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In Alex Garland’s “Civil War,” the Western forces in Texas and California barely remember what they are fighting for.
At least Garland doesn’t outright say why they’re fighting. The film, which had its world premiere at SXSW on Thursday, depicts a near-future United States at the climax of a civil war where the two most populous states have separated. Instead of explaining the politics that led the country into such chaos, “Civil War” focuses on a group of journalists documenting all avenues of the conflict.
“The film is intended to be a conversation, so it doesn’t make too many claims,” the British director said in a post-screening Q&A. “But I also think everyone internally understands why. This also applies to my country and many, many other countries that are grappling with the effects of polarization and populism: we don’t need it explained to us. We know exactly why it could happen. “We know exactly what the failures and pressures are.”
As such, viewers never get an explanation for why Texas and California have teamed up against the United States, a strange geographical combination that generated much discussion online when A24 released a trailer for “Civil War” in February.
“I could have made it into something that explains every step like a lot of movies do, and that’s fine, if they want to do it,” Garland continued of his decision to avoid writing specific political context. “Okay. But it didn’t seem appropriate for this. And it’s not in the nature of a conversation. “I wanted this movie to find common ground, hopefully.”
Garland was inspired by the journalists he grew up with, as his father was a political cartoonist.
“I knew how seriously they took what they did, and one of the things that’s been difficult in the last – I’m going to say arbitrarily – 15 years (is that) they’re shitting on journalists,” he said. “They are distrusted. I wanted my journalists to be the heroes, because there is a simple point at the heart of this. In any kind of free country, journalists are not a luxury. They are a necessity. Now, journalists have done some of the work to make themselves distrustful, but many other stakeholders have been complicit in doing so. “I think it’s unhealthy and I think it’s wrong.”
“Civil War” stars Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura and Stephen McKinley Henderson as war journalists, with Nick Offerman as the president of the United States. Dunst, Spaeny and Moura joined Garland onstage in Austin to talk about how they prepared for their roles.
“As soon as I got the role, I asked Alex to give me these cameras so I could be as comfortable as possible. I looked at Alex a lot, the way he wrapped the strap around his wrist, how you held the camera,” said Dunst, who plays Lee, a journalist famous for documenting what Spaeny’s character calls the “antifa massacre.”
For Spaeny, who plays a young photojournalist who idolizes Lee, “it’s a great gift to be able to introduce a character with a hobby, a passion or a dream: discovering Jessie through her love of photography and reading about Lee Miller “. and Don McCullin and Lynsey Addario and finding the parallels between her and me.”
“I’ve read a lot about combat journalism and reached out to combat journalists,” added Moura, who plays Lee’s colleague Joel. “The most important thing was: ‘What does that guy feel in a combat zone?’”
For Garland, the most important thing was to adopt a pacifist stance.
“Cinema tends not to be pacifist for many reasons. The action contains adrenaline. It becomes seductive,” he said. “’Apocalypse Now’ is an incredibly brilliant film, but I’m not sure you can call it anti-war, because it’s too seductive; leads you to a dark romance. “We were going to make every effort to prevent that and make it not seem like a good idea to have a civil war.”
Garland attempted to achieve this by using optimistic needle drops, chosen “to be jarring and aggressive and speak to the perverse pleasure of what was happening, but not to be seductive, but to actually be slightly repellent.” With the conjunction of the execution of some soldiers with this music, I don’t feel like ‘Fuck yeah,’ but I feel tarnished in some way.”