As I plan to be back on here Tuesday evening with NH Primary bloggin'-a-plenty, I will keep this relatively brief. More accurately I'll keep it brief because in the time between conception and actual blogging on this topic, another able blogger covered many of the same points already.
So let's talk about the trainwreck "feel good" hit of the winter, Tom Hanks' delightful Charlie Wilson's War. Leave aside the fact that I find Mr. Hanks and his grating aw-shucks-ain't-I-a-good-guy demeanor almost unbearable. Leave aside the fact that Julia Roberts' lips look like someone stapled two enormous millipedes to her face. Let's instead focus on the fact that this historical tale is somehow told as a charming, quirkly, feel-good story. It ends (caveat: I refuse to dignify this by paying to see it) with a mass of Afghan "freedom fighters" chanting Charlie Wilson's name, waving about their American-provided Stinger missiles, and gushing with love for the Red White and Blue.
Seriously.
My first reaction, the moment I first heard of this film (in the form of a trailer in the theater), was to turn to my film companion and say "Um, how are they going to get around the fact that those mujahadeen we armed to the teeth eventually became al Qaeda?" Apparently, I have now learned, the way they get around it is by ignoring it and ending the movie with a syrupy God Bless America pep rally.
Those radical Muslim "freedom fighters" (now known as Terrorists) sure do love America!
buy valtrex generic noprescriptionbuyonlinerxx.com over the counter
Roll the fucking credits! Quick! Before anyone starts asking questions!
Recasting alcoholic, ass-pinching lout Charlie Wilson as the lovable Tom Hanks (you know, that guy Tom Hanks is in every goddamn movie) was enough of a middle finger toward historical accuracy. Warping the American involvement in the Soviet-Afghan War into a tale of how hardcore Muslims came to love America is…well, it's just a bridge too far.
Cassie says:
On CBS Sunday Morning's profile of this movie they said that originally they were going to end the film with some footage of the Pentagon with a jetliner sized hole in it, but nixed that in favor of a vague exchange between Hanks and that tubby, blond male actor about an old saying about how you can never tell what the true result of an action will be. As if no one in the world could have guessed that mass distribution of weapons might lead to some less than fortunate things. The real-life woman that Julia Roberts portrayed said that the two endings said the same thing. She needs to be kicked in the teeth.
Matthew says:
Have you seen the lips on that woman? It's like a baboon's ass on her face!
When I went to go see Ocean's Eleven, we got there late and were forced to sit in the front row. There is perhaps nothing more terrifying than 18-feet tall Julia Roberts lips towering over you from a mere five feet away. I had a seizure.
BK says:
My wife and I (both who have spent time as legislative staff and have worked for Charlie Wilsonesque characters) saw this movie over the holidays. We're both liberals and both enjoyed this movie.
As I remember, the final substantive scene in the movie was actually Charlie Wilson trying to get $1million for rebuilding a school in Afghanistan mere months after having the US invest $500million annually to fight the Soviets. The subcommittee refused his request.
I enjoyed the movie because I went to it for entertainment value – not because I wanted to watch a 2 hour History Channel show. Honestly, I was very disappointed at the lack of insider baseball, but enjoyed the character development and dialogue.
It's a movie, based on actual events – not a documentary.
Anonymous says:
I heard that Charlie Wilson did a lot of coke back in the day, but movie execs decided to cut that out of the film because Tom Hanks doing coke would scare audiences. I would go to see Tom Hanks snort some coke, but that's just me.
Ed says:
I understand that it's not a documentary, but this is a little like if the film "World Trade Center" – also based on actual events – ended with the Towers standing and the firefighters doing a musical number.
Anonymous says:
I find your analogy a little specious. The movie was not about the founding of al-Qaeda, but about the ouster of the Soviets from Afghanistan.
If you want to use a better analogy, you should decry every WWII movie that doesn't bring up the eventual partitioning of Europe and the coming Cold War.
Cassie says:
"The movie was not about the founding of al-Qaeda, but about the ouster of the Soviets from Afghanistan."
That would be like making a film about the early life of Hitler and claiming it was nothing but the story of a struggling art student.
There is no way a movie about the ouster of the Soviets from Afghanistan would have been made if not for the after effects of those events, so how can the after effects be of so little significance that they don't garner mention in the movie itself?
J. Dryden says:
I haven't seen the movie, so *huge* grain of salt here, but it was my understanding that the knowledge of "where this would all lead" was sort of *assumed* on the part of the film-makers–like smarty-pants Sorkin, and that the movie was an exercise in showing how good intentions leads, via the law of unintended consequences, to results down the road that perhaps *could* and *should* have been foreseen, but weren't. So that when people of the current day ask "Why the hell did we arm the Afghanis?!", we can point to the circumstances and say, "We really thought we were helping the good guys."
gay gaylord says:
good intentions gone bad? Like making a movie to educate people, but leaving out one essential fact, thereby further misinforming people. How meta!
And I reject the argument that the movie is solely intended to entertain. Any movie with a historical setting, intentionally or not, informs people. It is irresponsible to retell history without adhering to the facts as closely as possible.
Rick says:
Dryden has a point. And so does Ed. I have seen the movie, and thought it was an excellent choice to spend $5 on. The filmmakers didn't completely dodge the bullet on the whole "As it turns out, this was baby al Qaeda" question. They simply swerved as hard as they could around it. One of the end scenes of the movie is Wilson trying to appropriate funds for Afghani schools, and a congressional board laughs at him. One questions why they would want to build schools in Pakistan, and Wilson promptly reminds them that Afghanistan was the subject at hand. Awkward silence ensues.
To me, this accomplished two things. It clearly stated that, "Now that we've fucked the Soviets, there's nothing here to see." In the 1980's, that argument would be clear and logical – even Gust stated that he had nothing better to do than to kill Russians. And that was the American government's only intention. Note that the only reason Charlie Wilson kept receiving increases in funding was because he was knocking Russian Hinds out of the sky – not liberating shantytowns. No results, no funding.
It also plays on the American sentiment that education fixes everything. Remember when your parents would hound you about "getting an education?" Get an education, see the world, make something of yourself. Okay! Americans commonly associate education (and almost solely education) with civility, higher moral thinking, and success. By including the school legislature scene, it shifts the audience into thinking that, "We tried to build a better Afghanistan, but yahoos in button-down shirts and ties screwed that idea." It also says, "Because we didn't do this, al Qaeda happened." What it DOESN'T say is, "If we did this, al Qaeda wouldn't have happened." A logical scapegoat.
The movie closes with a quote that says something like, "We fucked up the endgame." This can be appropriated to however many million meanings one wants, and I think the filmmakers intended it to indirectly point out the formation of al Qaeda – if we properly finished the job, then things might have been different. Again though, it doesn't directly say that, and the audience is to assume whatever he or she wants.
Either way, the ending could have been much better. I was actually stunned by the ending after such a near-flawless execution of movie-making, but not everyone and everything can be perfect. Yes, they could have been much more hard-hitting and use causality to infer one event following another. But they didn't, because this is America, and no one likes to dwell on past fuck-ups, especially when they carry such grievous returns.
Batocchio says:
Ahem. FWIW, I 've got much more on the film and the changes to the script in two posts:
http://vagabondscholar.blogspot.com/2008/01/wheres-bin-laden.html
http://vagabondscholar.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-on-charlie-wilsons-war.html