VIDEO: Hollywood War Makers

I haven't viewed this "Hollywood War Makers" video yet, but the title of this page and the texts provided with the video clips at Youtube definitely indicate that JP's film is relevant, complementary. He might not mention movie makers and story writers his film, perhaps only referring to journalistic or "news" media, but both types are used for brainwashing us, dumbing us down, deceiving large or huge numbers of people, promoting criminal wars based on lies that we're supposed to believe to be truths, whitewashing, and so on. So, what he says about journalistic ethics certainly needs to also apply to movie makers and story writers, or simply to all media producing and publishing anything related to war, imperialism, foreign politics supposedly for supporting democracy, and et cetera.

"New Pilger film 'The War You Don't See' currently showing on itv.com"
Nov. 5, 2010

www.johnpilger.com/articles/new-pilger-film-the-war-you-don-t-see-curren...

That page has a link for watching the documentary online for people in the UK, but I'll include links for viewing at other Web sites further below.

In an extraordinary alliance of TV and cinema, John Pilger's new film, 'The War You Don't See', opened in the UK mid-December. Having premiered at The Barbican on Tuesday 7 December 2010, the first Pilger film since 2007 started its UK run at Curzon Soho in London on Sunday 12 December. On Tuesday 14 December, ITV1 broadcast 'The War You Don't See' at 10.35pm. The film is available to watch on the ITV website until 14 January 2011 (UK users only).

The new film is a powerful and timely investigation into the media's role in war, tracing the history of 'embedded' and independent reporting from the carnage of World War One to the destruction of Hiroshima, and from the invasion of Vietnam to the current war in Afghanistan and disaster in Iraq. As weapons and propaganda become even more sophisticated, the nature of war is developing into an 'electronic battlefield' in which journalists play a key role, and civilians are the victims. But who is the real enemy?

John Pilger says in the film: "We journalists... have to be brave enough to defy those who seek our collusion in selling their latest bloody adventure in someone else's country... That means always challenging the official story, however patriotic that story may appear, however seductive and insidious it is. For propaganda relies on us in the media to aim its deceptions not at a far away country but at you at home... In this age of endless imperial war, the lives of countless men, women and children depend on the truth or their blood is on us... Those whose job it is to keep the record straight ought to be the voice of people, not power."

Become a fan of 'The War You Don't See' on Facebook and get regular updates on the film, the latest information on where you can watch it and messages from John Pilger himself. You can also follow the film on Twitter.

'The War You Don't See' will launch in Australia in early 2011 and in the United States in summer 2011, dates will be confirmed on this website.

Directors: John Pilger & Alan Lowery. Editor: Joe Frost. A Dartmouth Films Production.

"Interview with John Pilger"
New Internationalist magazine, Dec. 1, 2010

www.newint.org/features/2010/12/01/john-pilger-interview

John Pilger has clear views about the duty of journalists. True to form, his latest film pulls no punches. He talks to us on the eve of its release.

NI: What’s The War You Don't See about?

JP: The film asks: ‘What is the role of the media in rapacious wars like Iraq and Afghanistan? Why do so many journalists beat the drums of war and not challenge the spin and lies of governments? And how are the crimes of war reported and justified when they are our crimes?’ It’s a film about truth and justice.

In the opening sequence, I refer to David Lloyd George, Britain’s prime minister during much of the First World War, who had a private chat with the editor of The Guardian, CP Scott, at the height of the carnage. ‘If people really knew the truth,’ said Lloyd George, ‘the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don’t know and can’t know.’ My film is about people’s right to know.

It has always seemed odd to me that as journalists we examine people’s professional lives, but not our own. We treasure our myths. Edmund Burke called the press a ‘fourth estate’ that would check the other great institutions of democracy. It was a quintessentially liberal view. It was also romantic nonsense – honourable exceptions aside. Up till the arrival of the corporate press at the turn of the 20th century, newspapers were often fiercely independent and saw themselves as voices of ordinary people. The media – press and broadcasting – has long since become an extension of the established order, and frequently its mouthpiece and valet.

These days, we surely owe it to the public to come clean about the pressures and seductions, crude and subliminal, that subvert our independence. War – the industrial killing of people and the destruction of their society – is the ultimate test. One of my favourite quotations is Claud Cockburn’s: ‘Never believe anything until it’s officially denied.’ I suggest some of us might engrave that on our bathroom mirrors.

What led you to do a film on this theme? Was there a specific trigger for it?

(snip)

The following page at ICH is for viewing the full film in 7 clips, but while it probably isn't lacking any important content, I think that one of the videos linked further below for a single clip of the full film is probably closer to the 97 minutes that the ITV Web site specifies for runtime. ITV.com is where the film can be viewed online in the UK and the exact ITV page is linked in the Nov. 5th article at JP's Web site, so 97 evidently is the officially stated runtime.

"John Pilger - The War You Don't See"
posted Dec. 22, 2010

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27116.htm

It can also be viewed in 7 clips using the following page.

www.youtube.com/results?search_query="John+Pilger+-+The+War+You+Don't+See"+TheMediaCorruption&aq=f

The following are two single-clip copies that are supposed to be complete, but one is a little shorter than the other. Maybe that one doesn't omit anything important and I'm including both links in case one of the two videos gets pulled or does't play for some other reason.

"The War You Don't See" (1:36:42)
anwar2u20, Dec. 17, 2010

www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7wXhN5h_Pg

"The War You Don't See"(1:35:25)
jjvallea99, Dec. 21, 2010

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cJ9ca0ed64

The text with the latter video includes links to Youtube pages for videos of other, earlier documentaries by John Pilger, btw.

Full AlJazeera video:

The following video seems to be the complete "Empire" program that the two clips David Swanson posted, above, were clipped or excerpted from; in case any readers here are interested in viewing the full program.

"Empire - Hollywood and the war machine" (46:58)
AlJazeeraEnglish, Dec. 23, 2010

www.youtube.com/watch?v=v66HM5ILiwk

Re. the Hollywood film, Thirteen Days:

That film, directed by Roger Donaldson and which is about the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, is mentioned in this AlJazeera program and is spoken of as true or very true to history, but anyone interested in the film definitely should read the following review of it, for key historical facts are evidently missing from the film.

"The Cuban missile crisis in historical perspective: some thoughts on the film Thirteen Days"
by Nancy Russell, Feb. 7, 2001

www.wsws.org/articles/2001/feb2001/cuba-f07.shtml

Thirteen Days , directed by Roger Donaldson, written by David Self.

(snip)

The new movie Thirteen Days has an ambitious goal — to recreate what was one of the most dramatic episodes of the Cold War. To his credit, Australian director Roger Donaldson's approach to his film is serious. It is high time for a historical reckoning with this period. Unfortunately, the film fails to cast a critical eye on the role of the Kennedys, US policy on Cuba, or Washington's foreign policy in general.

The viewer ends up relieved that the world squeaked by, but not too disturbed about our future course. While it is a film that should be widely viewed, one hopes that some movie-goers will take it as a starting point to delve into the history and transcend in their understanding the one-sided picture of the crisis presented on-screen.

(snip)

One cannot leave the screening without shuddering at the thought of an unchecked military brass, or a civilian regime that provided greater latitude to the social and political types who inhabit such positions as the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Air Force General Curtis LeMay (Kevin Conway) is shown as the fascistic advocate of nuclear war that he was. (This is a man who commanded the firebombing raids against Japan in World War II, killing over 100,000 people. Later he was to advocate bombing North Vietnam “back to the Stone Age.”)

Even here, the film somewhat tones down the facts. In the actual transcript of the ExComm discussions, LeMay's contempt for Kennedy's reluctance to risk nuclear war is more graphic. He declares at one point, “This blockade and political action I see leading into war. I don't see any other solution. It will lead right into war. This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich.”[2]

Thirteen Days does depict LeMay in common company with Maxwell Taylor (Bill Smitrovich) and the other military officials who are continually bordering on insubordination in their demands for a free rein against Cuba. Kennedy later quipped (in the transcript, not the film), “The military are mad. They wanted to do this [invade]. It's lucky for us that we have [Secretary of Defense] McNamara over there,” referring to McNamara's role in reining in the brass. Also omitted from the film is this statement by Secretary of State Dean Rusk during the first day of deliberations: “So I think we have to think very hard about two major courses of action as alternatives. One is the quick strike.... Or we're going to decide that this is the time to eliminate the Cuban problem by actually eliminating the island.”[3]

The film's positive elements — its general adherence to the factual development of the crisis as played out in the White House, and its strong evocation of the period — are, however, overshadowed by the fact that this is a political film with severe limitations. In the end, one feels that Costner & Co. aim to contrast America's “great presidents” of yesterday with their lesser counterparts of today. We are shown a Camelot-like portrait of decisive and intelligent men, who despite massive pressure — from the Joint Chiefs, Congress and senior statesmen — stand firm and prevent a nuclear holocaust. This has an element of truth, but it is only part of the story.

To understand the Cuban missile crisis, one requires a correct perspective. The film's vantage point, portraying a dispute within the confines of the White House, cannot elucidate the interests of the working class. The men we watch in this film represent not the American people, but the American bourgeoisie. The Kennedys are no exception. Nuclear brinkmanship was a key component of US foreign policy in 1962. This was not just bravado: it was only 17 years after the most brutal and destructive act of war in history, the US nuclear incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Unfortunately, the film rather predictably portrays the Kennedys as the selfless advocates of reason, without a look back at the overall role they and the American government played.

While the actions with regard to Cuba of both the US and USSR were criminally reckless and reactionary, the basic geopolitical facts and preponderance of power must be understood to assess responsibility for the events of October 1962. In the aftermath of World War II, the United States exercised unchallenged economic, political and military supremacy over two-thirds of the planet. The European states were bankrupted and compelled to liquidate their colonial empires. The US took on the role of world policeman against the working class in the advanced countries as well as the semi-colonial masses. The Cold War expressed the unrelenting military and economic pressure that the US exerted against the Soviet Union in its drive to reconquer those territories that had been lost to capitalism.

In that context, the Kennedy administration sought to provide a measure of reform, not so much for its own sake, but in order to make the hegemonic control of the United States more palatable, especially in light of the challenge from popular, radical regimes like that of Castro in Cuba. The new administration's initiative, the Alliance for Progress, for example, aimed to create conditions for economic aid and political reform in Latin American countries.

Operation Mongoose: the backdrop to the missile crisis

While all of the history we are reviewing here could not be encapsulated in a film such as Thirteen Days, it is nevertheless significant that the film makes only one cursory allusion to the US's counterinsurgency operations against Cuba. This can rightfully be described as a political cover-up, and it makes it impossible for the filmgoer to properly understand the events of October 1962.

The American government's obsession with Castro began with the 1959 Cuban Revolution. (More generally, the US considered Latin America a US preserve since the days of the Monroe Doctrine, and in the aftermath of World War II the US held undisputed sway on the continent.)

(snip)

There's a lot more in that evidently excellent and [educational] review.

Other films referred to in the Empire program:

Redacted

This Empire program also refers to a 2007-released film directed and written by Brian De Palma and it's entitled, "Redacted". The following review for this film is very good, explaining what the film lacks, its weaknesses, while also saying what's good.

"Redacted: Outraged but schematic"
by Sandy English, Nov. 26, 2007

www.wsws.org/articles/2007/nov2007/reda-n26.shtml

Green Zone

Michael Moore considerably speaks about the 2010-released film entitled, "Green Zone", and he speaks of it quite favorably, but the WSWS review, below, explains why it's not even a really recommendable film; except, perhaps, for purely entertainment. Roger Ebert, rogerebert.suntimes.com, rated this film 4 of 4 stars and says that the film has "characters and situations that have uncanny real-life parallels", but he also says it's a [thriller], while IMDB also does not refer to this film as anything documentary-like, only classifying it as action, drama, thriller and war. But, referring to it as Michael Moore did near the end of the full AlJazeera Empire program could leave many people with the impression that the film is very reflective of the truth and the following WSWS review explains that it is definitely not.

"Green Zone: Some very belated questions timidly posed"
by Jane Stimmen, March 19, 2010

www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/gree-m19.shtml