Redacted, Brian de Palma’s most recent
film, on the Iraq war By José Luis Estrada Betancourt A CubaNews translation. Edited by
Walter Lippmann.
What
more than 12,000 US movie and television scriptwriters, members of the
Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) were not able to achieve by striking
indefinitely –for the first time in two decades— in demand of having a
share in the benefits from DVD sales, television series and programs
available on the Internet and other kinds of new technological media,
was achieved by the praised movie director Brian de Palma with his most
recent production, Redacted: to make White House hosts red with
anger. The scandal has grown to larger dimensions, furthermore, due to certain “marginal notes” published by journalists of ultra-conservative media such as “star” Fox News anchor person, Bill O’Reilly, who said: “This villain and his wicked film will have a very clear effect. Imagine Muslim youths full of hatred, seeing a Muslim girl being raped in full color. If only one of them enters into the struggle and kills one American, the fault will be Brian de Palma’s.” Or, as Glenn Bleck, from CNN, who “congratulated” him for his contribution to “Al Qaeda’s recruitment increase at the end of this year”. There are other even more exacerbated criticisms, such as this one: “During World War II, President Roosevelt, a liberal icon, would have sent De Palma to jail”. Or this one: “If any movie distributing chain programs this film, I will ask every war veteran to demonstrate in from of the theaters.” On the opposite side, from Hollywood, director Eli Roth has defended his colleague and insisted on the need to counter, in the movies, “the fact that news reaching the US from Iraq are much too sanitized. We really see no image of the horrible facts that are happening there. We do not even see photos of the bodies of our soldiers,” he states. Meanwhile, TIME's Richard Corliss assures us that it is “a work full of strength, the hardest political and cinematographic last will and testament since Iron Hearts, an appeal to our national shame, a new medal of honor for De Palma”. A scene from the film Redacted The film tells a real story, but crimes and abuses by US soldiers in Iraq might go well beyond its script and will certainly fill many others.
As expected, the consequences of the great discomfort provoked by the director of films such as Carrie, The Untouchables, The Price of Power and Dressed to Kill did not take long to manifest, so certain scenes were censored by Magnolia Pictures, the film's distributor, in order to disappear the faces of the dead Iraqis that were shown in a photographic montage at the end of Redacted. The explanation about this decision was offered by Eamonn Bowles, Magnolia Chairman, speaking before a forum at the New York Film Festival. “We were always ready to let him make the film he wanted to make, because not many distributing houses would have totally financed the movie, but Magnolia could have found itself involved in an untenable legal situation if the families of the dead Iraqis placed a demand,” Bowles declared. And although De Palma lost his right to make the final montage at a trial before the US Director's Guild, he argued: “I struggled as much as I could for those pictures not to be concealed, and even so I lost.” The film While there are some who think that the many films that years back highlighted the Vietnamese disaster should have prevented a repetition of the same horror of 40 years ago, the director disagrees with postures such as: “What is the point of denouncing the lies and miseries of a war that has no solution and for which no one cares any longer?” On the contrary, he argues that he hopes “to anger spectators enough so as to motivate their legislators to vote against this war. “I remember that, in times of Vietnam, we saw many images of soldiers who returned home injured or dead. You took Life magazine and contemplated war photos that horrified you. It has not been like that with Iraq. That is why I have wanted to show what you see on Internet, but not in the media that are governed, as we know, by big corporations. “Perhaps the film will provoke a reaction. When we saw this kind of images in Vietnam, citizens protested, and they were decisive to put an end to a senseless war. Let us hope that the same thing will happen and that Congress will pass a law to get the troops back,” he concluded. Presently considered by his adversaries an anti-patriotic individual who incites terrorist violence against the US, Brian de Palma –long catalogued as an “imitator” of Hitchcock's style, returned, with Redacted, to films of political content, as in the beginnings of his career, when he filmed movies such as Greetings or Hi, Mom! The only difference being that if, at the time, he did not command the dexterity to best carry forward the visual experimentation that he had chosen to undertake, he now commands it abundantly, being perfectly knowledgeable in cinematographic language.
In this opportunity, Scarface's director resorted to the soldiers' home videos, blogs, diaries, materials published in Youtube..., with which he “constructed” an illustrated report around the well-known case of the abuse suffered by an Iraqi family, in order to reflect another aspect of the conflict. A scene from the film Redacted Aware of the fact that the first casualty of war is truth, De Palma alternated the viewpoints of the military, of members of the media and of Iraqi civilians. Aware of the fact that the first casualty of war is truth, De Palma alternated various viewpoints: those of the military, of members of the media and of the population, highlighting the consequences of the war in each of the groups as well as the ways in which they reacted when encountering each other. For some, on the artistic side, the main problem posed by Redacted has to do with dedicating a full hour and a half solely to the presentation of one and only situation than many already know, so that “the film becomes excessively small and mechanic.” Nevertheless, among its achievements we can count the inclusion, within the main plot, of the short documentary Barrage, apparently filmed by Marc and François Climent, behind whose names is the author himself, who succeeded in offering “a marvelous cinematographic piece,” as some say, “that allows us to see real images skillfully rendered in a montage by his usual collaborator, Bill Pankow”. The balance, however, seems to tilt in his favor, although many experts continue to appreciate, in the proposals offered by this talented director, a question of style above all: films that sometimes deflate because their mise en scene does not follow the requirements of the plot, or because the latter is not consistent enough. Still, even if the controversy will help to animate some interest towards Redacted, the launch of the film will necessarily be a short-range one, because we are not speaking of a box-office hit such as Spiderman 3 or Pirates of the Caribbean, nor of other long films that are already on the course for the Oscar awards, and therefore everyone speaks of them, such a Ridley Scott's American gangster, Joel and Ethan Coen's No country for old men, Francis Ford Coppola's Youth without youth, or Charlie Wilson’s war, by Mike Nichols. In the end, perhaps Redacted will not be saved, in North America, even by Brian de Palma's honorable signature. |
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Redacted La más reciente
película de
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El filme narra una historia real, pero los crímenes y abusos de los soldados estadounidenses en Iraq pueden opacar su guión y seguramente llenarían muchos otros. |
«Siempre nos mostramos dispuestos a dejarle hacer la película que quisiera hacer, pues no muchas distribuidoras hubiesen financiado por completo la cinta, pero Magnolia podría verse envuelta en una situación legal insostenible, si las familias de los iraquíes fallecidos interpusieran una demanda», declaró Bowles. Y aunque De Palma perdió su derecho a realizar el montaje final en un juicio ante el Gremio de Directores de Estados Unidos, señaló: «Luché todo lo que pude para que esas fotografías no fuesen ocultadas, dijo, y aun así perdí».
Mientras que algunos piensan que las tantas películas que en su tiempo sacaron a la luz el desastre de Vietnam debían haber servido para no volver a repetir el mismo horror de hace 40 años, el cineasta no está de acuerdo con posturas como: «¿De qué sirve denunciar las mentiras y desgracias de una guerra que ya no tiene solución y que ya no le importa a nadie?». Por el contrario, él sostiene que «espera indignar al público lo suficiente como para motivar a sus legisladores a votar contra esta guerra.
«Recuerdo que en Vietnam veíamos muchas imágenes de soldados volviendo a casa heridos o muertos. Cogías la revista Life y contemplabas unas fotos de guerra que horrorizaban. No ha sido así en Iraq. Por eso he querido enseñar lo que se ve en internet, pero no en los medios de comunicación, regidos, como se sabe, por grandes corporaciones.
«Quizá la película provoque una reacción. Cuando vimos este tipo de imágenes en Vietnam los ciudadanos protestaron y resultaron decisivas para poner fin a una guerra sin sentido. Esperemos que suceda lo mismo y el Congreso apruebe el retorno de las tropas», concluyó.
Considerado ahora por sus detractores como un antipatriota y un incitador de la violencia terrorista contra EE.UU., Brian de Palma, quien por mucho tiempo ha sido catalogado como el «imitador» del estilo de Hitchcock, regresó con Redacted al cine de contenido político, como en los inicios de su carrera, cuando rodó cintas como Greetings o Hi, Mom!, solo que si entonces no tenía el oficio para encauzar de la mejor manera la experimentación visual que se había propuesto, en estos momentos le sobra, pues conoce perfectamente el lenguaje cinematográfico.
Esta vez el realizador de Scarface recurrió a videos caseros de los soldados, blogs, diarios, material publicado en Youtube..., con lo cual «contruyó» un reportaje a partir del célebre caso de abuso a una familia iraquí, para reflejar otra arista del conflicto.
Consciente de que la primera baja de la guerra es la verdad, De Palma alternó los puntos de vista de militares, de miembros de los medios de comunicación y de los civiles iraquíes. |
Para algunos, en lo artístico, el principal problema de Redacted radica en dedicar hora y media a presentar una única situación que no pocos conocen, de modo que «la película se torna excesivamente pequeña y mecánica». Sin embargo, destacan entre sus aciertos la inclusión en medio de la trama principal, del cortometraje documental Barrage, realizado aparentemente por Marc y François Climent, nombres tras los cuales se esconde el propio autor, «una maravillosa pieza cinematográfica, aseguran, que permite ver imágenes reales habilidosamente montadas por su habitual colaborador, Bill Pankow».
No obstante, al parecer la balanza se inclina a su favor, a pesar de que no son pocos los especialistas que siguen apreciando en las propuestas de este talentoso director, sobre todo, un problema de estilo: películas que en ocasiones se desinflan porque su puesta en escena va al margen de lo que exige la historia, o porque esta última no es suficientemente consistente.
Así y todo, aunque la polémica siempre ayudará a que el interés por Redacted se anime, no habrá quien le quite a la película un lanzamiento de corto alcance, porque no estamos hablando de las taquilleras Spiderman 3 o Piratas del Caribe, ni tampoco de otros largometrajes que marchan raudos en pos de la próxima entrega de los Oscar, y por tanto todos hablan de ella, como American gangster, de Ridley Scott; No country for old men, de Joel y Ethan Coen; Youth without youth, de Francis Ford Coppola; o Charlie Wilson’s war, de Mike Nichols. Al final, quizá a Redacted no la salve en Norteamérica ni la honorable firma de Brian de Palma.