Something to watch tonight: Tuesday 12 November

Civil War (Garland, 2024)

I do try and plan these updates in advance and a couple of weeks ago I saw that Alex Garland’s Civil War was head­ing to loc­al stream­er, Neon, so I thought I should sched­ule it in. It’s not per­fect but it has nev­er been far from my mind since it was in cinemas back in April.

Then the U.S. elec­tion happened and Civil War star­ted to become a meme or a punch­line and I wondered wheth­er now was the best time.

It may not be, but I do want to see it again and would like the editor-in-chief to watch it with me – she’s the brains of the out­fit – so here’s a remind­er of my first opin­ion:

My per­son­al interest in the world of war cor­res­pond­ing and pho­to­journ­al­ism came about thanks to the late Austrian pop star Falco who wrote – along with the Bolland broth­ers who mas­ter­minded his work – a song in 1985 called “Kamikaze Capa”, about the pho­to­graph­er who died in Indochina in 1954.

Robert Capa fam­ously (and pseud­onym­ously) said, “If your pho­to­graphs aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough” and that’s the motto of Kirsten Dunst’s char­ac­ter, Lee Smith, in Alex Garland’s Civil War. She’s a legend of the biz and tyro snap­per Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) attaches her­self to her hop­ing some of the magic will rub off. Smith, and her word­smith part­ner Joel (Wagner Moura), have a plan to head to Washington D.C. where the régime of an embattled pres­id­ent (Nick Offerman) looks to be on its last legs.

Secessionist states, led by California and Texas, are clos­ing in and this might be the last chance to inter­view the man, it is implied, who has caused all this destruction.

Also on the road trip is vet­er­an journ­al­ist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), reluct­antly enga­ging with what he is cer­tain will be a sui­cide mis­sion across the front­line to vis­it a White House that has no love for a free press.

Civil War is an enjoy­able, well-made and often spec­tac­u­lar film that crumbles on closer examination.

The most inter­est­ing thing about it for an audi­ence is the situ­ation and the expert visu­al con­struc­tion of it. But that’s the aspect of the film that Garland is least inter­ested in.

He’s not ter­ribly bothered about the sides, the griev­ances, the right or the wrong, or how it might be that the United States could get there from here. On the road, you can’t really tell the two sides apart, which I sup­pose is a part of Garland’s thes­is. But really, the war is just a semi-plausible situ­ation in which to drop his prot­ag­on­ists and to do some digit­al dis­aster porn.

He is con­cerned about what makes people want to chase wars, like the research­ers in Twister chased storms. All four clearly have their dif­fer­ent reas­ons for being in that car, on that dan­ger­ous jour­ney, but then Garland fails to do any­thing insight­ful with them.

Are these war cor­res­pond­ents her­oes for put­ting their lives on the line? Not espe­cially. There are no self-important speeches about ‘the public’s right to know’.

Where these words and pic­tures will end up is nev­er even men­tioned. There may not be any tra­di­tion­al media left, for all we know. Young Jessie is even shoot­ing her pho­tos on ana­logue film, like a vinyl-loving hipster.

They’re not there for the pub­lic, they are there for themselves.

And the con­clu­sion, when we arrive at it, feels like it has been con­trived as the reas­on the film exists and that Garland has worked back­wards from it, rather than some­thing that hap­pens organ­ic­ally from the char­ac­ters he has created.

Still, you won’t see many bet­ter action set-pieces this year and there’s a grip­ping scene where (an uncred­ited) Jesse Plemons threatens to run away with the whole film.

Also in that 12 April news­let­ter: Late Night With the Devil, anim­ated kids movie The Tiger’s Apprentice, and the excel­lent doc­u­ment­ary, Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in Two Pieces.

Where to watch Civil War

Aotearoa: Streaming on Neon

Australia: Digital rental

Canada and India: Streaming on Prime Video

Ireland and UK: Digital pur­chase only

USA: Streaming on Max

Bonus News!

Still on the sub­ject of pho­to­journ­al­ism, I recom­men­ded this film back in July when it was only avail­able on Mubi but it has now dropped on DocPlay in Aotearoa and Australia – Kirsten Johnson’s Cameraperson:

Documentary cine­ma­to­graph­er Kirsten Johnson has been wit­ness to some of the most extraordin­ary people and events of the last 20 years and in her first film as dir­ect­or she’s pro­duced a remark­able and unique mem­oir prov­ing that she’s as sens­it­ive and sure-footed a dir­ect­or as any of the col­lab­or­at­ors she’s worked along­side. All of the foot­age in Cameraperson was shot for oth­er reas­ons, oth­er pro­jects, but by reas­sembling them (and often extend­ing shots bey­ond the ver­sions that were used for oth­er films) she has cre­ated an immensely power­ful per­son­al nar­rat­ive. It’s a por­trait of the life of an artist but it’s also an involving med­it­a­tion on many dif­fer­ent iter­a­tions of motherhood.