thedrifter
09-04-08, 05:53 AM
Battleground
HBO's adapation of Generation Kill provokes fact-versus-fiction debate
by TOD GOLDBERG
"A true war story," Tim O'Brien wrote, "is never moral." He also wrote that "a true war story is never about war," a point hammered home yet again by HBO's recently concluded seven part mini-series Generation Kill, based on Evan Wright's acclaimed 2004 account of being embedded with the Marines First Recon Battalion during the opening weeks of the war, and which has been re-released with a new afterword by the author.
The issue of truth is one that is compelling here not just because the war is a continuing concern, but because we are in a unique position in history where we're getting our war stories in real time, be it through embedded reporters such as Wright or the blogs kept by servicemen or the digital imagery beamed instantly across the world by new organizations and citizens alike. Beyond that, however, what made Wright's book so tangibly different than others before it -- and which made the just-concluded mini-series so valuable historically and literature-wise -- is that we've been given an inside look into history by the people who survived it, not merely who won, and who are named explicitly. That means if need be, they could refute the stories that have been told about them. And, to some extent, a few did after the publication of the book, notably Gunnery Sgt. Daniel J. Griego, who in the book is nicknamed "Casey Kasem" and is generally regarded as clueless throughout the text and in the series, and who posted a long refutation of the book on his brother's blog and called it "a work of fiction."
Of course the fact here is that the mini-series is a work of fiction. It's a creative reconstruction of a piece of nonfiction, which means liberties can be taken, characters' worst traits can be highlighted, time re-arranged, common men turned into heroes or dunces, all in the space of a few hours. Maj. Douglas Powell, a Marine spokesmen, said in a 2004 New York Times article about the book that he wasn't aware of "anyone raising a stink over anything in the articles in terms of accuracy," but how much of that gets translated to the screen?
It would seem like the lion's share. Several of the Marines Wright was embedded with served as technical advisors on the mini-series (which was created by David Simon and Ed Burns, the men behind The Wire) and one -- Sgt. Rudy Reyes -- played himself, which speaks to the level of authenticity the filmmakers sought. One can only imagine how odd it must have been for Reyes to not only recreate some of the worst moments of his life -- the book and the series do not shrink from the wholesale carnage of civilian life and the common death of combatants the Marines encountered -- but to re-say the things he said in the heat of battle as captured by Wright originally.
Where the nexus of fact and fiction becomes confusing, particularly after reading Generation Kill again, is how the filmmakers have manipulated narrative into screen action. One of the most interesting men in both the book and the series is Lt. Nathanial Fick, a Dartmouth-educated Marine who would later write his own acclaimed memoir, One Bullet Away. In the series, just prior to a mission that sounds like sheer suicide, Fick tells his men, "I know this looks like some Black Hawk Down **** we're doing, but we'll be the ones initiating contact, not the bad guys." It's a scene that resonates because Fick is speaking to the Marines' essential fear, that they are putting themselves in a position to die like others before them.
In the book, however, this conversation actually happens privately between Fick and Wright, and its essence is different. Fick tells Wright, "This is Black Hawk Down **** we are doing. The fact that we never initiate contact with the enemy -- it's always them on us -- is wearing on these guys. In their training as Recon Marines, it's a failure every time they get shot at first. It doesn't matter what we've done well shooting our way out of these engagements. They're supposed to be the one initiating the contact, not the enemy."
As historical record, Wright's book had to play straight with the facts -- or the facts as he perceived them through the fog of war -- while the series' main goal, finally, is entertainment. Certainly the producers wanted to show the war for what it has been, but they also wanted to keep viewers riveted, so if they turned Fick's dialogue around for that purpose, does it make the experience any less true? The burden of proof lives in the book, while the television show can manipulate things for effect, and somewhere, in the middle, where these actual men have to live, there exists another version of the stories all together. Generation Kill was a spectacular work of nonfiction and fiction that finally said the same thing in a shocking new way: War is hell.
Ellie
HBO's adapation of Generation Kill provokes fact-versus-fiction debate
by TOD GOLDBERG
"A true war story," Tim O'Brien wrote, "is never moral." He also wrote that "a true war story is never about war," a point hammered home yet again by HBO's recently concluded seven part mini-series Generation Kill, based on Evan Wright's acclaimed 2004 account of being embedded with the Marines First Recon Battalion during the opening weeks of the war, and which has been re-released with a new afterword by the author.
The issue of truth is one that is compelling here not just because the war is a continuing concern, but because we are in a unique position in history where we're getting our war stories in real time, be it through embedded reporters such as Wright or the blogs kept by servicemen or the digital imagery beamed instantly across the world by new organizations and citizens alike. Beyond that, however, what made Wright's book so tangibly different than others before it -- and which made the just-concluded mini-series so valuable historically and literature-wise -- is that we've been given an inside look into history by the people who survived it, not merely who won, and who are named explicitly. That means if need be, they could refute the stories that have been told about them. And, to some extent, a few did after the publication of the book, notably Gunnery Sgt. Daniel J. Griego, who in the book is nicknamed "Casey Kasem" and is generally regarded as clueless throughout the text and in the series, and who posted a long refutation of the book on his brother's blog and called it "a work of fiction."
Of course the fact here is that the mini-series is a work of fiction. It's a creative reconstruction of a piece of nonfiction, which means liberties can be taken, characters' worst traits can be highlighted, time re-arranged, common men turned into heroes or dunces, all in the space of a few hours. Maj. Douglas Powell, a Marine spokesmen, said in a 2004 New York Times article about the book that he wasn't aware of "anyone raising a stink over anything in the articles in terms of accuracy," but how much of that gets translated to the screen?
It would seem like the lion's share. Several of the Marines Wright was embedded with served as technical advisors on the mini-series (which was created by David Simon and Ed Burns, the men behind The Wire) and one -- Sgt. Rudy Reyes -- played himself, which speaks to the level of authenticity the filmmakers sought. One can only imagine how odd it must have been for Reyes to not only recreate some of the worst moments of his life -- the book and the series do not shrink from the wholesale carnage of civilian life and the common death of combatants the Marines encountered -- but to re-say the things he said in the heat of battle as captured by Wright originally.
Where the nexus of fact and fiction becomes confusing, particularly after reading Generation Kill again, is how the filmmakers have manipulated narrative into screen action. One of the most interesting men in both the book and the series is Lt. Nathanial Fick, a Dartmouth-educated Marine who would later write his own acclaimed memoir, One Bullet Away. In the series, just prior to a mission that sounds like sheer suicide, Fick tells his men, "I know this looks like some Black Hawk Down **** we're doing, but we'll be the ones initiating contact, not the bad guys." It's a scene that resonates because Fick is speaking to the Marines' essential fear, that they are putting themselves in a position to die like others before them.
In the book, however, this conversation actually happens privately between Fick and Wright, and its essence is different. Fick tells Wright, "This is Black Hawk Down **** we are doing. The fact that we never initiate contact with the enemy -- it's always them on us -- is wearing on these guys. In their training as Recon Marines, it's a failure every time they get shot at first. It doesn't matter what we've done well shooting our way out of these engagements. They're supposed to be the one initiating the contact, not the enemy."
As historical record, Wright's book had to play straight with the facts -- or the facts as he perceived them through the fog of war -- while the series' main goal, finally, is entertainment. Certainly the producers wanted to show the war for what it has been, but they also wanted to keep viewers riveted, so if they turned Fick's dialogue around for that purpose, does it make the experience any less true? The burden of proof lives in the book, while the television show can manipulate things for effect, and somewhere, in the middle, where these actual men have to live, there exists another version of the stories all together. Generation Kill was a spectacular work of nonfiction and fiction that finally said the same thing in a shocking new way: War is hell.
Ellie