Army of One
motion, Fall 2007
Soundmarks: Rafael Attias
Tags: asshattery, caricature, cynicism, gender, irony, mock-heroic, the media machine, politics, pop culture
Overview
- A satirical Iraq-war / army recruitment video that is suddenly interrupted by actual footage of the consequences of war.
- A reminder for anyone who might have been living in a cave the past few decades: the one with the bulgiest muscles, gutsiest swagger and biggest explosions wins. (For women the lesson is: the winner is the one who gets to go home with that guy.)
- The product of a two-week assignment to create a short film by combining and editing found footage from any number of sources.
Process
I initially wanted to do a meditation on what it means to be an American hero. Once I got started collecting footage, I altered my approach to a message that would contrast the idealized masculine hero from movies, cartoons and TV with the actual reality.
I wanted the film to have a plot, so I selected a few clips that I could return to periodically – sped up or slowed down to help set the tone as things build. One of the main ideas I wanted to communicate is that the promotion, celebration and eventuality of violence is a vicious cycle.
Form
President Bush is a central figure in the film. After studying and collecting his rhetoric about the War on Terror for my War on Evil project, I felt that this message of idealized violent heroism is something he would be really into.
As a counterpoint to Bush, I used a happy little boy who seems to be around the age when kids start to pay attention to media messages from cartoons, toy commercials and movies. The kid appears every so often, encouraged by the President, to laugh at the explosions, football tackles and cartoon fighters.
The bloody interruption around the midpoint of the film ended up being a controversial move. Without it, I think the film would be lacking for a message. With it, it feels heavy-handed.
But this was a two-week sketch. I ended up continuing and revising this project for a different class later in the semester.
Notes
The music is Sitting by M83.
