Film Comment article

[miss_saigon]

I was researching a paper for my film class when I came across this article about the mini-series. It's old but I thought it made some really interesting observations about the show so I went ahead and scanned it in case anyone else is still getting a thrill from reading awesome reviews.

Comments

[l_s_d_me]

thanks for posting this!

you know, in terms of Nancy Franklin not approving of them "softening" parts of it. my mom told me once that she dislikes Generation Kill because she doesn't think it's shows the true amount of carnage that happened during that time - and even though i've explained to her that it's not a series about the atrocities of war, but about the experiences of these select people - she STILL thinks it's shockingly inaccurate.

[l_s_d_me]

parents! what do ANY of them know.

[miss_saigon]

you're welcome :)

re:the gore level, I think that's a really interesting complaint because it was definitely not something that occurred to me while watching the show. It's hard to remember first impressions now that I've seen most of the eps so many times but I know it took me a few weeks to make it through the whole show on my first watch largely because I found the whole thing so detailed and graphic. I was enjoying the show but it depressed the hell out of me.

[l_s_d_me]

hmm, i watched it when it was re-run on hbo, 2 or 3 episodes a night, and i it being graphic never crossed my mind.

[watchsnowfall]

IDGI. At all. We don't need to see blood and guts and fingers to feel the carnage. To me, it's far more potent to have the doc comment about how half of the babies are going to die while the Iraqis were fleeing Baghdad than to see heads rolling around on the pavement.

Honestly, I'm not squeamish, but I think GK was pretty balanced -- it wasn't gratuitious, but it did have enough unsettling images.

And like you said, I think it's about the experiences of these select people -- and they had jobs to do, if they got lost in it, then they're not 'combat effective' and that would have spelt way more trouble for the entire group.

[l_s_d_me]

i absolutely agree with you - just Doc saying that is more effective than any dead body they could show, especially since there is so much desensitization to seeing violence these days.