toddly6666

I read Ian Jane's DVD review of Rescue Dawn at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=31126 and...

An okay flick, but it just seemed like an American propaganda film. I just don't understand why it was made now and released now. Can anyone explain?

FinkPish

How exactly is it an American propaganda film?

MrE

... especially since it was made by a German director? Based on a documentary by the same director.

toddly6666

1. americans are all good. god bless america message throughout film.
2. asians are all violent killing villains
3. hero still wants to be part of military after whole fiasco
4. the massive celebration for one soldier returning home

I understand that this movie is a period piece, I just don't understand why it was released now with all the political crap going on. What is the meaning of this film besides its "never give up surviving" surface theme? Besides my negative interpretation of it being a propaganda film, I could also positively interpret this movie of the director showing how US Soldiers "used to be positively treated" by the usa govt. And then things changed near the half of Vietnam War, where US soldiers had been getting screwed and not getting support by their own govt., which is how it is up to present time. I thought that this movie was like a final sample of "good ol' black and white faithful america" right before USA became very grey. I thought that the sketchy, investigative "suits" at the end of the film were representative of the "new Americans - who gives a crap about anyone else in the world or even each other". So in this interpretation, I thought that the director just wants to rub it in the faces of the US govt of how we used to care about each other and others around the world.

bluetoast

Correction: It was made in 2005 and released now.

That's funny. I thought they were representative of their real life counterparts, seeing as how this was a real story. Not to mention that there are always "suits" involved in situations involving secret missions. What about that Allied Nations suit in Street Fighter who instructed Guile to stop the invasion of Bison's palace? That could be been seen as a foreshadowing of the U.S. ignoring the U.N.'s advice in 2003.

I mean come on, this isn't like the camera pan to the WTC in Munich or anything.

mike2

This movie took forever to come out...it kept getting delayed. So who's going to pick it up? I'm not too sure yet...i'll prolly see how it is on netflix and then take it from there. A critic said "slow until the very end" he was right it wasn't too interesting until the very end. I did like bales performance and zahn wow very impressive...so i may just pick it up for those reasons. Bale needs to get a nomination.

toddly6666

Any pro-American military movie released post-9/11/Afgan War/Iraqi War will be interpreted as US propaganda.

FinkPish

1. The movie is about an American soldier. One of his American compatriots double crosses him in his escape.
2. The North Vietnamese were the enemies to the Americans during the Vietnam War.
3. That's his choice and it was true to the real life story.
4. Should they not celebrate a friend escaping from certain death?

You are thinking too hard about this movie in terms of current political context.

Josh Z

So are you claiming that the movie is pro-American propaganda or anti-American propaganda?

toddly6666

I hope it's anti-american propaganda!

I thought that the only type of acceptable USA war movie released nowadays is a film like Flags of Our Father or a Vietnam film like The Quiet American. I don't think it would be appropriate to release a film like Saving Private Ryan right now. I think that Rescue Dawn would have been a good release in 1998 or earlier but not now.

Look at it this way. Pretend you are a non-American watching Rescue Dawn. How would you interpret the release of this film being aware/disappointed with the current political situation of USA involvement in other country affairs?

FinkPish

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

toddly6666

Well, I would like to believe that a cigar is just a cigar. I wish the year was 1985 when I saw this movie, but I felt uncomfortable watching this film in a time like now.

What's a war propaganda film then? Just big budget hollywood popcorn ones? Not independant, critically-aclaimed ones directed by a German who lives in USA? If Americans are upset with the Iraqi war and if other nations are upset with America, then what kind of war propaganda film could be made in order to show how great USA is and to convince people that joining the USA military is great?

FinkPish

If this were a fictional account of something that happened in Vietnam, I would probably be right with you in thinking the film had some ulterior motive, but that's not the case. This is based on a true story and the director has already made a documentary about the exact same story.

I personally don't see any political undertones in this film; I see it more about the human spirit and the will to survive. This story could have happened in any war with a POW; this one just happened to take place during the Vietnam War. And watching this film would never induce me to join the military, in fact it would push me farther from joining.

toddly6666

FinkPish,
I hope so, and I hope this film is not perceived as US propaganda in other countries.

What if a Pat Tillman biopic would be released in theaters right now? Propaganda or not propaganda? If it focuses on the friendly-fire controversy, then it would be a good anti-war flick. If it didn't and just focused on a real hero that served his country and died fighting "terrorists," then it would be a propaganda flick.

FinkPish

Who cares what people in other countries think of this movie? Does that make you change your opinion of it, thinking that people in another country might think of it as propaganda? Or are you afraid that this film might somehow provoke some other government? I don't see your point.

As for the Pat Tillman biopic, I think it would depend on how it was handled. I think it would be almost impossible to make a film about a current war without injecting some sort of political statement into it, from either one side or the other. But I don't think the only choices for a film have to be propaganda or not propaganda. If that's the only way you are viewing things, you need to take a step back.

Paul Mavis

"Appropriate" and "acceptable" art by your standards and political viewpoints, you mean. Your statement suggests there's some kind of concensus that America today is a country that shouldn't put out anything pro-military or pro-America, for fear of offending "non-Americans." I can assure you about half the country doesn't feel that way, probably more. Despite the extreme left's willingness to paint all Democrats and liberals as fundamentally unpatriotic and decidedly anti-military, I don't buy it.

And in fact, if you posed your thesis in the form of a question in as slanted a manner as most polls in the media are presented -- "Do you think America should censor its own movies and art so as not to offend "non-Americans" -- you can bet the percentage would be higher than 50%.

toddly6666

No one has answered my question yet - how would you make a current USA pro-military propaganda film (not starring a wrestler such as John Cena, haha), especially to the half or even a minority of the USA population who didn't vote for Bush. (A pro-American military/war film will not be a propaganda film for a Republican).

So are there "fear of offending a non-american" films AND "propaganda" films?

FinkPish

I don't even know what your argument is anymore. What is a "fear of offending a non-american" film?

Paul Mavis

Seriously, that statement makes no sense. First of all, there are all kinds of interpretations and definitions of what constitutes a "propaganda film."

And second, you obviously don't know much about Republicans, either, to make such a blanket, generalized statement.

toddly6666

I was just trying to say if a pro-american military film is not considered a propaganda film, but actually considered "uncensored art which may offend", then what is a military propaganda film? For every pro-military film, can't it be rationalized as "uncensored art which may offend?"

Paul Mavis, you know im only talking about military propaganda films. So can you give me an example of what would be a current "pro-military USA film" that would be a military propaganda film?

I'm talking about pro-war Republicans.

BravesMG

So we should blow up some American soldiers and all American officials should be the guys in the black hats smoking cigarettes?

I'm with the others, I don't have a clue what you're arguing any more. It seems like a terrible contextual comparison between the Vietnam era and the present.

E.D.

This is a ridiculous statement. How would it be "inappropriate" if Saving Private Ryan were released now as opposed to 1998 (or whenever it was released)? The movie is about World War II. Frankly I'd pissed if they stopped making certain movies just because some people thought that the current political climate was too divided. And that's not to say I think that that particular movie is a great movie or anything, but there's no reason why filmmakers shouldn't be able to make the movie they want to make. You seem to have tried to generate some sort of an intellectual debate over something that's based on an illogical premise. I can't believe you'd support censoring certain movies just because you thought they were too politically charged. That's like the people who argued for delaying certain action movies right after 9/11 (Swarzenegger's "Collateral Damage" comes to mind) just because people claimed that seeing movies with explosions or airplanes would upset people. That argument wasn't justified then and it's certainly not justified now.

Josh Z

This thread is getting way off track. Here's what it really boils down to:

In 1997, Werner Herzog made a documentary called "Little Dieter Needs to Fly". He made the documentary because he'd met Dieter Dengler, thought he was an interesting guy, and felt that his story would make a good documentary.

Someone in Hollywood saw the documentary and thought, "Hey, this could make a great studio picture if we put a couple of stars in it", and bought the rights. Herzog got involved in discussions about the project and, fearing that some Hollywood hack would screw it up and desecrate the real story by turning it into a stupid Rambo action movie, manged to get attached as director.

The movie isn't really about politics at all. It's about the same themes Herzog has worked with throughout his career: man's struggle against nature and man's struggle against himself. Dengler is a classic Herzogian obsessive character in the same vein as Aguirre or Fitzcarraldo. The point is made very clear in the movie that Dengler doesn't care about politics or about the war. He just wants to fly, and he'll join the army and do anything they ask if they let him pilot a plane.

toddly6666

So no one can give an example of how a current American propaganda film would be made today? There has been a war going on for years, US military has a low image from within and outside, and people here are saying that there are no USA pro-military propaganda films? Furthermore, who decided that a current American military propaganda film would have to be about the military of today? A film director can do a film about any war from the past or the future (sci-fi) to be interpreted as a metaphor of current times. Yes, the Dieter's events are fact, but Rescue Dawn is still a fairy tale for little soldier boys. The leader of our country makes descisions influenced by fairy tales (Bible) which he considers fact as well.

If Dieter wanted to fly so bad, aren't there other ways of flying a plane without bombing someone? It's the same as saying "I like to shoot guns, so I'm going to join the military and go kill, instead of joining a shooting range club." In the movie, and I assume it's in the book, Dieter envied the fighter pilot dropping bombs on him as a kid. That seems a little sick, because he wanted to be in the same situation as the pilot and hope that people getting bombed were envying him as well. He could have said "wow, when that pilot looked me right in my eyes, right then i wanted to be a pilot too..." but not a war pilot!

I guess I should read the book to find out why Dieter wanted to fly planes for military and not civilian planes.

FinkPish

What the fuck are you on about? Did you not take your meds?

OK, just to give you something to chew on. An example for a pro-military propaganda film would be Starship Troopers, assuming you were to completely ignore the tongue-in-cheek aspect of it. It's a gung-ho "let's kill 'em all" patriotism up the ass movie that loves the military and war and everything that goes with it.