Brian De Palma Tackles Iraq War

(AP)  Director Brian De Palma presented his new film "Redacted," a harrowing depiction of the horrors of the Iraq War, at the Venice Film Festival on Friday.

The director of "Carrie," "Scarface" and "Casualties of War" began the project after reading about a March 2006 incident in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, when a group of U.S. troops in the 101st Airborne Division raped a 14-year-old girl before setting her body alight and shooting dead her parents and 5-year-old sister.

Other events retold in the film include the fatal shooting of a pregnant Iraqi woman at a military checkpoint as her brother drives her to hospital.

The film ends with a montage of real-life photographs of Iraqi war victims, including maimed and dead women and children; the final picture is an image of the real-life 14-year-old rape victim.

De Palma said he hoped seeing such images would alert Americans to the truth of what is going on in Iraq.

"Why doesn't American learn from its past mistakes?" he said at the festival. "Boy, that's a good question, because the architects of this war were right there on the ground during Vietnam; of course they didn't serve, but they've observed, and they kind of feel that maybe we should have stayed in Vietnam, we would have won that war.

"I don't know, it's just one of those questions - you just sort of shake your head: 'Are we doomed to repeat history over and over again?'

"It seems quite obvious to me, we shouldn't be there."

The film's title refers to the process of editing out material for legal or other reasons.

Legal constraints meant some material in the film was itself redacted - the faces of the victims in the closing photographs are partially blanked out.

De Palma believes it's these harrowing pictures that hold the key to stopping the war:

"I remember picking up Life magazine and seeing pictures that would horrify me about the Vietnam War. We don't have those pictures in America [today], I don't even know if you have them in Europe, but we certainly don't have them.

"The pictures are what will stop the war, and if we can get these pictures in front of a mass audience, and get these stories in front of a mass audience, maybe we'll have some effect."

De Palma cast relatively unknown actors as the Army recruits and filmed on location in Jordan.

The two soldiers who carry out the rape do so after a night drinking whisky and playing cards, just as their real-life counterparts did.

They embark on their rape-and-murder spree to take revenge after a colleague is blown up by a roadside bomb.

Two of the U.S. soldiers involved in the Maymudiya attack have been jailed for a total of 190 years.

The alleged ringleader, Steven Green, was honorably discharged from the Army due to a personality disorder and is awaiting trial as a civilian. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty if he is convicted.

[bobgee_1999]

Showing the ugly side of war is valid, no matter who it indicts. Because war IS ugly. For a nation that pretends to abhor war, it''s strange how many we seem to get into. I had hoped that 11 Sept 01 would show America how ugly it is when your own people die in the street, but obviously it didn''t. That it has the opposite effect shows us something pretty ugly about the American character.

[brianbwb-2009]

to USAisdway189,

Still waiting...


Chrrrp, chrrrp,


Chrrrp, chrrrp,


Just like a fake neocon sheep, run away instead of presenting facts.

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by USAisdway189,

The comparison to Hitler is an based on a long list of similar tactics both used to start what should be considered by any sane person (which automatically excludes USAisdway189)as illegal wars, and crimes against humanity.

As for comparing me to Pol Pot, please list any orders I have given to any military that resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, then I will accept your comparison.

Please also list the illegal wars started by Mr. Clinton. While I can agree with the coward part of your assessment, he also has given no orders to our military to invade and occupy a sovereign state that was no threat to us.

As Joe Friday (Jack Webb) was so fond of saying; "Just'' the facts, ma''am, just the facts".

Chrrrp, Chrrrrp. (sound of crickets)


Thought as much. You bring weak logic to a debate, much like bringing a butter knife to a gunfight.

[likeitis5050]

USAisdway189 does you psych know you''ve run out of meds? The first step in recovery is to realise everything we know exists in thoughts..change your thoughts and change your reality. That will be $200 dollars.

[ioweign]

USAisdway189,

Too much caffine intake today !

Enlist - you talk the talk - well then walk the walk !!

[usaisdway189]

for brianbwb as in bozo.

Since you like to compare the President of the United States to Adolf Hitler, maybe we should compare you to Eichmann, or Pol Pot.

Oh yeah, you''d prefer Osama but you might have to fight FeelJihadi for that one, little brain dead bozo.

Funny, we don''t compare Clinton to Hitler. Maybe that''s because we already know he was a coward and pervert. Even if his power-hungry shrew couldn''t figure that one out.

[usaisdway189]

mcvet,

why don''t you put down the champipple you''ve been gulping with RandyBoBS, hoist a white flag over your home - or apartment - and call up the local Islamonazi extremist in your neighborhood.

Maybe he won''t slit your dumb throat. Then again, maybe he will.

Iraq had weapons, bozo. Iraq was training terrorists at Salman Pak, bozo - everyone from Hamas and Hizbullah to Al Qaeda were there, presided on by their benevolent buddy Saddam. But a drunk, discredited clown like you don''t want to know. Just believe what MoveOn.Org tells you.

Even your idol Clinton - I suppose you''ll call the draft dodger a fellow vet next - believed Iraq was a threat so much that he carpet bombed the place for almost a week.

But please continue your lies and you obviously so manure spewing of Sieg Heils. Interesting that the Left and their fellow manure-consuming bozos like you,brianbwb, ainttaken, feeljihadi, and RandyBoBS, always spout Hitlerian s_hit - it reflects exactly what you are.

Go to Iran, or if they don''t want you, go to Germany - maybe you can dig your uncle ''dolf''s bones up. You''re about his speed with your appeasement of Islamonazis.

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by perimogi,

About Hitler? What he did was wrong, just as Bush is doing is wrong, but Bush is doing it now, while you think about Hitler. Bush''s, and by extension, our crimes are worse, because we should have learned the lessons of a herd mentality behind a megalomaniac.

If a movie can help to break the trance we are in, and contribute to ending this madness, it is a sick commentary on our ability to think, but I''m all for it.

[usaisdway189]

glad brian depalma wasn''t around during world war II as the photos of dead GIs would convince him to surrender to talk to herr hitler.

no wonder why nancy allen divorced him. a loser.

[mcvet]

If this man is responsible for the deaths of any of our good men who are risking everything to protect us, then I would say what I first thought when I heard of this disgusting movie, may he and all his kind rot in Hell, or, alternatively, may he be the first to be captured and beheaded if his wishes for this war are fulfilled. In the meantime, and for what it''''s worth, I''''m sure the cowardly Europeans will love him.
Posted by rkahk at 04:17 PM : Sep 01, 2007

Iraq had NO Weapons! Iraq was NO threat to this nation! There was NO reason for this nation to Invade that Country and bring all the death and distruction to it. We have surpassed Saddam long ago in total distruction and death but the real kicker is that CHENEY HIMSELF knew all this... he stated it in an interview in 1994. What this man is doing is showing YOU the death and distruction WE the PEOPLE are responsible for... we brought to a country that did nothing to us nor was in anyway involved in the attack on us! WE invaded and occupied that Country, you can NOT change the fact no more than you can change the FACT that our nation is being lead by a FASCIST! Sieg Heil Bush!!