Hollywoods Dirty Little Secret
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Topic:
Hollywoods Dirty Little Secret
Posted By: rami
Subject:
Hollywoods Dirty Little Secret
Date Posted: 29 November 2005 at 9:20am
Bi ismillahir rahmanir raheem
To late to watch the program but the article is interesting. Another br put the links together im just copying and pasting.
Hollywood's Dirty Little Secret
Where were the British and Canadian troops in Saving Private Ryan? They may have been present in history, but that didn't wash too well with Hollywood ...or the Pentagon.
It's
the scripts that pay a high price when Hollywood goes into battle.
Brian Courtis looks at one of the movie world�s murkier truths.
Well,
we've known the rules. We've known them since Errol Flynn liberated
Burma without any help from British, Australian or New Zealand forces.
Churchill and a few Diggers may have been upset, but the fact is when
it comes to Hollywood only the good guys win and, since we're playing
with their toys, those good guys must inevitably be Americans. Never
let the absurdities of history get in the way of a box-office
blockbuster.
They really do not want to discuss this, of course,
in Tinseltown. They still see only their heroes and our villains. And
they continue to win everything alone. Remember Steven Spielberg's
D-Day spectacular Saving Private Ryan? Someone simply forgot that
72,000 British and Canadian troops were also involved. And if Hollywood
is to be believed, it was the Americans who captured the Enigma coding
machine from a German submarine; never mind that the Brits were there
and accomplished that six months before the Yanks entered the war.
Not
everything has been quite so eagerly promoted. We hear less, for
instance, about the effects of the powerful relationship that has grown
over the years between the Pentagon and the Hollywood studios, a
partnership that not only can save millions of dollars for filmmakers
and produce fine recruiting propaganda for Washington, but can twist
history and reality to produce the ultimate in international spin.
In
Operation Hollywood, which SBS screens on Tuesday, filmmaker Emilio
Pacull follows up an investigative study by film industry journalist
Dave Robb on the help producers have sought from the military over the
years. Robb, who worked for Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, says he
found himself obsessed with the minutiae of these negotiations with the
boys with ships, tanks, materiel, information, bases, access to land,
troops and some very real-looking fireworks.
His report, a
page-by-page study of scripts submitted by the studios to the Pentagon,
reveals an intriguing pattern of censorship and propaganda. For
Hollywood, acceptance of this system means the difference between "full
co-operation" and no co-operation. For the military, it involves
maintaining an idealised image of the forces, their behaviour, their
view of the world, the superiority of their form of patriotism, and for
that matter, their reasons for going to war.
So why, they would
argue, should the Pentagon spend its money on pacifism or promoting the
darker side of the soldier's world? Why reward a Platoon when The Green
Berets is what you're after?
Among those with an opinion in
Operation Hollywood are Australian director Phil Noyce, Phil Strub from
the US Department of Defence, historian Lawrence Suid and Joe Trento,
author and president of the anti-war Public Education Centre. This,
they all agree, is a world where lines, plots and nationalities are
changed so that film producers can gain access to expensive military
hardware.
In the 1995 James Bond movie Goldeneye, for example,
the original script had a US Navy admiral betraying state secrets. This
was changed to make the traitor a member of the French navy. After that
the military's co-operation was forthcoming. Pacull and Robb takes us
from the pedantry to the powerful in examining the changes to scripts.
They list the producers and the movies that have fallen into line and
show how the military's script editors work. Interestingly, it's not
the censors who come under fire here quite so much as those
co-operative, self-censoring filmmakers.
Still, as Robb says, in
what has become ostensibly his campaign against this system, the
long-term effect on generations of young Americans is an unknown. �How
many of those killed in Iraq died because they joined up after they saw
what was presented in a film?� How many have died as the result of
unknown recruiting propaganda?
All a producer needs do for
assistance, it seems, is submit five copies of his script to the
Pentagon for approval, make whatever script changes the Pentagon
suggests, film the script exactly as approved by the Pentagon and
preview the finished product for Pentagon officials before it's shown
to its broader audience. And, according to Robb, as he puts the boot
firmly into Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Goldberg (Stripes), John Woo and
other producers and directors, many do this gladly. It is, he insists,
Hollywood's dirtiest little secret.
Not that the big screen is
alone. Among the early changes we hear about is a scene from an episode
of the children's television series Lassie in which a light aircraft
crashing in the woods concerned the Pentagon. A change to the script
was called for. The military didn't want children, the subject of its
future recruitment drives, to get the idea that the US Army produced
faulty equipment.
Not surprisingly, Washington will back what it
sees as the positive message every time. There is enthusiasm for such
gung-ho films as The Longest Day, Top Gun or, believe it or not, Pearl
Harbor. There is no point talking to them about Apocalypse Now, Platoon
or Dr Strangelove. As for films about the wounded and traumatised
victims of war, concentration camp horror, or civilian casualties ...
well, that has nothing to do with them, does it? Use your imagination,
however, and make a heroic star of yet another four-star general and
you will be marching step-in-step with America's medal-winning movie
buffs. And be rewarded for it.
There are other ways to win the
day. It would be interesting, for example, to see how the Pentagon
would react to the sentimental reflections on wartime that British
television so enjoys. In the escapism of Foyle's War, for example, the
message is one of sacrifice and understanding. Michael Kitchen's wise
old police chief, Foyle, uses wisdom, patience and tolerance in an
idyllic Sussex setting against petty crimes and sabotage. This, rather
than some one-sided battlefield slaughter, shows us the old values
we're fighting for.
Soldiers and civilians are generally given
positive treatment; blimpish landowners, politicians and generals get
short shrift. This week, in They Fought In The Fields, the sweet and
splendid Sam (Honeysuckle Weeks) is on the farm with a troubled gang of
land girls, while her boss is out sorting spies from prisoners of war.
There are few fireworks, few toys from the boys, but a gal's still
gotta do what a gal's gotta do.
Operation Hollywood ( http://www.sbs.com.au/whatson/index.php3?progdate=22:02:2005 - - Source
==================================
FURTHER READING
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2005-02-07-military-projects_x.htm - With America At War, Hollywood Follows
http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2004/09/09_403.html - Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Bullies Movie Producers ...
http://www.aim.org/media_monitor_print/1371_0_2_0/ - Pentagon Throws a Hollywood Party
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/1891196.stm - Hollywood: The Pentagon's New Advisor
http://entertainment.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=565365 - Hollywood and the Pentagon: A Dangerous Liaison (Case Studies)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda - Propaganda Studies
http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/2002-1/issue6/fe-mots.html - Deconstructing Hollywood: Negative Stereotyping In Film
http://www.muslimwakeup.com/main/archives/2005/02/002645print.php - �The Muslims Are Coming! The Muslims Are Coming!�
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------------- Rasul Allah (sallah llahu alaihi wa sallam) said: "Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord" and whoever knows his Lord has been given His gnosis and nearness.
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Replies:
Posted By: rami
Date Posted: 29 November 2005 at 9:23am
Bi ismillahir rahmanir raheem
more interesting things.
http://theage.com.au/news/Opinion/How-Dirty-Harry-turned-commie/2005/02/17/1108609342686.html - How Dirty Harry turned commie
http://smh.com.au/news/film/shot-from-a-different-angle/2005/07/01/1119724801500.html - Shot from a different angle
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/iraq-war-hits-home-with-added-drama/2005/07/29/1122144022371.html - and whoever knows his Lord has been given His gnosis and nearness.
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Posted By: kenski70
Date Posted: 29 November 2005 at 11:37am
British,Canadian and Americans and attacked Normandy.each was assigned different sections to hit.they weren't mixed together that doesn't mean Hollywood is trying to say the British and Canadians weren't there.they were and fought just as hard as the Americans.but the story took place in the American section.go 5-10 miles down the beach you might see Brits.
------------- Sorry about that turn signal,I must have fallen asleep.
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Posted By: Angela
Date Posted: 29 November 2005 at 12:24pm
I know that Enemy at the Gates was hailed as the first serious Hollywood movie to look at the Eastern front of WWII.
Hollywood has never been really great with being accurate in history. That's why the History Channel does Reel to Real episodes.
They show the movie and then dissect the fact and the fiction.
Look at Braveheart....Kingdom of Heaven and any of the Zorro or Robin Hood movies...
Hollywood likes to twist history for what it calls mass appeal.
If far more entertaining to accuse the British queen of infidelity with the Scottish hero all those centuries ago rather than the reality of the situation.
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Posted By: rami
Date Posted: 29 November 2005 at 5:51pm
Bi ismillahir rahmanir raheem
You meen the King of England is not scotish i kind of enjoyed that twist ....j/k
It isnt so much that Holywood twists facts but that there is an agenda and real ideology behind it and its ver delibrate.
You now have many generations of people around the world with twisted unrealistic world view.
------------- Rasul Allah (sallah llahu alaihi wa sallam) said: "Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord" and whoever knows his Lord has been given His gnosis and nearness.
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Posted By: kenski70
Date Posted: 29 November 2005 at 9:09pm
Hollywood has never been really great with being accurate in history. That's why the History Channel does Reel to Real episodes.
absolutely right.history VS Hollywood.great show and its on my favorite channel too.
------------- Sorry about that turn signal,I must have fallen asleep.
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Posted By: kenski70
Date Posted: 29 November 2005 at 9:14pm
I know that Enemy at the Gates was hailed as the first serious Hollywood movie to look at the Eastern front of WWII.
the eastern front had some of the most bitter fighting.and how can Hollywood mess that up?a love story?and sex scene? in the middle of a combat zone?.....why???????????????????????
------------- Sorry about that turn signal,I must have fallen asleep.
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Posted By: kenski70
Date Posted: 29 November 2005 at 9:30pm
If far more entertaining to accuse the British queen of infidelity with the Scottish hero all those centuries ago rather than the reality of the situation.
History vs Hollywood slammed brave heart good.Edward I(long shanks)was very popular in his time.Edward II was believed to be a qweermo,but it was the princess who killed his boyfriend not long shanks.she was however guilty of infidelity (and did dispose her husband )but not with William Wallace.considering she was 6 at the time of William Wallace, and in the movie we are led to believe her son Edward III was William Wallace's son.well if thats true he didn't follow in his fathers footsteps.first thing he did when he ascended to the throne ? Invade Scotland! Man I love the history channel!
------------- Sorry about that turn signal,I must have fallen asleep.
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Posted By: Angel
Date Posted: 30 November 2005 at 5:12am
I didn't think Hollywood had to be true to life.
------------- ~ Our feet are earthbound, but our hearts and our minds have wings ~
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