream up your own cast for the film versions of Bob Woodward’s superb trilogy. Or one might see Will Smith delivering the address given tonight by President Obama as he juggles the weight of immense domestic crises with unpopular wars and still other festering international disputes. One can bet that the horrors of Abu Ghraib will be revisited as the My Lai Massacre was a generation ago.
There are stories to be told. Who will tell them?
No comments:
Post a Comment