Post by klep on Mar 9, 2020 7:01:47 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 3/9: Starship Troopers
FRONTIER WEEK!
Since it was first released, Starship Troopers has been a frequently misunderstood film. Viewers have seen the excessive gore and the unbelievable dialog and dismissed it as genre trash. But to those willing to engage a little more with the film, it readily becomes apparent that Starship Troopers is cleverly undermining the ideals of fascism.
Written by Edward Neumeier and directed by Paul Verhoeven, Starship Troopers starts hitting you with the satire hard and fast, with its opening clip of obvious military propaganda. Its over-the-top nature swiftly makes it clear that this is not going to be a movie actually glorifying war and military service, but instead something more subversive. Verhoeven ramps up the violence and gore throughout the movie to unsettle the viewer and make them question the value of what's going on on-screen.
Repeated horrible mutilations and gruesome deaths constantly drive home the horror of this conflict contrary to the glorious picture painted by the frequent propaganda clips, and the blasé attitude of the military towards soldiers' deaths and dismemberment shows how little the soldiers are valued. Early on a recruiter welcomes Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) to what he ironically calls the "meatgrinder," saying the mobile infantry made him the man he is today. We've seen the man's prosthetic arm the whole scene, but as he delivers this line the film cuts to an insert revealing he also has no legs. The recruiter may have spoken with irony, but the movie knows it was all-too sincere. Later on in the film when Rico's company gets reinforced, it looks like many of the new recruits are actually children, maybe 14 or 15 years old. We look at them, and know from experience that most of them will die badly.
Something besides the violence that turns people off about the film and keeps them from looking deeper is the obviousness of the individual arcs. Basically every main character has some story arc that's pretty archetypal and unoriginal, frequently with dialog that sounds like it came out of a movie as opposed to something more natural. But fascism encourages such simple, clear personal narratives. They leave no room for nuance, for questioning the society that pushes them. By foregrounding them as its characters actual lives, Starship Troopers helps to drive home its satirical aims. Real lives are much more complex than what we see, and in trying to stick to the simple narratives their society wants them to have, the film's characters find themselves sucked further and further into being the blinkered, unthinking, disposable personnel their fascist government wants. By film's end, Rico is parroting the lines his former lieutenant shouted at him, which he probably heard from his lieutenants before him.
Perhaps the craziest thing about Starship Troopers, though, is how it works so well as an allegory for the US conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. A possibly provoked terroristic attack gives the government cause to start a war it arrogantly (and falsely) believes it is prepared to wage. This arrogance and poor intelligence leads the Federation to get bogged down in a quagmire after what they believed would be a quickly settled invasion fails to actually end the conflict. Society is driven to see the bugs as nothing more than 'evil' and 'the enemy'. Even when they finally do learn of the bugs' intelligence and are able to communicate, the reaction is not one of attempting to reach peace, but delight in the idea that the bugs are afraid - and a recommitment to kill them all.
The aptness of that allegory - found, again, in a film which was made years before the events in question - raises unsettling and necessary questions about the authoritarian and nationalistic impulses in our own national fiber. Perhaps that's another reason initial response to Starship Troopers was so poor. It was a bit like looking in the mirror, and we did not like what we saw.
FRONTIER WEEK!
Since it was first released, Starship Troopers has been a frequently misunderstood film. Viewers have seen the excessive gore and the unbelievable dialog and dismissed it as genre trash. But to those willing to engage a little more with the film, it readily becomes apparent that Starship Troopers is cleverly undermining the ideals of fascism.
Written by Edward Neumeier and directed by Paul Verhoeven, Starship Troopers starts hitting you with the satire hard and fast, with its opening clip of obvious military propaganda. Its over-the-top nature swiftly makes it clear that this is not going to be a movie actually glorifying war and military service, but instead something more subversive. Verhoeven ramps up the violence and gore throughout the movie to unsettle the viewer and make them question the value of what's going on on-screen.
Repeated horrible mutilations and gruesome deaths constantly drive home the horror of this conflict contrary to the glorious picture painted by the frequent propaganda clips, and the blasé attitude of the military towards soldiers' deaths and dismemberment shows how little the soldiers are valued. Early on a recruiter welcomes Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) to what he ironically calls the "meatgrinder," saying the mobile infantry made him the man he is today. We've seen the man's prosthetic arm the whole scene, but as he delivers this line the film cuts to an insert revealing he also has no legs. The recruiter may have spoken with irony, but the movie knows it was all-too sincere. Later on in the film when Rico's company gets reinforced, it looks like many of the new recruits are actually children, maybe 14 or 15 years old. We look at them, and know from experience that most of them will die badly.
Something besides the violence that turns people off about the film and keeps them from looking deeper is the obviousness of the individual arcs. Basically every main character has some story arc that's pretty archetypal and unoriginal, frequently with dialog that sounds like it came out of a movie as opposed to something more natural. But fascism encourages such simple, clear personal narratives. They leave no room for nuance, for questioning the society that pushes them. By foregrounding them as its characters actual lives, Starship Troopers helps to drive home its satirical aims. Real lives are much more complex than what we see, and in trying to stick to the simple narratives their society wants them to have, the film's characters find themselves sucked further and further into being the blinkered, unthinking, disposable personnel their fascist government wants. By film's end, Rico is parroting the lines his former lieutenant shouted at him, which he probably heard from his lieutenants before him.
Perhaps the craziest thing about Starship Troopers, though, is how it works so well as an allegory for the US conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. A possibly provoked terroristic attack gives the government cause to start a war it arrogantly (and falsely) believes it is prepared to wage. This arrogance and poor intelligence leads the Federation to get bogged down in a quagmire after what they believed would be a quickly settled invasion fails to actually end the conflict. Society is driven to see the bugs as nothing more than 'evil' and 'the enemy'. Even when they finally do learn of the bugs' intelligence and are able to communicate, the reaction is not one of attempting to reach peace, but delight in the idea that the bugs are afraid - and a recommitment to kill them all.
The aptness of that allegory - found, again, in a film which was made years before the events in question - raises unsettling and necessary questions about the authoritarian and nationalistic impulses in our own national fiber. Perhaps that's another reason initial response to Starship Troopers was so poor. It was a bit like looking in the mirror, and we did not like what we saw.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 3/17: Charade
HEIST WEEK!
For Heist Week we'll be watching our second pairing of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in the 1963 film Charade. Join us as we follow them in a chase to secure the fortune her dead husband has left behind! Charade is available in the usual places, and streams free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 3/10: Gaslight (1944)
Next week's podcast kicks off a pairing about women being gaslit by abusive partners, starting with the George Cukor adaptation of the play that gave the phenomenon its name! Join our discussion on Wednesday of Gaslight, available in the usual places.
HEIST WEEK!
For Heist Week we'll be watching our second pairing of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in the 1963 film Charade. Join us as we follow them in a chase to secure the fortune her dead husband has left behind! Charade is available in the usual places, and streams free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 3/10: Gaslight (1944)
Next week's podcast kicks off a pairing about women being gaslit by abusive partners, starting with the George Cukor adaptation of the play that gave the phenomenon its name! Join our discussion on Wednesday of Gaslight, available in the usual places.