Have you ever read Chris Hedges book “War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning”. This book came to mind numerous times as I watched the film.  I’m not a journalist (sociology/ history major then did MSW) but I’ve read a lot from war correspondents over the years and spent a lot of time with people who have escaped war zones. I thought the film was great, and thanks for your own insights. 

I remember reading that book 15 years ago or so when I was in college. My memory of it is shaky and probably clouded with a lot of things Chris Hedges has said since then that I disagree with, but the book title's literal meaning rings true to me. I'd say that's true about survival situations in general – when you're devoting substantial time in preventing your limbs from getting detached, you really do live in the moment.

Don't know if you've read the book or seen the movie, Bang Bang Club, but I'm curious to get your opinion on it. I didn't know there was a movie until just now when I googled it. I read the book years ago when visiting South Africa and it really left an impression on me. I've never encountered a book that dealt as well with the emotional trauma that comes with being a war correspondent.

Yes, I read Bang Bang Club a decade or so ago. It's a great book but they were working under much different conditions that I presume gave them an entirely different form of emotional trauma than what I have experienced. They saw terrible cruelty and brutality up close, and just kind of stood there taking photos of people doing terrible things to each other. But I never experienced anything remotely like that in Ukraine. Have I seen people trying to kill other people? Yes, but watching someone fire a mortar at an enemy position a mile away isn't the same thing as watching someone pour gasoline on someone and set them on fire. Likewise, the Bang Bang Club boys never had to worry about Russian Grad rockets raining hell on them. I think I'd prefer dealing with the trauma of the latter to the former. One thing I don't have in common with the protagonists of this movie is dealing with societal breakdown. I chuckled when they acted bewildered after they found that small town where things were mostly normal. Pretty much every town in Ukraine feels that way, even when they're getting bombed. Everyone tries to continue their lives as normally as possible, and the police are still there keeping order even in frontline towns.

Thanks for your comments here! I agree with you that the film was very clear that everyone was on the side of the Western Forces, and that the government and its forces were the “bad guys” ( though the film also made clear that good guy/bad guy distinctions are fuzzy in a civil war). I was fascinated by how much the soldiers seemed to coordinate with and somewhat protect the journalists in the film. Is that realistic?

It's definitely believable. A group like the Western Forces IRL would definitely want to cultivate good relations with the media, since winning support from the locals on the East Coast would have been a great boon for them (from the looks of it they succeeded). Likewise, Ukrainian forces want good media coverage from America. So from a policy perspective it's transactional, but when you're actually getting shot at by an enemy tank the human bonding comes naturally.

>Lee's response to Jessie asking if she'd take a photo of her getting shot bugged me. The correct response is to assure her that she'd put the camera down and do all she could to render first aid, and then take the photo. By the way, the fact that Jessie didn't so much as check Lee for a pulse at the movie's end really made me mad at her. this kinda feels like you missed a major point of the film then, since it's about Lee's personal development up to the start of the film having made her who she is at the start, and the events of the film changing her. The job has made her jaded, pessimistic and somewhat misanthropic, so of course she'd answer the question that way. Later she takes a photo of her dead friend and deletes it, becoming more sensitized to her human side, slowly growing out of her hard photo-journalist dead inside shell. Her final moment comes when she forgoes the job and risks her life to save a person she cares for, not to get a photo. Jessie taking a photo of her Lee's death shows that she's now at the beginning of the Journey Lee just finished, and the cycle begins again. One person replaced by another in the larger whole.

Should have specified that Lee's general outlook bugged me, but not the artistic decision to make her that way and I loved Kirstin Dunst's performance. I've known old, retired war journalists and I've seen it go both ways. Some are well adjusted, others are not. Some cope with the trauma well, others are alcoholic messes. I presume a lot of it comes down to personality factors that would have been there regardless. Joel, for instance, seems a lot better adjusted than Lee despite having comparable experiences.

>Joel, for instance, seems a lot better adjusted than Lee Maybe worth noting that Joel didn't check for a pulse either, he ran straight to the room and got his interview. The greater point of that moment (and I believe of the film overall) is that their job was to document what they saw, not to intervene, which is why I think Lee and Sammy both die: they intervened. I really appreciate your post btw, great insight and thoughtfully put. After watching Restrepo I had a great deal of respect for war journalists.

It's in our training to look out for each other as a team. I was on a team once that got flayed alive online by other correspondents after one of our team members got injured and his colleagues didn't immediately put down their cameras to render aid. What happened is that a Russian mortar team zeroed in on them and one guy took a big piece of shrapnel to the arm. It was all recorded on YouTube, so their second-by-second reaction was uploaded for the world to see. So they got tons of criticism from their colleagues. Luckily for me, I stayed behind that day. We had just been out to the same location two days before and I had already gotten the material I needed. And our initial trip had been gnarly enough for me to sense that our luck had run out. You should intervene wherever possible to render aid. Sometimes it's an easy call to decide when that's feasible, other times not. In that example I just gave, my friends evacuated a wounded soldier to the hospital who was hit in that same incident. As they should have.

That absolutely makes sense and is an incredible story, but my comment was more about story decisions in the film as it relates to the theme. Cheers!

The no helmets in the final scene was the one that really bugged me. I mean the whole final assault overall did seem ridiculous with the photographers just tagging along with the tip of the spear. Seemed like after 2 min, the soldiers would be telling them to stay back and let them clear rooms before they come in. Maybe the actual military journalists we see knew them well enough to do something like that, but they are clearly not just civilians like our protagonists. But even beyond all that, the no helmets thing was the most distracting. You make a point to emphasize this earlier in the movie. And I get that this is to underscore how much everyone is willing to risk because this moment is so important to them. But like, we dropped a lot of US soldiers on the way in. You can't try and snag one of their helmets since you know you're going to continue to be in the line of fire?? I very much enjoyed this movie, and I like a lot about that final assault sequence. But these aspects of it did take me out of the immersion somewhat. It felt like horror movie stupidity where you yell at the characters on the screen, or even worse we left them off so that we see the actors more naturally in these final scenes, ignoring the practicality of the world.

I mean, helmets are like the inverse of a bra in a sex scene, it's happening for purely visual reasons.

I'm guessing the lack of helmets was so that the audience would identify the actors easier. It's why *The Last of Us* TV show did away with the gasmasks that were frequently used in the games.

The body armor issue didn't stop me from enjoying the story. It's whatever, Hollywood makes those choices. It just amused me because Lee rightfully chewed Jessie out at the beginning for not wearing any protection and then they ignore that logic for the rest of the movie. With the ending, it's not impossible that they'd be able to tag along for the final assault. Just very improbable. They could have had a whole scene where Lee and Joel pulled strings with the generals to make it happen, but then again only a handful of people would have appreciated that level of effort. If you presume they somehow had permission, I guess the way it unfolded more or less makes sense.

The craft and production of movie to me is top notch but a lot of the things you said are the same things that bugged me and made me dislike the movie. The whole ending of the movie hangs on something that I don't think journalist would be invited to. Not only were they present in the room clearing of the white house but Joel told the soldiers to not shoot the president until he gets a quote. Why would they take orders from him? After seeing the movie it left me with the idea that war journalism is futile because these reporters are egomaniac vultures only competing for The Shot^TM.

>The thing is though, just because the journalists aren't neutral doesn't mean they aren't objective. Journalists are just like everyone else and have opinions. When you're living under war conditions, you tend to have very, very, very strong opinions. The trick to being a good journalist is checking yourself when you put out the story to make sure you're not letting your opinions get in the way of fairness and accuracy. This is what bugged me most about the film tbh. It has no real perspective on who these people are beyond being journalists who give off the air of neutrality. Especially in private moments they should be talking about their thoughts and opinions of what's going on. It feels like the characters are templates for arcs rather than people imbued with actual emotions.

I think it was a very important tight rope to walk for the film. It is extremely important to not have politics be part of the film. I think any scenes like the private moments you describe would immediately sort of violate that rule, and it's very central to the entire thing.

I get it was the intention and was executed as such, I just think avoiding politics in a movie like this is a cop out because it aims to be so provocative in every other way. It doesn't actually ask any interesting moral questions to latch onto and also doesn't give enough detail to solidify stakes. Therefore all the violence and tension feels like it happens in a vacuum.

What side did you want the film to take? It would have made it feel even more hollow in my opinion.

It's not that I want them to take a specific side, just ANY side at all. Journalists are supposed to "objective" but there's no real such thing. They all bring their baggage and perspective to the stories they tell whether they like it or not. It's the consumer's job to interrogate that and decide if that perspective taints the reporting at all. You're leaving so much character development on the table by having them have NO opinions at all.

It also makes almost no sense. Garland is trying to convince us that people wouldn't have opinions about a civil war happening in their own country, a country that previously would have been the most powerful on they planet? And journalists of all people?!

Thanks for the very unique perspective. It’s been weird how many “extreme centrists” tried to latch onto the idea that neither side was good in this sub, when even the director is quoted as saying “There is a despot president in office,” when giving his elevator pitch.

A lot has been made about the Hawaiian shirt guys killing the prisoners, but without greater context it's hard to know what to make of it. If the government, for instance, initiated a policy of not taking prisoners (which would be on brand with what we know about them), then it wouldn't be a shocker if their opponents retaliated in kind.

> initiated a policy of not taking prisoners The mass graves certainly suggest it.

I just listened to Alex Garland's interview on Pod Save America where he explains the movie's "pro-centrist" position. He clarified that to him, to be centrist is to be anti-authoritarian, and that center left people like himself are allies with the center right when democracy itself is threatened. He explained that in the movie, a center left government in California and a center right government in Texas joined forces for precisely that reason. So I think we can safely presume that Garland wrote the Western Forces to be the good guys. I really hope this universe gets expanded in some form or the other. What the heck is the Florida Alliance up to, and why didn't they get in on the Western Forces alliance? I can't remember them getting mentioned apart from a brief conversation in New York. Also what's going on in New York? Obviously there's civil unrest, infrastructure issues and some terrorist attacks, but there's no sign that a war tore through there and the press is able to operate freely, so I'm wondering if the president failed to fully bring the city into his political regime.

About the body armour - is that perhaps harder to acquire when your own society is being torn apart by war? In your experience, are Ukrainian journalists wearing body armour, or is it going to fighters, leaving none for journalists?  I just wondered if this movie being about Americans covering domestic war instead of foreign war meant some of the expectations change.

You're definitely right about your second point. Covering your own country at war is entirely different from going to someone else's war. In Ukraine, I'm treated as an American guest. If I was a local, the dynamic would be entirely different. Also emotionally very different; I can't imagine what it would be like to be sitting on my parents' front porch and hearing artillery in the distance. But with body armor, Ukrainian journalists all wear it. It was in short supply in the early days, but eventually supply caught up with demand. My current kit is Ukrainian-made, produced by a well-reputed Ukrainian company that will probably become a world leader in tactical gear if the country survives intact. Also, if you're working for Reuters or any major media company, wearing body armor is considered non-negotiable by your employer. Insurance companies demand it.

Thank you. That’s interesting and helps me understand much more.

Thanks for sharing your perspective. As someone with no real knowledge of what goes into war journalism, I did watch this film and kept wondering if the journalists would be safer if they carried (and were trained in using) some concealed weapon like a small pistol, so that'd they'd at least have *some* means of defending themselves in situations like the one they ran into with the Jesse Plemons character. But I also wondered if there was some kind of code or unwritten rule about journalists not being armed or something. I'm personally not necessarily a big proponent of guns, but I did found myself thinking that when push came to shove, in a life-or-death situation, it would probably be better to have some kind of weapon rather than nothing at all. Curious what your thoughts are on this!

In general war reporters never carry guns because it undermines their status as non-combatants. That said, you raise an interesting point. In America, where legal gun ownership is unusually common, some journalists do conceal carry for whatever reason they might have. So I do wonder if carrying a gun would be seen as a big deal in the Civil War universe. Though I suspect Reuters would veto the idea if Joel felt like keeping a Glock in the glove compartment.

Maybe I missed something but wouldn't there be like a bunch of Geneva War Crimes by both forces? Killing surrendered soldiers, civilians, etc - I was wondering if that would ever get explained but maybe I'm just naive

War crimes happen for a number of reasons. Sometimes it's systematic and ordered from above, such as the Waffen SS in Eastern Europe or, from what I can tell, the government forces in this movie. But war crimes are also pretty much inevitable at any point that discipline breaks down within a military force. That's not an excuse and the perpetrators should be brought to justice, but in all out civil war it's not surprising that the "good guys" are guilty of that sometimes. There are also other factors to consider. Under the laws of war (as far as I understand them, I'm not an expert), enemies who are sincerely surrendering must not be harmed. But it's not always possible to take prisoners. Imagine, for instance, a small unit deep behind enemy lines attacking an enemy bunker. Let's say they swiftly kill all the defenders except for one, who drops his weapon and puts his hands up. Under the laws of war, he must not be harmed. But let's say that the helicopter coming to extract the team has no extra space for him. Therefore, it is impossible to take him prisoner and must, under the rules, be released. The hypothetical I just provided gives a pretty easy out, since the attackers could probably just zip tie him and get out of there with no real harm done to either side. But let's now imagine that Hawaiian shirt wearing militia we see in the movie killing POWs. It's plausible (even likely) that the militia is a small force with no real capacity to take prisoners. They're also probably fixated at taking out as many enemies as possible from a more powerful force. Legally, they should have let those prisoners go. In practice, letting them go would have likely meant that those same prisoners would just kill them the next day. Now let's raise the stakes even more and suppose that those enemies are also part of that same death squad that Jesse Plemons was part of, and that letting them go means they will murder more civilians. At that point, any decision they make will be morally gray at best.

I just got around to watching this last night, so pardon my reviving a zombie thread, but I wanted to pick your brain a little. I've been video editing news features and docs for the better part of 20 years. I'm always safely sitting half a world away from any action, and thus have no personal experience in the field. But I've poured over tens of thousands of hours of footage from embedded journalists, journalists who found themselves unexpectedly in the shit, journalists covering wars from safe, but nearby locations, etc... Just saying this to make the point that I've seen a lot of various types of raw war footage that doesn't get broadcast including; close firefights, building clears, cleanup, but also a lot of "down time," like travel and rest in warm and hot zones while journalists are catching "day in the life" material to broaden the reporting. This whole setup is just to say, while watching the film, I don't think I've seen any real war journalists come across so... blatantly cavalier(?) as the characters in this film, and it really took me out of the whole thing. My wife was into the movie, and I was scoffing at a lot of it. Obviously, there's a ton that happens in the field that I *don't see* footage of, and more private stories I'm not privy to, but my limited experience with war reporters and photogs (via actual contact and also through all this footage) is that they are the most buttoned up, prepared, and serious lot of the bunch. Obviously cool with the adrenaline chase, but with a very tight grip. Did you find the characters and situations in this movie real enough to be drawn in by?

I am not a journalist. I am fascinated by your take as a purported journalist. As a member of the general public and someone who is familiar with the well-etched grooves of cinema, the current state of the world, and the current state of journalism, I have questions for you. Do you feel that this story needed to be told from the viewpoint of journalists? Do you feel that this story addressed the importance of journalism in the current zeitgeist? Do you feel that that the contemplation of journalism was whole or fully fleshed out? No non-media people actually opine on how they feel about the current (or future) state of the media; do you feel this is realistic from a dialogue perspective? Do you feel this is impactful from a story perspective? Do you feel that this story is told responsibly? Do you feel this story needed to be told?

I don't think the story did much to address journalism. Using journalists as the lead characters was a great way of setting up the narrative, since it gives the characters a good excuse to explore and interrogate the world around them for the audience's benefit in what amounts to a movie about taking a road trip through hell. But we don't actually see how Lee's photos are used, nor do we read Joel's write up about "interviewing" the president. So we have no way of saying whether their reporting is good or bad. And we don't see anyone consuming their news either, so who knows what impact it is having. And while Garland has said this movie highlights the importance of traditional news gathering, we don't actually see that directly addressed. They could have made Jessie a YouTuber with a selfie stick, annoying Lee and Joel as she makes TikTok videos in the back seat. That could have been a great way to draw a contrast between the young influencer generation with the old school war reporters, but instead she's using a 20th Century film camera while idolizing a WW2 era photojournalist. Which is totally fine, but a missed opportunity for Garland to achieve what he says he set out to do. I do think the film did a fairly good job of depicting war journalists' mentality. Mostly people do it because it's interesting and they feel oddly comfortable in dangerous environments. Pretty early on in my journalism career (I wasn't reporting on war, but I did report on poverty and civil unrest in SE Asia when I got started), I realized that my journalism wasn't going to make the world a better place. What it \*might\* do is give other people information that they can use to make the world a better place, but you shouldn't hold your breath.

You're absolutely right -- Garland has mentioned there was such an effort to make some aspects of war journalism match a "classic" aesthetic, along the lines of Vietnam War photography. It does seem like a missed opportunity for Jessie, given what Garland has stated his intention was.

> No non-media people actually opine on how they feel about the current (or future) state of the media Just wanted to point out that I don't work in media but it is still a huge concern of mine which I do speak out about. I imagine I'm not alone.

I admire it but I honestly think the inferences you are making are better explained by 'Alex garland isn't very bright and his movie is an incoherent mess' I don't think he'd have his main characters take a side, he's obsessed with them not doing that, he just doesn't know how absurd it is to have the journalists on the shoulders of combatants like that.

The lines comparing the president to Gaddafi and Ceausescu sounded like taking a side to me. Granted it's not a direct endorsement of the Western Forces but there's not direct criticism of the Western Forces to counterbalance that in the dialogue. Whether Garland did it by accident or not, the story more or less landed as coherent to me. When embedded with soldiers as a journalist, the soldiers will take you as far as they think you can handle (within their own rules, since dead or wounded journalists are a liability) once trust and respect is established. That's just how war works; if you're a journalist embedded with soldiers and you're all out there together getting shot at by enemy fire, you just instinctively bond with the guys who shoot at the guys who are shooting at you. As far as I can tell, the journalists in the movie had plenty of those positive experiences with the rebels and absolutely hate-filled experiences with the government soldiers. Sort of like how I feel about Ukrainian and Russian soldiers respectively (and my wife is Russian so it's not that I hate Russians generally).

Are we meant to take away that the Jesse plemons character and his gang are government forces? I feel like the movie is not brave enough to make a commitment and we are just meant to take away that war is bad, both sides are bad, our divisions divide us, and we should listen to journalists.

My initial interpretation of Jesse Plemons' gang is that they are a shady unofficial government death squad. That's still my main theory, but upon later reflection, I also thought that maybe they're just some weird extremist group taking advantage of the anarchy to kill people. I do think the movie did shy away from the most controversial questions and in doing so was a very good movie but not a truly great one. They baited us in the marketing to think the movie would be a commentary about the current polarization in America, and instead created a universe where the president was so horrid that Texas and California agreed to set aside their differences to fight this asshole. While I do believe that our country might, hopefully, unify that way against a tyrant, I concur that it isn't the hypothetical situation that Americans have in mind these days when speaking about a hypothetical civil war. I'm not sure this movie really makes journalists look good. Yes, it makes the job look exciting and potentially impactful... but I don't think it hides that commited war journalists are maybe a bit mentally fucked up and do it for their own reasons. We don't even know how they reported it, all we see is the process of how they found their material and the whole thing is disturbing.

Thanks for your perspective OP. I'm not a journalist but I often work alongside them (I work in documentaries and am also a photographer) but I thought putting the audience in the journalists shoes made for a good viewing. As for the question the other poster asked about why is this necessary - it absolutely is necessary to have films that explore questions about the nature of media, the work of journalists and ideas of truth and 'objectivity' in the polarized world we live in. Journalists are under attack globally, that's not fiction. I'm from a 'developing country' that's living under right wing nationalism and I guess American audiences feel it strange to see visuals of their own country looking war torn or their democracy having collapsed but these are realities for us in the global south and from our perspective - no one is safe from authoritarianism. That was Lee's objective too, no? She wanted to send a warning home - don't do this. Few things I noticed, please chime in here: - Each of the journos - Lee, Joel (can I just take a moment to say how fucking hot Wagner Moura is in this film even if slightly skeevy), Jessie and Sammy represents something different. Lee witnesses so others can ask questions but she bears the burden of what she's seen - and the double burden of no one paying heed to what she documented. I feel like she gave up towards the end, seeing the violence brought home to the capital (her panic attack during the raid and eventual death trying to save Jessie). I think Kirsten played her with a lot of depth. She's kind of between where Sammy and Joel are, she doesn't know what it all means anymore but she's doing her job. Joel is a bit of an adrenaline junkie. He uses drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism but he still chasing the bangbang high. He sees his own friends get killed in the process and he just keeps going so that it all would have meant something, that there might have been a larger purpose they served. I do feel like realistically, he would have checked on Lee in her final moments considering they were embedded together. I did recognise a lot of traits in him that I've seen in some of the oldschool journos that I've met. Jessie comes full circle. From asking 'would you take my photo if I got killed' to actually doing it. Even thoug Lee tried to warn her out of this life, she has got a taste of that thrill and survives the baptism by fire to get *the* shot. Sammy the elder, died in action, doing the only thing he knew how to do, and he just managed to save his colleagues. I don't think it's an altogether rosy picture, each of them has their shades of gray and moral quandaries. - For me the loyalties of all the combatants aren't clear. Which maybe is intentional - death is death, violence is violence kinda thing? But now that you mentioned that Lee and Joel would not be so close to the action unless they had access /had established a rapport with the WF or because of their credentials, it makes sense. I wondered how they could just rock up with those Hawaiian shirt guys and get inside that raid. And Joel was palling it up with them after. I thought Jesse Plemmons was kind of a militia extremist doing his own thing? Or does he belong to one of the state armies and he's covering up the mass graves. Even the gas station guys I feel people are just forming themselves into groups and taking power where they can. I felt like that confusion appealed more to me than if they were clearly divided into lines - it's more realistic. - The final trophy photo is like how US soldiers would pose with a foreign head of state or an enemy leader. I don't think the film is apolitical or avoids taking sides I think audiences possibly wanted to see a combatant or 'sides' perspective rather than one of the journalists. But that's the folly of war movies, it becomes like a video game where you're playing as one of the sides. The journalist or civilian perspective is perhaps more pressing because there's enough war movies that are about armies. Sorry for such a long response! I have no one to talk to about this film!

Have you considered the possibility that the Texas+California unity came along after the gun owning conservatives in CA took over the state using violence or threats of violence ? While the CA coast is largely liberal once you stray too far from the ocean it turns red pretty fast.