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Watching _Civil War_: impressions and disappointment
We just saw the new movie Civil War. Afterwards the audience filed out in silence, perhaps stunned. Our group talked about it energetically, then hit the internet for more, and hence this post.
This post also assumed you’ve seen the movie, so if you haven’t, I hereby raise spoiler shields. In fact, I’ll use the movie poster as a spacer before I get going:
Onward.
I know what I’m about to say is a minority view (check ratings here), but I found it overall to be an uneven mix of a movie, and ultimately disappointing. To begin with, it’s not really about an American civil war. Yes, that’s the background and a good deal of the film’s fabric, but civil war isn’t really the point. To explain, we begin with an unnamed American president preparing to give a speech. He tries out several sentences and phrases, rearranging and pronouncing them in different ways, and then cut away. Crucially, that scene begins out of focus, the camera pointed the wrong way; our unidentified viewer corrects the lens.
That’s really what Civil War is about: photographing a civil war. And it’s not about amateurs. First and foremost, above all else, this is a movie about journalism — photojournalism, really, and doing that work in danger zones. The film takes us through the profession’s ethics, practical tips on…
