Something to watch tonight: Monday 15 July

Generation Kill (Burns/Simon, 2008)

Editor’s note

No new release summary this week as the ongoing disruption caused by my getting an actual job continues. I only saw one film in cinemas last week – you can hear me talk about with Emile Donovan on RNZ Nights here – out of four new ones. This week is going to be equally challenging as I’ve also committed to previewing five films in this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival for a column next Monday!

Meanwhile, if you’d like to know more about who I’m working for and what we do, here’s an interview with co-founder Joel Baxendale on RNZ’s Culture 101 show from Sunday. This interview is a great introduction to a platform that has so much possibility for creators, museums, galleries, festivals, attractions, etc. It's technology that makes creating experiences and activating audiences accessible to anyone. (Yes, one of my responsibilities is business development, why do you ask?)

Early this morning news came through of the passing (at his own hand) of journalist and screenwriter Evan Wright. He was 59. He wrote for Rolling Stone for a while and here is their obituary.

I want to take the opportunity to recommend the TV project he was most closely associated with, Generation Kill from 2008.

It was based on his non-fiction book of the same name, in turn based on his dispatches for Rolling Stone as he was an embedded reporter with a Marine Corps battalion dugout the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The adaptation was led by David Simon with Ed Burns and it was the follow-up to the acclaimed Baltimore drug and detective show, The Wire.

In seven episodes of Generation Kill, we follow a large cast of characters – 28 core cast! – as they prepare for Operation Iraqi Freedom, make their perilous way across country and then discover that maintaining their grip on Baghdad will be much more difficult than they had been eld to believe.

A theme of both shows is the damaging impact on masculinity of working in and around violence while at the same time having no personal agency. The stories of the footsoldiers on both sides in The Wire are not a million miles away from the alienation experienced by the enlisted men on the ground in Iraq. Pawns being moved around a chessboard by leaders who are well insulated from the trauma inflicted on the front lines.

And, as Wright’s untimely passing suggests, that trauma casts a long shadow.

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Where to watch Generation Kill