Comment - Alex Garland's 'Civil War' (2024)
When the marketing department misses the mark. And the importance of photojournalism.
It was never about a civil war and the collapse of modern America. It's about war photography and photojournalism.
Like many people, I went to see the film on the big screen spurred by the title and trailer. I had read some commentary about how having the lead characters be war photographers worked perfectly for the story, which also interested me - because my first interest in visual art came when I was 7 years old, looking at an image of the man standing in front of a tank on Tiananmen Square, on June 5th, 1989. I asked my mother “Why didn’t they just run the man over?”. She replied “Because they knew cameras were watching”. That’s when I learnt the camera has power.
It’s not that the characters in Alex Garland’s latest release happen to be war photographers. The film is about them. And hence the disappointment of many who went to the movies hoping to see a study - or simulation - of how the current political and cultural situation in the U.S. could unfold into a full fledged civil war, something that some political leaders have been “warning” (or more accurately threatening) could happen.
Not that those audiences can be blamed for their expectations. They’ve been misled. The trailer alone makes it look like a rip-roaring action packed political thriller, something reminiscent of a Tom Clancy adaptation such as Patriot Games (1992) or The Sum Of All Fears (2002) (still to this day highly underrated and a brilliant forewarning, 20 years prior, in regards to where we stand today).
Though the tagline on the U.S. English-language poster, and the French equivalent, is Welcome To The Frontline, the Polish version states Soon The World We Know Will End. That’s one hell of a misfire.
Instead, audiences found themselves confronted with a road movie peppered with conversation about what it takes to become a photo journalist, the ethics, the struggles and the responsibilities of the job.
It took me about a third of the way through to come to that realisation; by that point with no information as to what happened politically, why the situation was as it was. The value of the dollar is meaningless, California and Texas have joined forces as rogue states against the rest of the country, the President is in a third term and apparently a militia are on their way to oust him,… So many questions! No answers, and little context. And then the lightbulb realisation.
Once I shifted that perspective, I started to enjoy it a lot more.
Even the title is misleading. It’s literally called Civil War! I guess Photographers’ Road Trip wouldn’t quite cut it…? Some commentators were asking whether the film is cashing in on the current political atmosphere. Yes, yes it definitely is! But I wouldn’t call that an abuse of the current political status. It’s just doing what every good bit of art does, which is tapping into the zeitgeist. It’s also the marketing department’s job, to entice audiences to buy tickets.
But I do think the trailer took it a step too far. As a side note, I remember the lady who went to see the Ryan Gosling-starring Drive only to take legal action asking for her money back because she thought she was going to see a car chase movie!
That’s not to say the film didn’t grant me any surprises - the final act is absolutely spectacular; heart-pumping, dark, and very, very loud. Not in a comic-book hero vs. villain kind of way. More like, “Welcome to the frontline” kind of way, visceral and placing you in a first person perspective. I was glad I went to the cinema to see this, and it deserves a revisit just to see those final 20 minutes on the big screen again.
A quick thought on photojournalism
One of the markers of a successful and well-functioning democracy is the freedom of the press, and its ability to report without intervention from either the State nor from financial-political interests. One of journalism’s roles, like the courts, is to hold power to account. We continuously see how governments and political institutions seek to undermine the power and value of the press, because of course when criticised and exposed, politicians hesitate to carry on doing what they want outside of representing their communities, outside of the law, and outside of common ethics.
And that’s why the press deserves our attention.
There’s a great line in Civil War, Kirsten Dunst mutters, something about “All the places I’ve been and I’ve sent photos back here, I thought I was warning people, ‘Don’t do this’”. If we don’t pay attention to the images, to the stories, that are being told to us; we risk falling into the same chaos and despair we see in seemingly ‘far away lands’ that are in fact right at our doorstep.
Another instance in my childhood, this time in my teens, was reading about the death of South African photojournalist Kevin Carter. The man took such devastating images, and the things he had seen drove him to suicide, at the young age of 33 - four months after winning the Pulitzer Prize for photography. He captured some of the world’s most haunting images, his most famous one that of a vulture waiting for a starving Sudanese girl to die.
I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain… of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners…
— Kevin Carter’s suicide letter
The ethics of photographing whilst not getting involved, standing aside and not attempting to help, the importance of objectivity in that role, always fascinated me. To this day it’s a debate raging in my mind.
If you’re interested in the subject, there’s a great documentary I recommend about Don McCullin, titled simply McCullin (2012), an insightful portrait of one of the world’s greatest photo journalists talking about his experiences.
What movies have you seen that completely disappointed - even angered - you, based on expectations brought on by the trailers and posters?