The relationship between reality, history and narrative form

The relationship between realism or historical accuracy and narrative form is a problematic one, with ethical issues arising in works that perpetuate an image of realism.
Cinematic representations of real events subvert history, and it is by understanding the filmmakers intentions, that we can understand the ‘reality’ with which we have been presented.
It is arguable that subjectivity is inevitable and unavoidable within films, even those which aim to retell or capture reality objectively.
Documentaries are an editing of the truth, and Austin observes that the real world ‘exceeds the borders of any film’1, or as Felperin suggests, ‘documentaries, can only capture a slice of a larger story which can never be wholly contained by a feature length film.’2
The ambiguity in Capturing The Friedmans offers the audience the opportunity to interact with the film, the marketable value in this not lost on the films distributors. The tagline, ‘who will you believe?’, alludes to the feeling that it is the viewer who will ultimately decide what the truth is, the viewer who is the judge and jury, and that within the film we are led to come to our own conclusions.3 This marketing of the film, almost as a mystery, or thriller4, could be said to be irresponsible and at the expense of the victims whose story is being told, turning reality into entertainment. It is this ambiguity within the film which in some respects, makes the realism less than convincing; we never truly discover whether Arnold and Jesse, the alleged abusers, are guilty of the crimes they are jailed for. Audiences are often unaccepting of ambiguity, preferring a explicit and clear explanation, but the ambiguity here is the device through which the narrative thrives.
Capturing The Friedmans, like so many other or arguably all documentaries, provides access to events but through a subjective lense. Upon closer examination of the film, and the elements of the story not included, it becomes clear we are not offered the full picture, the view of the story and the characters we are given manipulated. Seth Friedman declined to appear in the film, leading director Andrew Jarecki to mostly exclude footage which showed Seth. This surely suggests that the account we are presented with is altered and edited from reality, causing the reliability of the information to be called into question. The portrayal of the alleged victims and police officers disturbs the neutrality and unbias of the film, often combined through editing with conflicting and contradictory images or testimonies, with another of Friedman’s students dismissing the accusations as a ‘grotesque fantasy.’5 Although the tagline of the film suggests the verdict is left to the viewer, it becomes clear that Jarecki’s editing techniques work in favour of the Friedman’s innocence, despite admittances from Arnold of his paedophilia.
In making the film Jarecki had to make sense of and condense ‘a seesaw of conflicting narratives and contradictory versions of the truth’6, admitting himself that “while not everyone in this film tells the truth, I don’t find most of them to be consciously lying about anything.”7
The police investigation into the Friedman’s is portrayed, perhaps fairly, as a witch-hunt, with experts condemning the hypnosis techniques used to gain evidence from the alleged victims, and absolutely no physical evidence provided in the case.8 As we never actually view the alleged abuse within the film, it is hard to imagine these moments in the same reality as the moments we are shown, such as home videos of happier Friedman family moments, and this perhaps goes some way to shaping our opinions of the truth. Although the aesthetic of home video can subtly make ‘implicit claims to.. veracity and integrity’9 through amateur techniques that suggest more of a focus on depicting reality than creating masterful films, Orgeron notes that ‘home videographers have already made a pre-emptive directorial intervention by... representational decisions, inclusions as well as exclusions.. these decisions impact.. the documentaries that employ this footage.’10 Austin notes that the filmmakers have been criticised for ‘prioritising dramatic imperatives over honesty and accuracy’11, and this suggests a criticism that the documentary is more a piece of entertainment than factual filmmaking. Rich argues that in trying to obtain commercial success, ‘documentary itself sometimes seen to be mutating into a new hybrid phase altogether, the “docutainment,” which offers newly marketable pleasures to a fiction-sated audience: Capturing the Friedmans, say..’12
The issue of exploitation of factual material to produce entertainment is one that is also relevant in discussing Makhmalbaf’s The Apple. The film depicts the story of neglect of two young girls with the air of a documentary, and like many Iranian films, its ‘narrative premise is anchored in a true occurrence’13, using the actual people involved to retell the story. The repercussions in ‘remaking’ real life, the ethical risk of exploiting people’s suffering, become evident when the father of the girls, reading of the story in a newspaper, breaks down, distressed by the media coverage, ironic, as he was presumably surrounded by cameras and film crew.
A cultural imposition is put upon the relationship between reality and narrative form in Iranian cinema by modesty regulations, which mean that women may not appear on film unveiled, even within their own homes where they normally would be.14 Therefore, depictions of Iranian women on screen are unrealistic and limiting, with Makhmalbaf admitting that ‘with the enforced censorship, you must simply find new and interesting ways of expressing ideas through the vocabulary of cinema.’15
By expressing Massoumeh and Zahra’s story through the ‘vocabulary of cinema’, Makhmalbaf treats reality and history with artistic license and makes a film which is open to allegorical readings. As Austin comments of Capturing The Friedmans, so here is a ‘tension between evidentiality and aestheticisation.’16
Darznik says that The Apple is a ‘horror story in the way that only reality can be horrible’17, attributing realism to the film, but also alluding to the very fictional and mainstream genre of horror.
Supporting the idea that the film is perhaps more fictionalised than one would ascertain at first glance, Danks comments that The Apple takes its lead from films which ‘blur the distinctions between cinema and life’18 and that it ‘depicts a sensational story, and sensational stories are, whatever their cultural contexts, necessarily exaggerated versions of reality.’19 Adair agrees, saying that the film is ‘a semi-fictionalised film at that, for The Apple is not a documentary.’20 Makhmalbaf may not claim that the film is a documentary, but the film certainly stresses the point that it is based on a true story, albeit the director’s retelling of it through the ‘vocabulary of cinema’.
The reworking of history is evident in Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine. The film reimagines the days of Glam Rock through queer-tinted glasses, interpreting the queer undertones and themes present in the movement and exaggerating them, altering the reality of the time into something of a fantasy. The film’s introduction announces to the audience that ‘Histories, like ancient ruins, are the fictions of empires’21, and the film’s reimagining of the 1970’s wholly upholds this suggestion. Velvet Goldmine explores the idea of images shaping queer culture and audiences, and Haynes uses reality to support an agenda, the history of the Glam Rock movement utilised to serve a function of queer wish fulfilment. DeAngelis states that Velvet Goldmine offered Haynes an opportunity to ‘queer the present, by reconstituting the notion of ‘reality’ itself through multiple juxtapositions of histories remembered, forgotten, and repressed’.22

History, reality, and narrative form are clearly inextricably linked, but their relationship is anything but clear cut. Narrative form is not a direct representation of reality but a subjective interpretation of it, and as much as it tries to struggle against that fact, it will always be the case.




Bibliography

Adair, Gilbert, “Cinema: The girl with the movie camera”, The Independent on Sunday, 27 December 1998
Austin, Thomas, “‘The most confusing tears’: home video, sex crime, and indeterminacy in Capturing the Friedmans”, Watching the World: Screen Documentary and Audiences, 2007
Becker, Snowden, “Capturing the Friedmans”, The Moving Image vol. 4 no. 1, Spring 2004, pp. 145-148
Danks, Adrian, “The House That Mohsen Built: The Films of Samira Makhmalbaf and Marzieh Meshkini”, Senses of Cinema, 2002;
Darznik, Jasmine, “Shining Rotten Apple, A horrific film that must be seen”, The Iranian, March 3 1999
DeAngelis, Michael, “The Characteristics of New Queer Filmmaking: Case Study—Todd Haynes” in Michele Aaron (ed.) New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2004; pp. 41–52
Fairweather, Kathleen, “A Family Affair: Filmmaker Andrew Jarecki Discusses How He Captured ‘The Friedmans,’” International Documentary, July 2003.
Orgeron, Marsha, “Familial Pursuits, Editorial Acts: Documentaries after the Age of Home Video”, The Velvet Light Trap no. 60, Autumn 2007; pp. 47-62
Rich, B. Ruby, “Documentary Disciplines: An Introduction”, Cinema Journal vol. 46 no. 1, Autumn 2006; pp. 108-115
Wood, Jason, “A Quick Chat with Samira Makhmalbaf”, http://kamera.co.uk

Velvet Goldmine (US/UK, Todd Haynes, 1998)

The Apple (Iran, Samira Makhmalbaf, 1999)

Capturing The Friedmans (US, Andrew Jarecki, 2003)

The 'outlaw couple film' and its place in genre

To what extent could the outlaw couple film be considered to constitute a genre with a recognisable body of narrative, thematic and stylistic conventions?

Study in terms of genre allow similarities and coherence across a body of texts to create more meaning than if we were studying a single text individually. By categorizing a film into a certain genre we allude to previous films belonging to that genre and denote some level of resemblance.
However, a genre is not only made up of the films within it and the conventions belonging to those films, there has to also be cultural assent on the subject, as Tudor says, ‘Genre is what we collectively believe it to be’.1

It is widely agreed upon that a genre is group of texts that all adhere to some, if not all, of a set of conventions, whether differing from each other in other respects. However, genre itself as a structure and the process that leads to genres being established is not so easily defined.
Historically, genres were thought of as evolving and transforming structures that could disappear as equally as new models could emerge. Later study of genre seemingly rejected these ideas as genres began to be studied in terms of continuity, disregarding innovative genres and focusing largely instead on genres that would support theories of permanence.2
Altman believes that this ‘concealment’ has been damaging to genre criticism, and discusses the process that leads to new genres emerging and evolving, and if successful, becoming established genres.
He agrees with Tudor’s argument that genre has to be culturally recognised and says that a genre becomes such when it is substantiated by an audience who ‘interpret films not as separate entities but according to generic expectations.’3
However, he argues that new ‘film cycles’ are instigated when studios or filmmakers unite new approaches or material with qualities imitated from previously profitable films. Of the number of film cycles that are initiated, the few that are successful, will after time, be substantiated as genres.4
This idea of genre as a process is illustrated, he maintains, by the ‘sliding of generic terms from adjective to noun’.5 His example is the Western, now a widely acknowledged term for a particular genre but once a describing adjective that preceded words such as ‘romance’, ‘epic’ or ‘chase film’ to describe other films. Although ‘Outlaw Couple’ as a term for a genre is certainly not a recognisable a generic label as the Western, if we study the development of the Outlaw Couple film in terms of Altman’s ‘cycle to genre’ theory, it becomes apparent that we can arguably refer to it as a genre.
As Altman explained, the cycle initiated will imitate characteristics present in previously successful films, and the Outlaw Couple film certainly does so, borrowing elements such as visual style and narrative devices from a multitude of influences. The visual style of early Outlaw Couple films was a clear continuation of the low-key, sensual style present in the film
noir of the time, with two of the first films we can refer to as ‘Outlaw Couple movies’, Gun Crazy and They Live By Night, being seen as noir films.6 The mise-en-scene of film noir is ‘despair, generated out of entrapment..’7, and the Outlaw Couple film is very much one about characters trying to escape entrapment.

The Outlaw Couple film is a division of the ‘Road movie’, a genre which has its roots in stories of epic journeys and heroic quests, and the Outlaw Couple film subverts this, making the stories they tell more character orientated 8, but ironically often with a less obvious aim or goal, the journeys often acting as an ironic metaphor for our characters’ lack of prospects – all they can do is drive.
Noted also has been the influence of Gangster films and Westerns on the Outlaw Couple film, the fleeing the law, violence and crime prevalent in these genres certainly evident, as well as the mise-en-scene of Westerns being recognisable within the films. Kolker argues that ‘whether by accident or not, Bonnie and Clyde opened up the minor country thieves variation of the gangster film into a fully fledged genre of its own.’9
Laderman also notes that the cinematography recalls John Ford, the ‘vast, formally composed landscapes which contribute greatly to the sense of liberation for this outlaw couple on the road.’10

So, it is apparent that the Outlaw Couple film certainly fulfils Altman’s ‘first step’ of initiating a new genre, by imitating already existing conventions and filmic qualities while subverting and combining them to produce something new. Neale also supports this theory of ‘genre as a process’, saying that ‘individual genres not only form part of a generic regime, but also themselves change, develop, and vary by borrowing from, and overlapping with, one another.’11

To become a genre though, this is not enough. The body of films must become substantiated as a genre, spawning new incarnations of itself and becoming part of the litany of genres emerging films borrow from. Arguably the Outlaw Couple film did this, and by looking at the history and filmography of the genre, it becomes clear how quickly conventions were established and the category emerged as a standalone genre.
Although They Live By Night is Bonnie and Clyde’s predecessor and often seen as the prototype for Outlaw Couple films, Bonnie and Clyde is the film which truly shaped the genre, its influence seen in every following Outlaw Couple film, and throughout subsequent Hollywood cinema as a whole.
Badlands, a later Outlaw Couple film, Kinder argues is so intensely influenced by Bonnie and Clyde12 it supports the idea that filmmakers seeing the potential for a new genre, began to
imitate qualities they saw in previous Outlaw Couple films, in turn creating and reinforcing the conventions of the genre. On a larger scale, Scott writes that Bonnie and Clyde has been cited as a major influence in such ‘disparate films as The Wild Bunch, The Godfather, Reservoir Dogs and The Departed’.13
This level of influence surely belongs to a film which is part of a substantiated, and well respected genre. The conventions established back then are still noticeable in more recent films which arguably belong also to the Outlaw Couple film, proving that although the films are perhaps not as abundant as they once were, the genre is still alive and thriving. Natural Born Killers, a 1994 film by Oliver Stone, is an example of a more recent film which is clearly part of the Outlaw Couple genre, with Stone even citing Bonnie and Clyde as his main influence.14 We can also see the influence of another Outlaw Couple film; our ‘couple on the run’ in Natural Born Killers, Mickey and Mallory, ‘escape’ their everyday lives after Mickey murders Mallory’s father, ‘rescuing’ her, and this bears a similarity to the plot of Badlands, in which Kit murders Holly’s father who disagreed with their relationship, before the couple go on the run.
Although there are admittedly a small number of films within the genre compared to larger generic structures such as Western, Musical, or ‘Rom-Com’, many critics still describe the group of films as belonging to an ‘Outlaw’ genre, or at least sub-genre. In an article discussing Badlands, King writes that ‘although the period of this film is recent, it works in an established “outlaw” mode made familiar by Arthur Penn and Sam Peckinpah.’ 15 Belton asserts that ‘Gun Crazy, like Lang’s You Only Live Once, They Live By Night, Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde, Malick’s Badlands and Altman’s Thieves Like Us, belongs to a sub-genre or the gangster cycle known as the “outlaw couple” film.’16 If Natural Born Killers had been made at the time Belton was writing, he arguably would have also included it in the list.

So, it is apparent that film critics believe that the Outlaw Couple film constitutes a genre. But labelling it as such assigns to it generic requirements; these being that it has a recognisable body of narrative, thematic and stylistic conventions, and it is the fulfilment of these that will determine whether the Outlaw Couple can justly be considered as a genre.

The narrative and thematic conventions of the films previously discussed follow an obvious pattern, with heterosexual couples escaping mundane lives, dissatisfaction or even prison to go on the road together, a metaphor for people outside of society rebelling against it, desiring something different than the ‘norm’. Our couples inevitably end up being the perpetrators of violence, some more willingly than others, the journeys often seeming aimless and doomed, until one or both of our outlaws are killed. The resolution almost always sees our characters inevitably punished by the society they were attempting to rebel against, the message not a particularly hopeful one for non-conformity. Showing an evolution of the genre, later Outlaw Couple films subverted elements of these narrative and thematic conventions to provide a fresh take on the genre; for example, in Natural Born Killers, our murdering couple who are arguably more evil than any previous outlaw couple, are not captured and killed, but escape, to carry on driving across the country indefinitely and even have a family, achieving the freedom previous outlaw couples have searched for but not obtained. In Thelma and Louise and The Living End, the heterosexual couple element is subverted, our couples being heterosexual female friends and a homosexual male couple, respectively. These original angles provide innovative takes on the Outlaw Couple genre, proving also that it as a genre was established enough for filmmakers to subvert, into the hybrid ‘queer road movie’. Grundmann comments that The Living End’s ‘outlaw component is fairly straightforward even as it receives a queer activist spin’17, and Sturken write that ‘Thelma and Louise can be seen as playing off the outlaw genre’s conventions’18, both films clearly a continuation of the genre.

The stylistic conventions within the Outlaw Couple genre are as recognisable as the narrative and thematic conventions just discussed: the shadowy, noir-ish cinematography - characters faces being darkened or in shadow as they speak, the bleak, Ford-esque landscapes and wildernesses, contrasted with the inevitable urban settings they must enter to steal their money - banks or factories, the visual elements borrowed from the mise-en-scene of Westerns. The ‘guns, cash and car chase’ feel of the films directly recall Westerns, and this is as recognisable stylistically as thematically. As Simmons says, ‘the visual elements of the Western find their way in.. most frequently this occurs in the form of Western Garb.. in Bonnie and Clyde Ranger Frank Hamer is dressed in a Stetson and cowboy boots.’19

The Outlaw Couple genre is unquestionably an established one with conventions that is now reincarnated and re-imagined throughout film. Although it is debatable that the genre is not as stable or renowned a genre as some previously mentioned, for example Musical or Comedy, that is arguably because these are broad terms that can cover a multitude of disparate sub-genres. The Outlaw Couple genre is much more specific, this perhaps meaning that it offers less scope, but also meaning that its conventions are far more distinguishable and precise. Although the Outlaw Couple film could be said to have limitations, it certainly constitutes a genre, and one that has an incredibly important and influential place in film history.


Bibliography
Altman, Rick, “Are Genres Stable?”, Film/Genre, London: BFI, 1999; pp. 49-68

Belton, John, “The Spatial Disorientations of Gun Crazy”, Cinema Stylists, Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1983; pp. 197-204

Biskind, Peter, “They Live By Night by Daylight”, Sight & Sound vol. 45 no. 4, Autumn 1976; pp. 218-22

Grundmann, Roy, “The Fantasies We Live By: Bad Boys in Swoon and The Living End”, Cineaste, 4, 1993; pp. 25-29

Kinder, Marsha, “The Return of the Outlaw Couple”, Film Quarterly vol. 27 no. 4, Summer 1974; pp. 2-10

King, Michael, “Badlands: Shoot first”, Jump Cut, no. 1, 1974; pp. 5-6

Kolker, Robert Philip, “Night To Day”, Sight & Sound, vol. 43 no. 4, Autumn 1974; pp. 226-239

Laderman, David, “Drifting On Empty”, Driving Visions: Exploring the Road Movie, Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2002; pp. 122-123

Neale, Steve, “Questions of Genre”, Film Genre Reader 2, ed. Barry Keith Grant, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995; pp. 159-183

Scott, A. O, “Two Outlaws, Blasting Holes in the Screen”, New York Times, December 8, 2007

Simmons, Garner, “The Generic Origins of the Bandit-Gangster Sub-Genre in the American Cinema”, Film Reader no. 3, February 1978; pp. 67-79

Sturken, Marita, Thelma & Louise, London: BFI, 2000; pp. 22-32

Tudor, Andrew, “Genre”, Film Genre Reader 2, ed. Barry Keith Grant, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995; pp. 3 -10

Badlands (US, Terence Malick, 1973)

Bonnie and Clyde (US, Arthur Penn, 1967)

Gun Crazy (US, Joseph H. Lewis, 1947)

The Living End (US, Gregg Araki, 1990)

Natural Born Killers (US, Oliver Stone, 1994)

Thelma and Louise (US, Ridley Scott, 1991)

They Live By Night (US, Nicholas Ray, 1949)

Thieves Like Us (US, Robert Altman, 1974)

You Only Live Once (US, Fritz Lang, 1937)

À Bout de Souffle and Felicia’s Journey in relation to Auteur and Genre Cinema

À Bout de Souffle is extremely appropriate to study in relation to auteur theory, as the term emerged with the French Nouvelle Vague and is most frequently associated with the New Wave directors.
These directors used auteur theory as a justification for their highly personal films which they wanted audiences and critics to view as individual, unconforming, unique works that were a break with the cinéma de qualité they so despised.

We could argue that auteur theory lets us define meaning more obviously, because by approaching a film with the belief it has a solitary author, we can understand the piece on a more complete and intense level.
However, as Foucault established, an author’s name has a classificatory status, under which we can group their works, having the same function as genre. This function gives us the ability to group together films and study them as a whole, to understand the seperate parts more fully.
The function of an authors name can sometimes even encompass films that are not by that director, if they display qualities that make them appear reminiscent of that director.
For example, ‘Hitchcockian’ is now a legitimate term used to describe later films that echo Hitchcock’s style or conform to the conventions he invented, as an auteur he is so respected it seems he has transcended this to make ‘Hitchcockian’ films a genre in their own right.
Although the French New Wave directors disliked the homogenity of the cinéma de qualité and standard narrative Hollywood cinema, there were some American directors they respected, who they believed showed artistic individuality, Hitchcock being one of these, and John Ford and Nicholas Ray being other examples.

Godard makes numerous references to other films in À Bout de Souffle, Michel gazes at a film poster of Humphrey Bogart and says “Bogie”, his lip-rubbing is also a homage to Bogart, and Patricia also comments on Michel’s similarity to him.
These self-aware references to American cinema acknowledge an influence, although perhaps they are a criticism of French cinema being too heavily influenced by American cinema, the betrayal of the French man modelling himself on an American, by the American girlfriend, is a quite obvious metaphor.
It could also be argued that the film also makes a tongue in cheek reference to the idea that the ‘old’ cinema is betraying the new, the youthful and the innovative when a woman attempts to sell Michel a copy of Cahiers, saying "Monsieur, do you support youth?" To which, annoyed, he replies "No, I prefer the old."

At the time, À Bout de Souffle was an innovative film, disregarding the cinematic language of Hollywood by replacing continuity editing and shot-reverse-shot with jump cuts and an individual visual style, giving itself a more abstract, less obvious, less explained feel. The film contained longer scenes than were conventional in mainstream hollywood cinema, for example the long sequence between Patricia and Michel in the bedroom.

However, despite the New Wave directors’ desire to produce unique, unconforming films, conventions are evident within them. Godard liked using foreign actresses like Anna Karina and Jean Seburg who were often hard to understand, and although this disregarded the importance of the script that was seen in earlier films who depended on book adaptions and theatrical stories, this became a convention in its own right. Perhaps one of the most predominant conventions is that the New Wave cinema generically revolves around a heterosexual young couple, the films were concerned with the relationships between young men and women, and À Bout de Souffle conforms to this.
The cinema of the New Wave also seemed more everyday, Godard said ‘we must begin with what we know’ - directors wanted to achieve more realism than was present in the current cinema and this is reflected in the documentary-like appearance of the Nouvelle Vague. This factor as well as others created or became generic conventions, which New Wave films, and À Bout de Souffle specifically, conform to.

Like other New Wave directors Godard opposed the suggestion he belonged to a wave or school of filmmaking, preferring his work to be seen as a personal expression of himself. However despite this, and despite his film’s individual differences, Godard’s work is seen as part of a group of films, with the work of Truffaut and Resnais, and like genre, this may mean that we can extract more meaning when analsing them as part of a collective.

Hitchcock as a director is a good example of how closely auteur and genre theory are linked, and as previously mentioned, the term ‘Hitchcockian’ is used to describe films with similar styles or themes to those of Hitchcock’s films.
Felicia’s Journey is arguably Hitchcockian, and elements present that would be considered Hitchcockian include; the presence of a domineering mother in her son’s life, (similar to Psycho), tension escalating through suspense to a point where the main character’s life is threatened, characters escaping from situations by using cunning and wit rather than violence, and the use of staircases to create suspense or metaphors for impending danger.
Although Gala is dead, we feel her presense very strongly influencing Hilditch in his actions even as an old man. He is obsessed with his mother and keeps her alive through his collection of all her products, and videos, and by watching her and talking to her as he cooks and eats. This is similar to the way Norman Bates keeps his mother alive in Psycho by pretending to be her, and as the camera explores through Hilditch’s house and we see his controlling mother preserved, we are inclined to see him as another Bates.
However, the apparent traumatic childhood of Hilditch that is such a generic convention of the serial killer horror is bizarre, Hilditch clearly views it as traumatic by the way he relives his memories, for example the force-feeding of the liver, and the way he vomits when later tasting liver, but for us as an audience it is disputable whether this really constitutes trauma.
However it is certain that the film intends to conform to the ‘traumatic childhood’ convention, and in conforming to both Hitchcockian conventions and ‘serial killer horror’ conventions it shows how closely auteurism and genre are linked, showing how the conventions of a successful auteur are imitated, becoming part of genres and trangressing auteurism to become something more all-encompassing. This illustrates the idea that we make our representations of a genre from auteurs who are successful within that specific genre, proving that the two are inextricably linked.
The second Hitchcockian convention mentioned, of tension building to a point where the main character’s life is threatened, which they then escape through using their wits, is certainly present in the end sequence where Felicia is drugged in bed and Hilditch reveals his crimes before she falls asleep, we then watch as she slowly wakes, as Hilditch digs her grave and is detained in garden, but eventually returns to the house. This scene builds tension in a manner very reminiscent of the ‘master of suspense’.
There is also a nod to Hitchcock’s film Suspicion in Felicia’s Journey, the scene on the stairs with the drugged drink is a homage to an almost identical scene in the former, and this self-concious allusion by the director Egoyan is a tongue in cheek reference to generic conventions and the influence of Hitchcock.
Felicia’s Journey certainly subscribes to gothic conventions present in similar ‘Beauty and the Beast’ type films, a killer murdering women who’s secret is finally uncovered by a ‘final girl’ who is resourceful enough to survive and relatively chaste compared to previous victims.
Influences from other films are also apparent, the images of ‘the other woman’ and the locked space are also generic gothic conventions used in other films such as Rebecca, and the videoing of his victims by Hilditch is similar to that which happens in Peeping Tom.
Victims in horror films are often sexually active, it could be argued this is to communicate the ideology that pre-marital sex is ‘bad’ and will doom you, and we see this in Felicia’s Journey as well as countless other horror films, for example Scream, where this idea is parodied dramatically.
Felicia’s Journey conforms to the generic syntagmatic combination of a horror narrative: traumatic childhood of killer revealed, group of young people introduced, severel members of which are violently killed on screen, until one girl remains who is pursued but ultimately escapes, the killer disappearing (leaving the story open for sequels) or is killed (although admittedly, this hasn’t always stopped sequels being produced either.)
However, ultimately the film also subverts genre, unusually mixing a love story with a suspense thriller/horror. In Felicia’s Journey the protagonist Felicia has her own aim, to find Johnny, ultimately ending her emotional journey in a place of fulfillment and contentedness at least, if not yet happiness.
Felicia’s Journey illustrates how the techniques of an auteur can evolve into generic conventions, how genres evolve by conventions being imitated but also subverted, resulting in the creation of new conventions and new genres, and both Felicia’s Journey and À Bout de Souffle demonstrate the close relationship between auteurism and genre theory.

A critical summary of Michael Foucault’s ‘What is an Author?’

Foucault begins by introducing the idea of an author as an individualisation within a field such as literature or philosophy. As the notion of an author quite obviously arose within literature originally, work on authorship focuses heavily on literature, and this is something that also features in work on genre. Because of this, it often means that it is harder to apply the theories to film.
However, Foucault believes that when studying theories of genre and other similar concepts, it becomes clear that they are of inferior quality, and not as useful as studying work through the lense of authorship. It could be argued that authorship lets us define meaning more clearly, because if we accept the author as the solitary producer of meaning within a work, perhaps we can define and understand the piece more completely. However, Foucault’s dismissal of genre theory disregards the importance of studying a piece within a group of similar works to understand how conventions create meaning.
Foucault seems to suggest that a works significance and meaning is made not from the subject matter, but by how it is communicated by the arrangement of elements that make up the work.
Something that could be criticised within some theories of authorship is the almost worshipful nature they apply to an author, as the ‘sole creator of meaning’, disregarding outside influences, unintentional meaning and for example, audience, as creators of meaning.
Foucault presents an interesting idea that could oppose this, suggesting that the writing of or creation of a piece of work is almost a sacrifice, a voluntary disappearance into your creation, the ‘death of the author’. He criticises a theory that attempts to support this idea, arguing that while it intends to displace the author, it in fact does the opposite, upholding it and suppressing the real reasons for an author’s literary ‘death’. This theory proposes we study a piece not through, or to understand, the work’s relationship with the author, but through analysing the work’s form and content. The issue with this theory is that, as Foucault reminds us, that to consider a piece of writing a ‘work’, we have to first have an author, otherwise would not every piece of writing be a work, and worthy of analysis? He then interestingly points out that even if we do consider someone an author, we can surely not believe that everything they wrote in their lives constitutes a ‘work’. This evidently means that when studying a work in the way the theory proposes, you must be aware of the context of the author, and Foucault states that it is inadequate to claim we should study the work and disregard the author. In these theories, however, surrounding the ‘death of an author’, he draws our attention to the importance of studying the space left behind, and the possibilities this presents, for example, the ‘birth’ of the audience, and the recognition of them as fundamental to finding significance within a work.
Foucault also raises the issues surrounding an author’s name, but although he explores these and the difficulties that arise, he does not fully resolve the issues, as he himself admits. The issues lie in what the name signifies, and Foucault explains that an author’s name is, like all other names, a description of the person, without just one signification but of endless meanings, resulting in it being unable to be turned into a singular reference. However, the issues raised by an author’s name are more complex that that of an ‘ordinary name’, they function as a representation of the author’s body of work. An author’s name, as Foucault puts it, has a role, performing a ‘classificatory function’. This name, in a manner similar to genre, creates the ability to group together a number of works and ‘define them, differentiate them from, and contrast them to others.’ Foucault’s well-expressed summary of the function a name has, can help us understand the idea of an author having a persona or being a symbol, rather than an ordinary individual.
He offers an example here of Hermes Trismegistus – he did not exist, but had a number of works placed under his name because of a sense of homogeneity throughout them, and this surely again has to be comparable to the ideas of genre that Foucault earlier dismissed.
Foucault also discusses ideas of ownership in relationship to works, and how this has developed through history. Before the seventeenth or eighteenth century, works with narratives, such as tragedies or comedies were accepted for their content and didn’t appear to ‘need’ an author, their apparent ancientness placing enough of a guarantee of quality upon them. Works of scientific content, dealing with subjects such as cosmology, geography and natural sciences were only accepted and seen to be accurate if they included their author’s name. Subsequently this seems to be reversed, with scientific discourses being accepted for their own merits, and with literary creation being dependant on the author function, anonymity becoming an enigma to decode, and audiences becoming desirous of an author for the work they experienced.

Foucault eloquently sums up the function of the author, stating that it is inextricably linked to the ‘universe of discourses’, although effecting said discourses differently depending on the civilisation in which they are present, and that the supposed ‘author’ does not have to refer to a individual but can refer to ‘several selves’.
Although the ‘death of an author’ and suppressing the privileged position of an author has been discussed, Foucault does not dismiss the importance of the author and presents the idea that they are not only the author of their own text but can exceed that with the possibilities they present. It appears apparent, then, that there are conflicting ideas within Foucault’s piece.

Foucault establishes the idea that to understand a text, the study of the relationship between itself and its author, or lack of, is necessary, and although he discusses opposing concepts and calls for a culture without the necessity of authorship, he admits himself that this is ‘pure romanticism.’ Foucault longs for the day when a work’s importance is governed by its content, not by who is speaking, and although he contemplates the moment that he believes will one day come, where the author function will disappear, his piece arguably does not dispel the need for one.

How has the idea of realism been conceptualised and articulated by filmmakers?

Unlike the filmakers of the Surrealist movement, who rejected realism and attempted to transcend the real to reach a superior state, the Realists believed that the form of filmmaking that could best communicate their message was realism.

Whereas other cinema would offer its audience an escape, Realism made its viewers confront social issues unflinchingly.

It could be argued that early cinema first displayed Realism when documentary films of far off exotic locations were shown to audiences. Research has shown that before 1906 actuality films outnumbered fictional films (Gunning 1990, p. 56). However, unlike the films of Italian Neorealism and British Social Realism, the importance lay not in displaying their technology, and less in the realism of what was being shown.

The Neorealist movement was essentially a rebellion against the totalitarian control that was being exercised in Italy; film critics had a lack of creative control as they had been prevented from discussing politics in the Cinema magazine, as the editor was Vittorio Mussolini, son of Benito Mussolini.
It was felt by these critics that filmmakers should be look to the influences of realist writers, and to French poetic realism to create an alternative to the telefono bianco films that they despised, that would effectively convey their message and deal poetically with the social issues that were affecting them.

Neorealism is hard to define because there does not seem to be any unanimous assent on what it is; in fact it seems that a definition of Neorealism is not desired by the filmmakers and critics of the genre, who would like us to believe that Neorealism has rejected conventions. Bazin said that Neorealism was a cinema of ‘fact’ (Bondanella, p. 31), a bold statement.
Fellini remarked that ‘Neorealism is a way of seeing reality without prejudice, without conventions coming between it and myself – facing it without preconceptions, looking at it in an honest way – whatever reality is, not just social reality but all that there is within a man’ (Bondanella 1998, p. 32)
However, it could be argued that Fellini is being idealistic when he states that Neorealism is without conventions, and that .
Certainly Neorealism has general characteristics throughout its films that have been established through the movement’s conceptualisation of realism, the most striking being the subjects the films dealt with.
Because the films of Italian Neorealism all dealt with the topics of the war, the Resistance, poverty, unemployment, the Partisan struggle and social injustice, despite being admittedly actual problems, they could not help but become generic.
There is a contrast between what Fellini says and what Armes and Bazin and note – they admit that Neorealism is ‘a cinema quite involved with artifice and had established its own cinematic conventions’ (Bondanella 1998, p. 33)
If we consider this notion then we have to acknowledge that Neorealism could not help but become a genre, and in being that films that fell into this catergory had to conform, making it disputable whether they had achieved true realism.
However, this does not mean that Neorealists had not found an effective way of articulating the real through a mixture of traditional realism and artistic intention.
As Rossellini said himself, realism is ‘simply the artistic form of the truth.’ (Bondanella 1998, p. 32).
Ironically, it is through some of the conventions of Neorealism that its dedication to the real can be asserted. For example, the use of non-professional actors that was almost universal in Italian Neorealism meant that the films seemed to be less contrived and took an air of pretence that Hollywood films suffered from away. In De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief the two main characters of father and son were both non professionals, which in Peter Bondanella’s opinion resulted in their performances being that which could have not have been ‘surpassed by even the most experience of theatrical actors’ (Bondanella 1998, p. 56). André Bazin said of the film that it was the ‘only valid Communist film of the whole past decade’ (Bondanella 1998, p. 58).
The less obvious filmic techniques of Neorealism, for example long shots and unobtrusive editing, also lend themselves efficiently to the cause, by not distracting us with formal aesthetics the films achieved a documentary like feel, especially in the case of Rossellini’s Rome, Open City.
The rejection of traditional cinematic conventions through not only non-professional actors and documentary effects but also on-location shooting, social content, historical actuality, political commitment, and a respect for actual duration being reflected in the screen time all makes an effective argument for Neorealisms adherence to real life and opposition to the manipulation mainstream film encountered in the cutting room.
Despite this though, even in Rome, Open City the balance between realism and artistic interpretation is noticeable. Although unobtrusive editing and long shots are utilized, there are also sequences which remind its audience that they are watching a film.
For example, Rossellini cuts back and forth between Don Pietro’s search for the weapons and descent through the building and the fascist officer’s ascent through the same building, creating suspense and drawing our attention to the construction of the scene through the cinematic device used.
Rossellini creates a narrative incorporating fact and fiction, and the Italian Neorealists certainly didn’t deny the importance the artistic elements of their films, and it could be argued that it was their willingness to have fiction and fact, illusion and reality go hand in hand that made their films so effective.
Unlike the Hollywood mainstream films the Neorealists were attempting to provide an antidote to, their films didn’t conform to sterotypical narratives, being more realistic than to hope for ‘happy ever afters’.
However, a reoccurring theme through the films that seemed to signify hope and a better future for Italy was that of the children of the country, and this perhaps at least offered the prospect of a happy ending one day.

The impact of Italian Neorealism has been undeniable, not only in Italy but in films throughout the world and especially in French New Wave cinema.

British Social Realism was heavily influenced by both French New Wave and Italian Neorealism, and like the latter was partly developed out of a struggle to develop an authentic national cinema to combat the dominance of the Hollywood cinema industry. Therefore, like with Italian Neorealism, its filmmakers believed a movement away from the escapism of Hollywood towards realism with which marginalised and unrepresented masses could relate.
However, the distinction between escapism and realism is not so easily reduced to a distinction between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’.
British New Wave has many characteristics, like Italian Neorealism, that make it possible for us to argue the realism of the movement. One would be the typage, the casting of non-professional actors who were physically appropriate for the roles, often with regional actors, had before this been quite unheard of in British cinema.
The use of townscape and lanscape shots in real locations, also seem to suggest they are telling real stories, in real historical locations.
However, the films of the movement were quite focused on the individual, which has led to some critics saying they cannot be representative of a larger struggle.
It could be argued though, that the relationships between the dominant community and our protagonists, often unlikeable ‘angry young men’, can be representing the masses plight on a personal, more humanistic level. Higson highlights how, in a contrast to the earlier films of a decade before where the police force itself is the centre of the community, in the later films, for example The Lonelieness of the Long Distance Runner the ‘petty criminal has become the hero, while the police and borstal staff, as the offical representatives or at least managers of the community, are constructed as threats to the integrity of the individual’ (Higson, 1986 p. 92). This could be construed as reflecting the social feeling at the time, a metaphor for the working class feeling that authority had given them no voice, and an alienation in both psychological and sociological terms.
Another trait present in British New Wave that I have also commented on regarding Italian Neorealism is the desire for a poetic cinema, a poetic realism that would translate their issues in an artistic way. Although British New Wave certainly developed from earlier documentary filmmaking, they sought to do things in a completely different, new cinematic language.

It could be argued that documentaries are the closest cinematic form of realism we can achieve.
Alan Lovell claimed that ‘the importance of the documentary lies not in the quality of individual films but in the impact it had in general on the British cinema’ (Lovell and Hillier 1972, p.35).
It could be argued that this has, as Andrew Higson puts it ‘produced a film culture which has been profoundly mistrustful of anything other that a particular de-dramatised naturalistic form: ‘style’ becomes something which gets in the way of the message of the film’ (Higson 1986, p. 76)
In the past prohibition against cinematic realism by those who felt it compromised their art form had thwarted the development of documentary film making.
The emergence of documentary filmmaking allowed audiences to view a world that had previously been off limits.
André Bazin, said that ‘The reality that the cinema produces at will and organizes is the same worldly reality of which we are a part.’ (Gaines 2007, p. 44)
He argued for ‘objective reality’ and ‘true continuity’ in documentaries, but can we ever really be objective?
A film-maker will always have a intention and no matter whether they try to show the world as it is, they will always do so subjectively by choosing what to show and what not to show, and so we have to be aware as an audience that a documentary that looks the same as the world before the camera has still been cut or produced out of material subject to other factors, such as a film-makers bias towards one side.
The reason it is important for us to realise this is because unlike when we watch a fictional film and are aware of a subjective filmmaker who has intent, we may accept documentaries at face value and base our views on the content we see and hear within them.
Documentary seeks to manipulate reality as means to an end, but reality is a moving target, and this may mean that documentary can never truely hold a mirror up to the world.
As much as the film maker may want the camera to show the importance of the everyday in a way which is merely observational, it could be argued that it cannot help but be analytical.
Radical film maker and author Danny Schecter expressed a concern that documentary realism could reinforce a policy you do not approve of, because subjects are left to speak uncoached, however Gaines believes that if we take a long enough view on everyday life ‘the truth will out’. (Gaines 2007, p. 51)
Gaines believes that a same world sensation is necessary and that we need to return to the form of documentary that uses the world to transform the world, which motivates people into doing something, similar to the Soviet tradition when cinema provoked revolutionary bodies.
Documentary making as Peter Wyeth and Don Mcpherson state, has ‘set the very terms in which film-making is thought about in Britain’ (Higson 1986, p. 73), and this is still evident in British cinema today. Gritty social realism is the identity our national cinema has, and some contemporary examples of this are Dirty Pretty Things and the films of Paul Greengrass.

In conclusion I would argue that realism has been conceptualised and articulated into countless forms by filmmakers that seek to replicate reality, but that we will never be able to ascertain which does so most effectively as reality itself is a subjective concept that can never be consistantly defined.



Bibliography
- Bondanella, Peter (1998) ‘The Masters of Neorealism: De Sica, Visconti and Rossellini’ in Italian Cinema from Neorealism to the Present, New York: Continuum
- Gaines, Jane M. (2007) ‘The Production of Outrage: the Radical Documentary Tradition’, The Journal of Cinema and Media 48.2 36-55
- Higson, Andrew (1986) ‘Britains Outstanding Contribution to the Film’: The Documentary-Realist Tradition in Charles Barr (ed) in All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years Of British Cinema, London: BFI
- Lovell, Alan and Hillier, Jim (1972) Studies in Documentary, London, Secker & Warburg/BFI, p. 35

Control Room and modern images in warfare

How do media images affect the conduct of modern warfare?
It could be argued that modern warfare is as much carried out in the media with images and words; as it is on ground with weapons and soldiers.
Media images are important because it is through them the actions of a government are portrayed to the citizens of their country, and the world, and through them we as a public can make our judgements. Media images are the only way we can be spectators of wars fought thousands of miles away, form opinions upon them, and ascertain whether we believe our governments are making the right decisions. Images are exceptionally important as they transcend language and are something people of any nationality can understand.

The Vietnam War, or the ‘Living Room war’, nicknamed so because many believed it was fought out on our television screens as much as or more so than the battleground, was impacted to such a degree by media images that it has transformed the way wars have been fought since, by the USA, as well as other countries.
The media were largely held accountable for the outcome of the Vietnam War; with many believing that it was the journalists who had ‘lost it for them’, that the enemy within had been their own media, and television was blamed for alienating public sympathy.
One side of the argument regarding the media’s importance in the outcome of Vietnam is that the media misrepresented the events taking place and the US militaries actions, leading to a lack of support for the troops from the American public in a war that should have been won.
Others would argue that the media and journalists had only satisfied their responsibilities by reporting and revealing the truth of the situation and US failures to the public who would have been otherwise kept in the dark.
Both however would surely agree that the media had been of huge significance in the war and the resulting consequences and the shift in public opinion, with governments realising that wars could be won on the battlefront but lost on the domestic front through the influence of media.
Vietnam was largely seen as a ‘war we shouldn’t have been in’ by Americans, and this resulted in anti-war feeling and pacifism that was prominent in America for many years afterwards. In the 1980’s this still present atmosphere was combated by the uber-masculine war movies starring the Stallone’s and Schwarzenegger’s of the world arguably attempting to brainwash the male public out of their pacifism and into being more pro-war, ‘curing’ the withdrawal, male shame and failure that was still felt after the ‘loss’ of Vietnam.
The media’s influence was now considered in planning public relations in future wars not only in the USA but worldwide, and in the Falklands War of 1982 the British government fought a war in, as Philip M. Taylor puts it, an ‘information vacuum’. The war was fought without televised coverage for a number of reasons, some technical, but mainly because of policy, with most of the images emerging only once the war was over.
It seemed that the British military had found a way to fight wars that would alleviate ‘Vietnam Syndrome’, and so America went about applying this to conflicts in Grenada and Panama, and later to the Gulf War.

It became obvious that if the Gulf War was going to be won, not only would American public opinion have to be harnessed but worldwide opinion as well, and so depicting the enemy as a military, economic and ideological threat was essential, portraying Saddam Hussein as a ‘new Hitler’ who was threatening the American way of life. This propaganda was crucial in psychologically preparing the American public and ensuring the government wouldn’t have another Vietnam on their hands.
In comparison the government was remarkably unchallenged by the media in the Gulf War, with journalists not wishing to be held accountable again for the militaries failure. The press didn’t fight the imposition of government censorship and the public also complied with the media’s new ‘hear no evil, see no evil’ attitude.
Research even showed that a large number of Americans would have approved of more rigorous censorship; it seems that they didn’t want to be humiliated again and wanted their wounded national pride to recover, meaning that the American military were free to wage a war as if no-one were watching, as if it were not a democratic country.
The countries media acted complicitly with the government to provide public with the reports they wanted to hear, shielding them from the ‘bad violence’ that exposed contradictions and providing only the ‘good violence’ that they felt was justified.
Images were now harnessed for a different use, utilized to justify the government’s actions, with images of atrocities becoming their own argument and supporting the deployment of American troops, which arguably made it hard to ask essential questions about the war.
In an approach that was unusual for warring leaders George Bush and Saddam Hussein exchanged blows over CNN, this surely being an eloquent synonym for the important role the media would take in modern wars. By using a television channel as the ring for their political discourse Bush and Hussein were changing the rules of international politics and altering the way in which modern warfare would be carried out, this being on our television screens.
Overt censorship, along with saturation bombing and rejection of all third part ceasefire proposals, as well as many other factors, signified a reincarnation of the US military used to completely lay to rest the anti war sentiment of Vietnam once and for all, and subscribing to the belief that if you are victorious, you don’t have to justify yourself.
Much has been said since that there seems to have been two wars taking place, the one itself that was happening, and the one that had been portrayed by the media. The degree to which journalists can ever cover any war objectively is debatable and we need to be cautious about accepting what we see as truth. War which appears to be one that if fought openly in full view of public opinion because it is televised can often be as hidden as one which is not, and when we accept images as reality and allow them to merge into one another we are susceptible to accepting propaganda as truth. As Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister puts it, ‘Television is no longer a spectator... If you observe a phenomenon, you actually change it... As you observe a phenomenon with television, instantly you modify it somewhat. And I think that what we have to make sure of is that the truth is not modified, and that it’s constantly fed to the leaders and to the publics in democratic countries’.

With the most recent war in Iraq the media have not been so obedient in complying with the government to limit negative publicity. On the whole the portrayal of the war has largely been negative, and public feeling seems to hark back to that of ‘Vietnam Syndrome.’
There has been worldwide outrage at what is undoubtedly an illegal war, and countless protests which have largely been ignored by the US and UK governments, who previous to the invasion of Iraq had claimed that weapons of mass destruction were present in Iraq and were a serious threat to their security as well as that of their allies. No such weapons or evidence of them were found by United Nations weapons inspectors, resulting in criticism of the US and UK ‘war mongers’ who many believed had used this excuse out of their greed for oil and profits.
Protests were organised across the world by anti-war groups and it is estimated that 36 million people have taken part in almost 3000 of them. There have been questions raised regarding the legality of the war, with Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations saying of the invasion ‘I have indicated it was not in conformity with the U.N. charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal’, as well as Lord Bingham, the former UK Law Lord describing the war as a serious violation of international law and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a ‘world vigilante’. There has also been a large amount of negative press condemning US soldiers’ actions, such as the mistreating of Iraqi civilians.

All of this is worlds apart from the media’s collusion with the government in the Gulf War, and the backlash has arguably resulted in George Bush Jnr becoming the most unpopular American president of all time, as well as a worldwide laughing stock due to his apparent ignorance in many political and geographical matters. It could be argued this is largely down to our ‘soundbite society’, where information, images and videoclips are always at our fingertips due to advancements in technology and websites such as Youtube.com. All of this demonstrates the proximity and great importance of the media, and the image, to politics today in our modern world.
This, and more specifically the media coverage of the Iraq war could be said to have been the downfall of Bush, and the Republican Party, as we have now seen a Democrat elected into the White House.
In late 2008 a pact was approved by US and Iraqi government which states that US combat forces will be withdrawn from Iraqi cities by June 30th 2009, and that all US forces will have been withdrawn completely from Iraq by December 31st 2011.

Control Room is a film which is certainly aware of the significance of the media image in modern warfare. The film uses images and footage to relay the Iraqi point of view that is so often disregarded in our Western civilisation.
Donald Rumsfeld appears throughout the film at press conferences, complaining about the propagandist nature of Al Jazeera, the most popular channel in the Arab nations. He surely wouldn’t be so concerned if he didn’t believe that the portrayal and reports of the war would be extremely significant in the outcome of it.
Paradoxically, another clip shows Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf himself accusing the television organization of transmitting American propaganda. The Bush administration has also called Al Jazeera ‘the mouthpiece of Osama Bin Laden’.

It is ironic that the makers of the film and representatives of news channels in it are so concerned, and rightfully so, with communicating truth and fact, when the war was arguably one based on lies. There is also an irony in this when you consider Rumsfelds insensitive accusations that the Iraqis lie about their casualties, ‘grabbing women and children whenever a bomb goes off and say they got hit to harness sympathy’. This clearly demonstrates Rumsfelds, and the Bush administrations lack of regard for Iraqi life, and the editing utilizes the power of the image here, as this quote is used alongside images of injured Iraqi women and children, clearly actually hurt, resulting in a very moving and tragic piece of film.

The film highlights American attempts to gain control over people’s freedom of speech, the ‘accidental’ bombing of the Al Jazeera headquarters is a synonym for American control over the depiction of the war. The image of the destroyed satellite that the film starts with connotes the destruction of freedom of speech, the absence of impartial reportage, and is an eloquent metaphor for the ‘media war’.
So what did Control Room reveal about the relationship between the war and the media? Essentially, the film brings to our attention the contrast between reality and the reality we are offered.
The media subverts reality, but as Samir Khader, the producer of Al Jazeera said ‘You cannot wage a war without channels, and without media.’
The film also reveals that all the major news channels, including the BBC, CNN, and NBC have headquarters at Central Command, again illustrating the extreme proximity and importance of media to the war.
So in conclusion, how important is the media image in modern warfare? It is of the foremost importance. The media image can be the downfall of a leader or the reason he is elected, can win a war, or lose one.


Bibliography

Boose, Lynda, ‘Techno-Muscularity and the ‘Boy Eternal’: From the Quagmire to the Gulf’, in Amy Kaplan and Donald E. Pease (eds) Cultures Of United States Imperialism (Durham, N.C.: Duke U.P., 1993), pp. 581 – 616
Gaines, Jane M., ‘The Production of outrage: the Iraq War and the Radical Documentary Tradition’, The Journal of Cinema and Media 48.2 (2007) 36-55
Roper, Jon, ‘Overcoming the Vietnam Syndrome: the Gulf War and Revisionism’, from Jeffery Walsh (ed.) The Gulf War Did Not Happen: Politics, Culture and Warfare post-Vietnam (Aldershot: Arena, 1995), pp. 27 – 47
Taylor, Philip M., ‘Image and reality in the Gulf War’. from War and the Media: Propaganda and Persuasion in the Gulf War (Manchester: MUP, 1992), pp.1-30
Control Room, dir. Jehane Noujaim (2004)
"Iraq war illegal, says Annan". BBC News 24 (2004-09-16)
‘Top judge: US and UK acted as 'vigilantes' in Iraq invasion’, The Guardian, November 18 2008