[Editor’s Note: the post below appears today on the front page of The Huffington Post.]
By Govindini Murty. A pair of new films this week offers a critique of capitalism sure to gladden the heart of any Occupy Wall Street protester. This weekend’s Tower Heist depicts a group of employees who plot to rob a Madoff-style financier who cheated them, while the new sci-fi film In Time portrays a dystopian future in which time is literally money.
In Time in particular implies that time and nature are sources of tyranny equivalent to the capitalist system. The film depicts its hero, Justin Timberlake, as a proletarian Prometheus who robs the financial gods in order to redistribute their ill-gotten gains to an oppressed humanity. In In Time‘s near-future dystopia, human beings have been genetically-engineered to stop aging at 25, after which biological ‘clocks’ on their arms determine how long they have to live. Time on these clocks is spent like currency; people pay with hours or days of their lives for everything from a cup of coffee to their monthly rent. The wealthy store up hundreds if not thousands of extra years, while the poor live with only a few extra hours at any time. If they run out of time before they can earn more, the clock runs down to zero and they die.
Will Salas (Justin Timberlake), a young man from the ghetto, teams up with Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried) – the disaffected daughter of wealthy banker Philippe Weis – to rob her father’s time banks and redistribute the time stored there to the poor. They justify this by telling themselves “it isn’t stealing if it is already stolen.” And given the exaggeratedly cruel and unjust world that In Time portrays, who could disagree?
In its desire to equate time with money and denounce capitalism, however, In Time ignores the basic fact that in the real world money is malleable, time is not. Money can be earned, stored up, and passed on to others; by providing a portable form of wealth, it frees people from the barter system and feudal economies of centuries past when human beings were tied to the land like slaves. In short, money offers us a chance at freedom and self-sufficiency, depending on one’s willingness to work and the opportunities one is given.
By Govindini Murty. I’m pleased to announce to Libertas readers that I’ve been invited to blog at The Huffington Post. I will continue to edit and write for Libertas, of course, but this is a great opportunity to reach a new readership as well. My first post at The Huffington Post just went up this afternoon, and was featured both on the front page and on the Entertainment page. There’s already a lively debate underway in the comments section, and I hope that Libertas readers will join in.
I’ll be cross-posting select posts so you can read my posts here or at The Huffington Post.
After months of controversy over Kathryn Bigelow’s planned bin Laden movie, Variety has reported that Sony is postponing the release of the film until likely after the 2012 election. This is a wise decision on the part of the studio.
Director Kathryn Bigelow.
Sony’s bin Laden movie had come under a firestorm of criticism earlier this summer when Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times that director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal had been given special access to information on the bin Laden raid by the Obama White House, and that the film’s planned release in October 2012 was “perfectly timed” to help President Obama with the election. Not surprisingly, Republicans reacted to this news with outrage. Rep. Peter King of New York called for an investigation into the film, and Rep. Lynn Jenkins of Kansas announced plans for legislation titled the “Stop Subsidizing Hollywood Act” to prevent the filmmakers from accessing government information on the bin Laden raid. A movie that should have been a nonpartisan account of a great American victory — the Navy SEAL mission that killed the world’s most infamous terrorist — was in danger of being overshadowed by a cloud of partisan controversy.
The dispute over the bin Laden film didn’t just threaten to undermine the film itself — it also potentially diminished support for a number of other film and TV projects in the works that aim to portray the American military positively in the War on Terror. These projects range from Jerry Bruckheimer’s Navy SEALs TV series for ABC and Relativity’s Navy SEALs movie Act of Valor to movies like Peter Berg’s Lone Survivor and Christopher McQuarrie’s Rubicon that depict Navy SEALs fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. While liberals in the industry are supportive of these films after the success of the bin Laden raid, conservatives paradoxically have become convinced by the dust-up over Sony’s bin Laden movie that all these other projects must be thinly disguised pro-Obama propaganda as well. (See the comments section of my recent article in The Atlantic, where conservatives responded with skepticism to news of these War on Terror projects.)
As a result, a movie that should have been a unifying depiction of an American victory in the War on Terror has become a political hot potato. Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal released a statement in August saying that their film would depict the killing of bin Laden as “an American triumph, both heroic, and non-partisan.” Nonetheless, Sony needed to change the release date to truly show that their bin Laden movie was not intended to influence the election. Continue reading ANNOUNCEMENT: LFM’s Govindini Murty to Blog at The Huffington Post
By Govindini Murty. As our regular Libertas readers know, Jason and I have worked for over seven years to promote a greater diversity of voices in Hollywood. We’ve promoted hundreds of pro-freedom, pro-American, and conservative-friendly films, both through the Liberty Film Festival and the original Libertas blog, as well as the new Libertas Film Magazine. As I’ve said numerous times, we don’t do this because we want Hollywood dominated by conservative political propaganda any more than we want Hollywood dominated by liberal political propaganda. We do this because we care deeply about film and the arts and we feel that having a diversity of voices in our culture is crucial to maintaining the democratic values that make America great.
Chris Evans as Captain America.
However, Jason and I have been very concerned over the years by the conservative establishment’s refusal to seriously engage in film and the arts. By “engagement” I don’t mean reviewing a film here or there or supporting the odd conservative political documentary. I mean genuinely and passionately engaging in film and the arts: funding and supporting filmmakers, artists, and creative people, devoting a significant portion of their media platforms to supporting the arts (even when they don’t directly tie into the conservative political agenda), taking real pleasure in creating beautiful, profound, and arresting artworks that imaginatively inspire people. Conservatives have enormous resources at their disposal to have a greater voice in the culture if they want to. That they fail to seriously engage in the culture year after year is deeply troubling. It undermines both the growth of the conservative movement, as well as the vibrancy of our culture, which needs both sides engaged in order to create art and entertainment that represents all Americans.
So, I’ve written a piece in The Atlantic today (see below) that examines the issue of why conservatives are so reluctant to support conservative-friendly films. As our readers know, when Jason and I relaunched Libertas, we were determined to positively promote films and creative artists. We were tired of just complaining about Hollywood. Conservatives have complained about Hollywood for years, and it never seems to accomplish anything. We decided that rather than give the site over to partisan politics and to obsessing over every left-wing Hollywood affront, we wanted to dedicate our time to promoting films and artworks that broadly affirm freedom and individualism. We were inspired by the genuine change we had seen in the film industry in the last two to three years, in which a greater number of pro-freedom films are suddenly being made. There’s plenty of room for hope and excitement, and yet I don’t see this hope and excitement translating into the rest of the conservative world. Conservatives in the media certainly know about these films because they do cover them (often with snarky and dismissive reviews) – they just refuse to take them as a positive sign of change that should be embraced.
Dominic Cooper promoting "The Devil's Double."
I hope my Atlantic piece (see below) will inspire some honest debate amongst conservatives. I didn’t write a partisan piece – I wrote a piece that objectively deals with the issues as they appear. I truly appreciate all of our conservative, libertarian, independent, and liberal readers here at Libertas who have shown their commitment to supporting the idea of freedom in film. You’re the good ones – you get it. I hope the message spreads to the rest of the public as well, because the culture is too important to be treated as a partisan whipping post. It deserves to be treated honestly, objectively – and always with respect for the artists who create the works that give our culture meaning.
The recent news that MGM’s remake of Red Dawn may finally reach theaters should be reason for conservatives to celebrate. The Los Angeles Timesreports that MGM is in talks to sell Red Dawn to Film District (the company behind Ryan Gosling’s Drive), who will likely release the film in 2012. The original Red Dawn is one of the iconic films of the cultural right. Written and directed by John Milius, the 1984 film depicted a group of plucky teens who fight off a Soviet invasion of the U.S. This new Red Dawn, of which I’ve seen an early cut, features a similarly patriotic storyline—and stars one of Hollywood’s hottest young leading men, Chris Hemsworth (Thor). And even factoring in some controversial re-edits that change the villains from the communist Chinese to the North Koreans, the new Red Dawn seems like exactly the kind of pro-American action fare that should please cultural conservatives.
But will conservatives actually support Red Dawn when it comes out?
After years of feeling burned by Hollywood, today’s conservatives seem reluctant to go to the movies, even to see films promoting their own values. A number of right-of-center-friendly movies have been made in recent years—ranging from big-budget studio fare like the Transformers movies or art-house films like The Devil’s Double, to overtly political documentaries like The Undefeated—yet conservatives have responded with little enthusiasm to such films. Indeed, at times conservatives seem more interested in debating left-leaning works like Avatar or Fahrenheit 9/11 than in supporting movies friendly to their own cause.
From "Mao's Last Dancer."
Witness the conservative public’s tepid response to two recent films on “conservative” subjects: the movie adaptation of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, and the Sarah Palin documentary The Undefeated. Both films received extensive media coverage earlier this year. Fox News and the Fox Business Network ran numerous segments on each film (with John Stossel devoting an entire show on Fox Business to Atlas Shrugged), and both films were widely discussed on talk radio and in the print media. Yet when the films were released, they fared poorly at the box office. Atlas Shrugged made only $4.6 million on a reported budget of $20 million, and The Undefeated made only $116,000 on a reported budget of $1 million. Granted, both films received mixed reviews, at best. Nonetheless, as conservative film critic Christian Toto pointed out in a recent Daily Caller article titled “Why don’t conservatives support conservative films?,” the popularity of Rand’s original Atlas Shrugged novel and of Sarah Palin as subject matter should presumably have led to greater enthusiasm among conservatives for these projects. Yet they didn’t.
Stranger still, even when offered more popular or critically acclaimed films, many conservatives still seem reluctant to support them.
For example, a well-reviewed film recently appeared in theaters that offers an implied justification for the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Devil’s Double tells the true story of Uday Hussein, Saddam Hussein’s gangster-like son, and his reluctant body double, Latif Yahia. Both roles in the film are played by rising star Dominic Cooper (Captain America), whose electric performance has made him one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading men. The Devil’s Double depicts the Hussein regime pillaging and demoralizing Iraq’s people—and even includes flattering footage of George H.W. Bush and Dick Cheney. And despite its seemingly right-of-center politics, the film was screened to rave reviews at Sundance, with Roger Ebert even calling it a “terrific show” and praising Dominic Cooper’s “astonishing dual performance.”
>>>Read the rest of the article at The Atlantic here.
Posted on October 12th, 2011 at 5:32pm.
[Editor’s update: Many thanks to Kevin Roderick for mentioning Govindini’s Atlantic piece in his article “Left coast writers splash in the Atlantic” on LA Observed. Kevin runs one of the great LA sites and I urge you all to check it out.]
[Many thanks as well to Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air for linking to Govindini’s Atlantic article. Hot Air is always on top of the most interesting news and analysis, so be sure to check them out.]
[And of course, a big thank you as well to our friend Lars Larson. Lars is one of the best-informed and most articulate talk radio hosts out there (and rapidly rising, with his radio show carried in over 200 markets). Lars posted Govindini’s article on his site and he has always been supportive of Libertas Film Magazine and the cause of freedom in film.]
By Jason Apuzzo. I wanted to briefly comment today on two releases of note. First of all, the 1959 classic Ben-Hur is getting a lavish new Blu-ray release that arrives in stores tomorrow. I’ve embedded the Blu-ray trailer above, and you can read here about the details of this fabulous-looking set – which includes a documentary featuring newly-discovered behind-the-scenes footage from the set of the film provided by Fraser Heston (Charlton’s son). The Blu-ray set will also include a reproduction of Charlton Heston’s set diary, along with behind-the-scenes photographs taken by Heston’s wife, Lydia. All in all, it looks to be a wonderful release for one of Hollywood’s landmark films of the 1950s – an epic tale of one’s man’s struggle to regain freedom for himself, his family and for his people.
The new "Ben-Hur" Blu-ray box set.
Govindini and I had the pleasure of attending the recent exhibition of Debbie Reynolds’ costume-and-props collection, at which we saw Charlton Heston’s, Stephen Boyd’s and Sam Jaffe’s costumes from Ben-Hur – along with a variety of props from the film. It was an incredible experience seeing these things in person, with the film having been such a favorite of ours over the years. I’m not certain what’s happened to those items since, in terms of whether they’ve already been auctioned; whatever their fate, it seems a tragedy that Reynolds’ collection couldn’t have been kept together. In any case, after so many years it was a thrill to see items from Ben-Hur, at all. (Amazingly, Reynolds’ collection even included Francis X. Bushman’s winged helmet from the original 1925 Ben-Hur) I hope this Blu-ray release further burnishes the film’s legacy for a new generation.
In other news, according to the LA Times today the Red Dawn remake has finally picked up a distributor, FilmDistrict (Drive). As regular Libertas readers know, Libertas is still the only media outlet that’s seen the original, uncensored version of the film (see our exclusive review of the new Red Dawn) that featured the Chinese communist People’s Liberation Army as the villains. The forthcoming, digitally-altered version of Red Dawn – which apparently features some sort of generalized Asian communist menace, led by North Korea – will now likely be arriving in theaters sometime in 2012.
Chris Hemsworth and Adrianne Palicki lead the cast of the new "Red Dawn."
Somewhat lost in the controversy when we initially published our review of Red Dawn was that we actually liked the film, and were simply disappointed at the corporate decision to re-edit it in order to placate the Chinese. I still don’t like MGM’s decision to re-edit the film because of what that decision implies about freedom of speech in Hollywood, particularly at a time when many of China’s own ‘D-Generation’ (‘digital generation’) filmmakers are currently risking their lives and careers (see our review of Once Upon a Time Proletarian from just this week) in telling truthful stories about China’s oppressive regime. The re-editing/censoring of Red Dawn is a much bigger deal than, say, whether Han or Greedo shot first in the Mos Eisley cantina – because it has broader implications for what can and can’t be said by mainstream American filmmakers about the human rights situation in China.
As Charlton Heston himself used to say, “Film is our best export next to freedom,” and it’s best when the films America exports also say something about freedom. Red Dawn had that opportunity – an opportunity to say something sharp, poignant and specific about one particularly tyrannical modern regime (in the same way John Milius’ original Red Dawn had) – but the makers of the film apparently flinched when corporate profits were on the line.
That’s not a very inspiring example, certainly not in the way Ben-Hur was.
By Jason Apuzzo. With the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 approaching, I thought today would be a good time to launch a new series here at Libertas that I’ve been intending to do for a while, called Terror Watch. Terror Watch will join our other ongoing Libertas series (Invasion Alerts, Cold War Updates, Sword & Sandal Reports) and will cover the new wave of films, TV series, video games and even graphic novels dealing with the War on Terror.
The very fact that we’re able to do such a series is representative of a gradual and welcome change that’s taken place in Hollywood and popular culture over the past several years, a change whereby positive depictions of the War on Terror as a just and necessary cause are no longer considered taboo in entertainment circles. This change has been building for several years now (and has already been rippling through science fiction for quite a while), although it was accelerated considerably this past May by Navy SEAL Team 6’s successful mission against Osama bin Laden – an event that appears to have semi-officially opened a new chapter in Hollywood’s willingness to depict the struggle against terrorism as a vital activity.
And although one might be tempted to treat this development as coming too late to affect the public’s morale regarding the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, my sense is that how history perceives those conflicts is still very much up for grabs, especially for younger Americans – and so this new trend is one that I very much welcome. This does not mean, of course, that all of the projects we’ll be discussing will be very good – I suspect quite a few may be dreadful – but I advise people to keep an open mind. Certainly several recent projects – The Devil’s Double and Four Lions, most notably – have really been superb, and overall I think there is reason for optimism.
Why optimism, you might ask? Because Hollywood isn’t as dominated as it used to be by the Baby Boomers.
Jason Apuzzo, conservative filmmaker and editor of Libertas Film Magazine, says politics clearly played a role in Hollywood’s initial reaction to 9/11. “Their primary response [to 9/11] was to ignore it,” Mr. Apuzzo says. But that appears to be changing, witness the upcoming film on Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of Navy SEALs due for release next year, as well as director Peter Berg’s adaptation of “Lone Survivor,” a film detailing the hunt for a Taliban leader. “As the baby boomers start to retire off the scene in Hollywood, it’s becoming less of a factor,” Mr. Apuzzo says of the industry’s politically charged greenlighting process. “Younger people are not as hesitant about dealing with this issue.”
Diane Kruger is a journalist captured by The Taliban in "Special Forces."
Many people nowadays believe that the Obama Presidency is the primary reason behind whatever change of heart there’s been in Hollywood of late regarding the War on Terror, and there is no doubt some truth in this. Yet while I’m sure that Obama’s Presidency – and specifically his successful management of the bin Laden raid – plays some role here, my sense is that this change was likely coming regardless, due to the gradual changeover of the industry to a younger (i.e., non-Baby Boomer) generation. By my experience, the younger Hollywood generation – and this includes the independent filmmaking world – is much less ideologically driven than the Boomers were, and are far less conflicted about the current war than was the Vietnam generation.
So this is ultimately why I’m optimistic: the people dominating Hollywood today are not the same people who were running the industry 10 years ago right after the 9/11 attacks. They are, instead, a generation driven by a desire to simply make careers for themselves – rather than to fight proxy culture-wars through the cinema, as their parents’ generation so often did.
So without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the War on Terror projects that are heading our way down the tracks …
LFM Co-Editor Jason Apuzzo was on Lars Larson’s national radio show Friday talking about Cowboys & Aliens, Captain America, The Devil’s Double and other current releases.
Special thanks, as always, to Lars and his staff for inviting Jason on. He always has fun appearing on Lars’ show.
Lars’ show is broadcast on over 200 stations nationwide, and runs at different times across the country, so to find his show be sure to check out his website here.
