Violent Films Find Voracious Audience


November 17, 2001


BROOKE GLADSTONE: In the weeks immediately following the terrorist attack, America told itself it would never again savor movie mayhem. That we were too irony-impaired to laugh at stupid jokes. How wrong we were. In the weeks since we have stood in lines for the violence-soaked Training Day and the shuddering fat jokes of Shallow Hal. Films about terror and bombs had their release dates delayed because of September 11th, but now some war films are being rushed ahead of schedules to the theaters! David Edelstein, movie reviewer for Slate.com says that once again the reason is September 11th!

DAVID EDELSTEIN: I think what it is, is that there is such a paucity of battle footage from Afghanistan. Here are Americans glued to their sets all day, hungry for something other than talking heads, wanting to see some explosions, wanting to know what's going on, wanting some release. They can't get it, so Hollywood has very cleverly said well we have a couple of war pictures in the can. Let's move 'em up, you know? Now it's, it's interesting, I've seen one of them -- Behind Enemy Lines -- which is an extremely old-fashioned war picture and it really just centers on one guy played by Owen Wilson who gets trapped behind enemy lines, as the title suggests and has to kind of make his way out of Bosnia/Herzegovina and out of enemy territory and they're very conventional evil Serb villains.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:I can see how Behind Enemy Lines would fill the void. What I'm curious about is Blackhawk Down which is about the disastrous campaign, recent military campaign in Somalia!

DAVID EDELSTEIN: Well that's what the book is, and it is a - it is a great book. However it is being directed by Ridley Scott and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Jerry Bruckheimer attempted to turn Pearl Harbor into the sort of feel good, go for it picture of the summer. Fortunately for all it was a, it was a terrible failure --or a relative failure, compared to what it cost. But there's no telling whether Jerry Bruckheimer could ever make an entirely downbeat, non-escapist movie if [...?...]-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But Ridley Scott can.

DAVID EDELSTEIN:I don't know. I mean Gladiator wasn't exactly a feel-good picture, but the bad guy got it where the bad guy lived, you know, and everybody screamed for blood.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Two of the most highly anticipated movies of the season are purely escapist fantasy family entertainment -- Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. Is that par for the course for Christmas or is there a particular reason why so much is expected of these films in this holiday season?

DAVID EDELSTEIN: I think it's par for the course. You need a--at least one fantasy spectacle every Christmas.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Can you anticipate the public's reactions to either Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or Behind Enemy Lines or, or even Not Another Teen Movie, a real goofball spoof that probably would have been more tolerated in, in less somber times -- or am I just off base? Are things really back to--?

DAVID EDELSTEIN: Brooke, you're entirely off base. [LAUGHTER] Things are - things are back to normal with a vengeance I'm afraid. I, I think all those movies are going to do well. I think people are desperate to go to the theatre. I think they're desperate to escape right now. A lot of very rash things were said in the aftermath of September 11th. I mean I announced myself that I didn't want to write any more movie reviews. It just felt frivolous. I couldn't imagine how anybody could see a movie for crying out loud. I mean a movie! What, what, what's that? And yet a week later, [LAUGHS] everybody's sitting in the movies again, because--

BROOKE GLADSTONE: That's the way we're wired.

DAVID EDELSTEIN: -- because that is the way we're wired, and there's another thing too -- the government has given us permission to escape. The president of the United States said, you know, we've got to go back to business as usual. We can't let the terrorists win. I think it's probably a tribute to Hollywood that there weren't commercials for Corky Romano that said - you know - See Corky Romano - don't let the terrorists win -- or that every movie is like, you know, come see Scream VIII -- don't let the terrorists win. I mean that could be the slogan for getting people into the theater, as if people need an excuse. They, they don't, but if they know that they're doing it for Uncle Sam, if they're doing it for the economy, then there is just no stoppin' 'em.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS] David, thank you very much.

DAVID EDELSTEIN: You're welcome, Brooke.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: David Edelstein is the movie reviewer for Slate.com.