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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

As a movie buff this doesn't surprise me at all. I'm still waiting for THE movie about the US intervention in Iraq, the same kind of movies that Apocalypse Now, "The Deer Hunter" and even Rambo I were for the Vietnam war. I think my wait will be in vain.

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It won't happen because Apocalypse Now was feeding off massive cultural backlash against the Vietnam War, and the backlash against the current wars has always been much weaker. Probably because people aren't getting drafted this time.

Probably not going to happen. In the "not documentary" category it's probably generation kill or occupation that's even remotely close.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0995832/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00l9sw3

What do you think about Three Kings (1999)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kings_(1999_film)

Wrong Gulf war.

There was a right one?

What do you think about Argo?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_(2012_film)

pure CIA propaganda

Umm, it was propaganda but it was Hollywood propaganda about Hollywood. That's why this rather minor movie won Best Picture because Hollywood loves movies about Hollywood.

As to it being pure CIA propaganda, you'd have to explain more about that.

it might be reference to simple fact that US embassy was covertly used by CIA to actively destabilize the region and revolution, plus support corrupt dictator - something no embassy should ever be used for. Not sure why CIA was naive enough to think they are safe there when rest of country is burning.

Iranians made a mistake that they imprisoned US staff - they should just seize all belongings and kick them out of their own country. But one must admit that common fate to spies caught during war - execution (also done by US troops in WW II) was not done on any of them and all returned home eventually.

Of course look at media portrayal of Iran back then and even now, when places like Saudi Arabia are big US friends and you hear no loud critics about them... what a sad, pathetic joke

It was. Also, the CIA did help in the production of Argo. [1] And in fact the US (the Dulles brothers actually) overthrew Mosaddeq. [2] We absolutely deserved what little we got in the hostage crisis. I'm a big Carter fan but as President not as person he symbolized the responsibility and his office deserved this. It's a shame because Reagan was much worse than Carter vis a vis those relations. He actively supported Iraq in their border war.

Since Iran was breaking off relations with the US this wasn't exactly a mistake. To this day, we still do not have normal relations with Iran. Bill Clinton was able to re-establish relations with Vietnam. Obama re-established relations with Cuba (although the Republican Senate refused to confirm an Ambassador). While Obama and Hillary Clinton were able to negotiate with Iran we don't have diplomatic relations.

Mosaddeq was a democratically elected nationalist who toured the US trying to garner support (that he'd never get because of British Petroleum). It's a damned shame we couldn't respect that.

[1] https://news.vice.com/article/cia-helped-produce-top-chef-co...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/cia-admits-rol...

Syriana and The Kingdom criticize US politics in the region, but they mostly concentrate on Saudi Arabia or UAE.

If you dare to even mention the role of Israel in that context the movie won't even see the light of day.

And now watch my comment quickly fade to white...

It might see, but then you are immediately blacklisted by most major studios. No wonder why you didn't see Penelope Cruz or Javier Bardem for some years in a Hollywood movie.

Not exactly the same thing, but the new movie War Machine with Brad Pitt was quite good. Its theme was the stark irony of the US "helping" the Afghans when in reality they're causing conflict thats destroying their country.

Not a movie, but "Generation Kill" comes pretty close?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0995832/

As for movies, there's "In The Valley of Elah" comes to mind:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478134/

And more generally, about modern warfare, I suppose "Eye in the Sky" warrants a mention:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2057392/

Generation Kill is unwatchable, in the sense that you'd rather see the characters die at the hands of Freddy Kruger or Jason Voorhees, than bother to care about, oh, i dunno, a plot line or whether it's based on real journalism?

Same goes for The Hurt Locker, among others. So many, are simple emotional pandering, set against a dubious backdrop, without dealing with the premise of the backdrop. American Sniper simply feels like an effort to influence, even with Clint Eastwood's involvement (or perhaps even more so, with it).

Live from Baghdad is a shade too early, and the wrong Iraq war, but captures the joke-like atmosphere of the post-hoc rationale for even going to war in the region.

Similar era war movie, but different conflict, is Restrepo, which is a documentary. And, unfortunately, maybe it's accurate enough to be completely unflattering. No one appearing on screen is particularly charismatic or inspiring, and so too the story it tells is uneventful, no surprises.

But these jingoistic movies suck because very nearly all movies in general mostly suck. Everything seems like long-form, substance-lacking music videos, or student exercises in cinematography and digital effects editing. Oh well. Keep waiting for any good movie, but don't hold your breath. They are few and far between, since the advent of digital production techniques.

It's just how things are now. Now that all footage makes it make it past the film-developer-chemical bath, it's easy to undo, and selectively retry. It's too easy to make a movie, so it's very easy to make meaningless movies.

Wasn't Iraq rather overshadowed by the subsequent events in Afghanistan which does have some superb movies (Kajaki, Restrepo, Korengal, Bitter Lake....).

All due respect to those movies (3 of them which appear to be documentaries) but they have not had the same cultural impact as a movie like Apocalypse Now had back in its time. It's a shame, I'd rather a director like Nolan had made a movie about Iraq or Afghanistan instead of Dunkirk, the same as Coppola had made Apocalypse Now just a couple of years after he had directed the first two Godfather movies. That way you'd be 100% certain that said film and its vision on the realities of current war would make it to almost all the cinemas around the world.

War Machine doesn't rise to the level of Apocalypse Now, but that's a really high bar. It was good and controversial though:

[1] http://www.metacritic.com/movie/war-machine

To be fair, Apocalypse Now didn't come out until 1979, four years after the war's end and twenty four years after the war's start. Though 15 years after official US involvement. So, depending on how you count it, we still have some time :)

Subsequent? Afghanistan was first.

Yes, poor choice of wording. However, wasn't the bulk of the fighting in Afghanistan after the Iraq war in 2006 to 2011 or so?

The Hurt Locker ?

That's the closest example to what I really want from such a film (and De Palma's "Redacted"), it is a great film, but I think it was not enough.

I've found it to be a typical example of American propaganda.

Some good reasons given here: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-militarization-of-hollywood...

Considering Kathryn Bigelow, the director of 'the Hurt Locker', also did 'Zero Dark Thirty' in many respects, the non plus ultra C.I.A control and influence over hollywood, the 'Hurt Locker's' critical position is dubious. In fact it's worth noting that the C.I.A is so good at this that they are not beyond putting ostensibly damaging material or arguments in their films in order to refute them at a more fundamental level, or coming around to devour them more completely in some other film. As paranoid and wacky as it sounds, the general project of propaganda is a totality spread across the cultural field...

Finally it's worth noting that with the advent of widespread piracy, we have been forced to pay for our films / entertainment in other ways. A pirated movie still delivers its ideological payload, whether or not it's corporate interest determining the cars that feature in the 'Fast and Furious' franchise or the military industrial complex permitting a flock of Ospreys to feature prominently in a scene ...

I'm in the apparent minority of people who thought "The Hurt Locker" was an awful movie.

It probably will be.

The key difference between the Iraq ops and the Vietnam War is the lack of a draft. Iraq wasn't nationally felt the same way Vietnam was; such a film would have its audience, but you're actually lacking the overall cultural zeitgeist that Rambo was able to tap into.

Reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/uZwuTI-V8SI?t=30

As well as Three Kings and Hurt Locker mentioned elsewhere, there's also Jarhead. All great movies.

There was also Green Zone, which was OK.

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