"Random Acts of Senseless Violence"
Are we on the brink of a Civil War or are we already fighting it?
Our duty as storytellers is to bring people to the station. There each person will choose his or her own train...But we must at least take them to the station...to a point of departure. Federico Fellini
I haven’t read Jack Womack’s Random Acts of Senseless Violence in a few years but as I watched Alex Garland’s Civil War I immediately wondered if the British filmmaker read the dystopian masterpiece and if it influenced his vision for the movie. It’s not a movie that one expects to watch based on the previews and trailers. I knew that going in. What I did not expect was the way most of the critics, here I am referring to the full spectrum from film-types to the political-types, seemingly missed the point of the movie and the nature of the future that it depicts.
There is a myriad of reviews that wanted the movie to be less objective or, to use their own words, to not engage in “both-siderism.” This is probably the most common type of the review you'll find:
“In Civil War, Garland’s apocalyptic US features a country ostensibly stripped of partisan labels, where both the left and right become intolerant of each other and turn deadly.” [Wired]
“In the world of ‘Civil War, we get no hint about what has pushed the country beyond the breaking point, or what makes conditions in the secessionist states different from those in the loyalist states.” [The New Yorker]
“But, because his script refuses to explain why America is at war, Garland manages to say nothing about the nature of the conflict and nothing about journalism, in either imagery or dialogue.” [Paste]
“Garland doesn’t care how this one happened. His script skips past why the conflict started, offering only the questionable notion that Texas and California both seceded and subsequently pooled resources (calling themselves “the Western Forces”) against a power-hungry three-term president (Nick Offerman).” [Variety]
“It also very consciously stepped away from the bitter partisanship of today. ‘Civil War’ sparked a lot of discussion by pairing California and Texas together in battle, but that’s far from the only gesture Garland made to avoid channeling the current, highly charged fissures of American society.” [AP]
“Garland’s No Labels-style denunciation of extremism in general — as opposed to the particular kind of extremism behind America’s most deadly recent political violence — seemed to me a little glib and cynical, as if he wanted to make a hugely provocative movie but not risk offending potential audiences. If you’re going to dramatize many of our worst fears about the trajectory of American politics, I thought you should take the substance of those politics seriously.” [New York Times]
“It is perfectly fine to make a film with a message that says, “civil war is bad.” To the extent that Garland portrays a modern civil war he gets a lot right1. But the problem is that if one is trying to provoke a conversation of how to avoid such an outcome, there has to be some theory of how we get from here to there. And Garland kinda sorta wants to suggest it is happening from our current moment and yet not provide any plausible causal story.” [Dan Drezner]
“Garland made the creative choice to never really spell out for audiences what this Civil War is being fought over. There are breadcrumbs you can put together, but the movie serves as something of a Rorschach test, where audiences are able to project their own beliefs onto the fighting in whichever way they want.” [ViewPoints Radio]
“You never find out why the titular war in Alex Garland’s “Civil War” began, a fact that might strike some as a refusal to engage with the state of American politics. But with “Civil War,” Garland doesn’t appear to be interested in the socio-political landscape that would lead to a national conflict, but rather how far people will go to pretend everything is fine when everything is so painfully not.” [RoughDraft]
“Great storytelling requires an answer to the question left hanging in the center of Garland’s otherwise solid film: How in the world did it come to this? It is a question that vexes both the film and the viewer. Civil War tells us bad things are happening, but never tells us why they are happening.” [Hollywood Reporter]
What all these and many other reviews get wrong is that the movie does take a side in the conflict and it is crystal clear. I understand Garland’s frustration that people need this to be spelled out2:
‘What on earth you’re talking about? Of course it’s a political film.’ This president, I would say, is manifestly a fascist. He has dismantled the FBI, which legally threatens him. He’s killing his own citizens with airstrikes. And he’s a third-term president, so he’s dismantling the Constitution. I’m not sure how much clearer those dots can be drawn in terms of their implications. I’m starting to get irritated by the question.” [The Observer]
Garland simply does not need to get stuck on the details, taking a side in the conflict is not the point of the movie, rather the film has two distinct but interconnected ideas:
Within the context of the actual reality of a civil war, or really any war, the ideology will soon be replaced with anger, survival and pettiness.
If you need to wonder how we get from where we are today to Garland’s not so dystopian future, the details no longer matter as the probability of us escaping said future is dangerously close to zero.
Both of these ideas are entwined into the main theme of journalistic integrity and responsibility within the current political discourse. Once you understand that Civil War isn’t about what you think, you can appreciate it for what it actually is: a thoughtful meditation on what happens when political and societal institutions collapse and violence takes on a logic of its own presented as a road trip movie.
The further you are from the front lines, whether in terms of ideology or geography, the more difficult it is distinguish one side in the conflict from another. Civil War takes a much more zoomed-in perspective, emphasizing individuals encountered on the road in order to paint a bloody portrait of how concepts like "the cause" get tossed right out the window once the bullets start flying.
The movie is really about not how political order collapses into civil war, but what happens to a society after it does, which is exactly why it reminded me of Womack’s novel.
Civil War presents a narrative where war takes on a logic of its own. For some, the need to survive pushes them to act in ways they never would have contemplated otherwise. For others, the collapse in order creates opportunities to act on their very worst impulses. The theme of journalism and oftentimes archetypal characters3 of journalists is what ties the movie together. The movie’s main characters, led by steely photojournalist Lee are generally decent people but in a world where no one trusts anyone else, a truly neutral institution like journalism has no place. Without any legal system or institution to appeal to, they’re at the mercy of whoever is holding the gun.
In conditions of social breakdown, violence consumes all of what makes a society work. This is basically how the world in Civil War works. Characters make choices not about ideology or partisanship, but about how best to advance their interests in a country defined by who’s trying to kill them and who isn’t. I can’t recall a single scene where anyone makes an ideological statement about the nature of the American civil war and why they’re fighting it.
The closest the movie comes to ideology is in what I think is the most memorable and most high-tense “What kind of American are you?” scene. The “Winter Wonderland” sniper scene spells it out: “Someone's trying to kill us, and we're trying to kill them.” You can be forgiven for missing this in the “Car Wash” scene, so did I, it was a mastery of nuance that needed a second viewing of the movie to fully see the parallel and the seed of the theme being planted.
For Garland, the movie is intentionally vague because it "is intended to be a conversation.” What's more, Garland believes the answers simply don't have to be provided because "we know exactly why [the war] might happen. We know exactly what the fault lines and the pressures are, and I could have made it into something that explained every beat in the way that lots of movies do, and that's okay if they want to do that, that's fine. But it didn't feel appropriate for this."
I believe that’s what Garland is saying when he notes, “At a certain point, the specifics stop mattering. . . . [the war] stops being, in a way, issue-driven, and it just becomes anger.” He is not saying that issues do not matter and that all sides in a war are always inherently evil due to the very nature of war itself. No, I believe that what Garland is saying is that if you are on the side of good and right, it does not mean you can’t be a war criminal or that your side can’t commit atrocities, often in the name of good and right.
Moreover, I think it tells us that for Garland, regardless of what he states in his interviews (after all, he does need both halves of the country to still see the movie) the road from “here” to “there” is irrelevant, we are already “there,” and the Western Forces (WF) of Texas and California, that clearly make so many people wonder about logistics, are not necessarily the quintessential “good guys” and that it is possible that the conflict depicted is not between a fascist President and the forces of democracy and liberty, but rather just different fascist factions vying for power.
Mind you, the far-right union of Texas and California is not as ridiculous as one would think, between the deeply rooted MAGA in the farmlands and the quickly rising neo-nazi tech billionaires and their followers in the Bay Area (22% voted for Trump in 2020 and I am willing to bet that number will be in closer to 40 this year) it is not all that far fetched. Our democracy and our social liberties are much MUCH more fragile and in much MUCH more peril than most people realize.
So when so many reviewers wonder or criticize Garland for not explaining what happened, yet again I am left to wonder whether we live in the same reality.
Interestingly, something that I haven’t seen written about much is how race is displayed through the movie. I completely agree with Ana Marie Cox:
Something Garland hasn’t been asked about but that seems like an obvious hint as to which side the movie lends its heart is how race shows up (though, it’s true that, as the AP complains, there is “scant mention of race”).
Note: The opening water riot (rolling my eyes at the review that said there’s “no mention of climate change” in the film) is predominately people of color. The suicide bomber is a white woman carrying a traditional (loyalist) American flag.
Note: The refugee camp that the crew overnight in is predominately people of color.
Note: The Western Forces are integrated to a degree we do not see elsewhere — I’d point out that even the Black female loyalist Secret Service agent who’s gunned down at the end after asking to parlay is shot by a Black woman from the WF with, well, prejudice, let’s say … this seems significant.
Garland tips his hand on this most explicitly in the scene where the crew visits The Town That War Forgot (or, really, the Town That Is Willfully Forgetting War). Lee exits the surreally normal dress shop to observe to Sammy that the town reminds her of everything she’d forgotten. Sammy, who is Black, has noticed the snipers on the rooftops, policing this little slice of nostalgia. He tells her that the town reminds him of all things he remembers about what it was like before.
The “What kind of American are you?” scene is a perfect example. Note that all of the soldiers in the scene are white males, whereas all of the journalists are anything but…
“It’s a film that comes out of anger,” Garland said. “Anger gives you urgency.” That anger is about the great loss of objectivity in modern politics and journalism. Garland who grew up in a family of journalists, was clearly inspired by the “old-fashioned journalism,” where reporters to quote Lee from the movie “..don't ask. We record so other people ask.”
In his interview with The Atlantic, Garland speaks about his “daughter, who’s 17, [is] studying film, and the teacher said in one of her classes, ‘It’s unethical for filmmakers to present something without making it clear on which position they stand with regards to [an] issue’ … To me, to make that statement is unethical.” Garland is absolutely right and it is abhorrent for a teacher to make such a privileged statement.
In my mind, what Garland is really saying with this film is not an ode to “old-school unbiased journalism” but rather a sad eulogy to the once mighty fourth estate. Lee’s “we record so that other people ask” falls on deaf ears against her own admission that all of the warnings from her previous work around the world did not help prevent the violent war at home. The trauma of watching multiple colleguages be shot point blank for being the “wrong” type of an American, infused with the trauma from Sammy’s death following his rescue of Lee and the rest of the crew completely shatters the emotionless armor that she wore her entire career and we watch this incredibly strong, fierce, courageous woman come unglued as the battle of DC commences.
Her sheer professionalism pushes her to pull herself together at several points throughout the movie’s stunning crescendo ending scene. Lee is the one to figure out that the fascist President is still hiding in the White House and gets her team, Joel and Jessie, to follow her. This entire scene puts journalism, journalistic integrity and responsibility under a prism and we are left to make our own minds up in the end. To me, the entire idea that Lee and Joel, who are supposed to represent the best of unbiased journalism are chasing a sensationalistic story show just how rotten to the core the 4th estate has become. Joel tells us as much in the NYC hotel scene when he says that interviewing the President before he is executed by the Western Forces is “the only story left.” Initially, perhaps it rings true, especially since there are dozens of other journalists in the same hotel, covering the same events. However, when we get to the very end and Joel interrupts the execution with “Wait! Wait! I need a quote.” and happily accepts the President’s “Don't let... Don't let them kill me.” If one can reasonably justify the desire to interview the fascist dictator in the White House before his fall, said justification becomes grotesque at best once we witness the actual glee from getting a very cliche quote with little to no journalistic value but of course a ton of sensationalistic value.
Indeed, the film is a eulogy to journalism, those who are not supposed to ask just forced likely the only person standing between us and fascism to drop out of the race because they had questions about his mental acuity, whilst the other candidate essentially received a free pass. What’s worse is that this was performed as “objective” and “unbiased” reporting and if we have learned anything from the age of Trumpism is that the press, regardless of their political leanings or type of media, in the end will care about ratings and viewership more than objectivity, integrity or really anything else.
Considering that neither side4 in the conflict are the proverbial “good guys:” the Federal forces support a fascist President who orders airstrikes on American citizens on American soil, while the various “rebels” consist of White Supremacists, war criminals and Boogaloo Bois; the film asks us just how much are we prepared to give up in order to stand against fascism without losing our own humanity in the process?
Ana Marie Cox is very much on point again:
“I believe we are supposed to cheer the death of the fascist president at the end of the movie — to take as much satisfaction in it as Joel clearly does (did I mention how the journalists aren’t really objective? They are not objective.). Then, our satisfaction brimming, Garland shows us the image of the soldiers who did the killing posing and grinning over the president’s dead body. Are you okay with this?, Garland asks.”
Reading this after the deluge of commentary on how dare anyone wish that the sniper was more accurate during the assassination attempt on Trump, I can’t help feeling that Garland’s warning is too late. When did it become unethical to wish harm or death to a fascist dictator-wanna be who with Joe Biden’s stepping down has no serious contenders challenging him from getting back to the White House, this time with new and improved “powers” thanks to the “friendly supreme court openly engaging in an insurrection against the constitution it is charged with protecting?”
Yes, of course, Joel’s glee over the dead President is a stark contrast to how stoic Lee has been throughout the movie and a reminder that with only a handful of exceptions mainstream journalism has become everything that it should never be. Ana Marie Cox asks “what we are willing to “fight and die for?” I have thought that willingness to die for something is the ultimate measure of belief and sacrifice for the right cause.
I think this is why the movie resonates with me so much. Too many people are choosing the easy comfort and finding extravagantly esoteric ways to justify their enablement of fascism…
The easy comfort of believing you’re right… because it is easy and comfortable.
So the question is more complex than what are we willing to fight and die for, it is then what are willing to die and kill for? “Garland isn’t saying there no ideals so important that they’re worth killing for; I believe he’s saying there are ideas that important, and that’s for us to struggle with.”
He romale, no passarán
Hey chavale, non rien de rien
You see the thunderbird already starts to spin
He romale, no passarán
He chavale, non rien de rien
Hey, venceremos, vse ravno my pobedim
'Cause I've seen ship of fools
Sinking in the dunes
As I dragged my coffin on the rope
Completely agree with Dan here. With the exception of complete lack of any drones or UAVs, the movie’s depiction of modern warfare is near perfect. I mean even Task and Purpose agree.
This very much reminds me of Herbert’s frustration with how Dune was often misunderstood to the point of having to spell it out in the sequel.
The Guardian does a great job talking about the archtypes here.