“Sure, ‘The Hurt Locker’ was a compelling profile of a horrible, though heroic, job — dismantling bombs. And more generally, fighting wars is a horrible, thankless occupation pushed on our young men and women. But anything deeper on war and peace, Hollywood fails to provide. Yes, the adrenaline rush and even addiction that war forces on young men is an interesting angle. But, as one war veteran commented, he did no know anyone who preferred that addiction to wife and son. “
That from fellow FPA blogger Roger Scher, who is critical of the kind of movies being produced in Hollywood today. Here’s more from his latest blog entry: “What about a film of counter-history of what the world would be like with Saddam Hussein still in power? How many dead then? What about the fragile democracy slowly taking root in Iraq, what would oppression in Iraq look like today under Saddam by contrast? What would the civil war in Germany have looked like if the allies had intervened in 1936 when Hitler re-militarized the Rhineland? Maybe 100,000 Germans dead in a nasty civil war instead of the 60 million who died as a result of WWII, including the genocide of 6 million Jews and millions of Gypsies and other enemies of the Reich. What would that film have been like? More fanciful than ‘Avatar?’ Certainly more interesting.”
Scher’s entire post can be found here.
Murphy can be reached at: [email protected]
