The fake controversy of 'Redacted'

A still from Redacted. Its fictional portion.

It has been suggested in some quarters that I might have some blog-worthy thoughts on the brouhaha that occured at Monday's New York Film Festival press conference for Brian DePalma's new film Redacted. As it happens, I have some, but they're fairly pissy. Which is not to say that I consider them incorrect.

For those of you who haven't been following the pulse-pounding action, I'll fill you in as best I can. My ability in this capacity is limited, as I did not go to the press conference. (I take my Columbus Day holiday seriously.) Discussing the finale of the faux-found-footage picture, which is a montage of real stills depicting varied horrors of the Iraq war, DePalma claimed that this section was compromised by distributor Magnolia's insistence that the faces in said stills be blacked out. Dark suggestions re the role of Magnolia owner, big money guy Mark Cuban, were proferred. Magnolia honcho Eamonn Bowles protested to the contrary from the back of the room, and the film's producer Jamie Kliot got on stage and grabbed a mike to offer his own thoughts.

I know—an argument broke out at a press conference. Holy cats! But people are talking about it like it's Bud Dwyer redux or something. There's also a suggestion or two that the whole thing was staged in order to stoke controversy. I don't believe that's the case—the voluble Bowles is a passionate guy not prone to performance-art stunts. The reason I'm calling this a fake controversy is because I think that Redacted, the movie itself, is already well and truly played out, despite the fact that it has yet to draw its first paying moviegoer.

I was actually pretty kind to the picture when I saw it in Toronto last month—too kind, I now believe. For whatever talk of Brechtian stratgy DePalma wants to put out there, the picture just does not play. The problem is bigger than the picture itself, as Variety's Todd McCarthy pointed out in an excellent Toronto post-mortem. The problem is that pretty much all the Iraq-themed features that screened at Toronto are lockstep pieces of limited imagination and vision, either maudlin or curdled iterations of stuff we already know. "But we don't all already know it," some might protest. True. And for all that, it appears that the majority of U.S. citizens no longer support the Iraq war. Will seeing a bunch of movies about the varied horrors and abuses of the Iraq war make them no longer support it EVEN MORE? And if so, so what? The putative will of the people has, at this point, precisely zero sway in this matter.

DePalma's Redacted seems to have already served whatever function it's going to. It's already been excoriated by right-wing pundits who will never see it. Bill O'Reilly milked it for all the outrage it was worth (to him) while it was at Toronto. Film blogs have had their back-and-forths. Old and new media are squeezing it for all the copy it's worth. DePalma's conviction is that the images can change minds. Change them how? Look at what's slaying them at the box office these days: The Rock arching his eyebrow at a little girl in a tutu. Even if DePalma's picture was a masterpiece—and it's not, and that's a problem—what are its chances of making a genuine dent in the mass cultural consciousness?

The ado at the press conference, when I heard of it, just gave me a dispiriting feeling that everything surrounding this picture added up to little more than an addled game of Capture the Flag enacted by various media...I can't believe I'm gonna use this word...elites.

Told you my thoughts were pissy. And you?

Comments

[Steve]

2 problems that stem's from De Palma's own (well-catalogued) narcissism - first, thinking that this movie would even make a dent in the US public market, and second, that something so (from what I've read) explicitly anti-war would sneak up on any theoretical non-choir viewers.

By tacking a hippy-dippy message onto the end of a Fox News wet dream, "The Kingdom" comes closer to slipping one in the public punch bowl than "Redacted" possibly could - but of course this stems less from incisive writing than the filmmakers' stupidity.

[Steve]

WOW that was convoluted. Sorry.

[tk]

Well, a couple things: has DePalma explicitly said that the purpose of the movie is to change minds and/or influence public opinion? I'm asking genuinely because I don't know. It seems the quality of the movie should be based on its effectiveness AS a movie. And, fair enough, your critical assessment is that the movie just doesn't play.

But I'm not entirely sure about jumping from a clear-eyed assessment of the real-world commercial realities for an anti-war film to the criticism of making it in the first place. I guess I'm just not crazy about the idea that a filmmaker should make a movie about Iraq only if its commercial chances are decent and/or public opinion still needs to be moved. Again, if those are HIS own, only explicitly stated reasons, I suppose there's validity in criticizing him thusly, but I ultimately don't think the number of other Iraq movies and the lack of political "need" (or the general ineffectualness of dissent) are reasons for any individual filmmaker not to make a movie that he's moved to make. Am I misunderstanding?

re Steve's comment...how is it narcissistic to make a movie that doesn't have a great chance to "make a dent" commercially? Or maybe I should say, how do we know that DePalma assumed this WOULD make a dent (and precisely because it's a DePalma film, which is what your reference to his narcissism seems to imply)? And how do we know that he didn't make the movie simply because the news/the events/the whatever sparked a desire to make it? None of which precludes it from being a BAD movie, of course...but there just seem to be a lot of assumptions about motive and hubris and whatnot that I'm not sure are justified.

[Steve]

http://www.emanuellevy.com/article.php?articleID=7149

Generally, people who want to make a dent in opinion have a better chance of doing so if they adjust their statements so that they might be intercepted by the other 90% of the population. And with the kind of money people spend on movies, I think most filmmakers have to believe their work will influence people.

[Filmbrain]

I'm just looking forward to the auteurist defense from DePalma acolytes. I almost bought it for the abysmal Black Dahlia, but for this? Nuh-uh....

[cinetrix]

Me, I'm waiting for the inevitable "Iraq fatigue" critics' notebook/trend piece, which will be the sign that this nonstory had finally run its course and we can all move on.

In terms of the footage itself, I suspect that something as simple and cumulative as the Newshour daily silent litany of that day's dead--photos with names, ages, and hometowns--is more effective filmmaking than whatever De Palma thinks he's up to by topping his ripped-from-the-headlines confection with a real-world montage cherry.

[Dave Kehr]

Not that I've actually seen the movie or anything, but this supposedly censored tail-end montage sequence sounds like a typical De Palma rip-off/"homage" -- in this case from/to the brilliant ending of Lars von Trier's "Dogville." Is possible?

[Glenn Kenny]

In DePalma's defense, Dave, the sequence doesn't feel like that at all. For one thing, there's no Bowie song playing under it.

[Keith Uhlich]

This De Palma acolyte won't defend the film with anything approaching blind passion, but it's certainly worth grappling with. Cue flagrant self-promotion:
http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2007/09/on-circuit-redacted.html

As to the controversy, it does seem a tempest in a teapot, but I am a bit confused: is the photo montage now going to be entirely excised, or just play "redacted" with the black bars over the faces? I've read many conflicting reports. If it's removed, well, then to me the movie is entirely pointless (and I waffle back and forth, day in/day out, as to how much I like/admire its point in the first place).