Posted on 12/28/2003 3:33:30 PM PST by aculeus
It was never a question of whether John Milius Red Dawn would become a reference point in the war on terror; it was only a question of when and how. In the 1984 film, Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey and C. Thomas Howell grind down a Soviet invasion with pilfered AK-47s and RPGs. When the raid that captured Saddam Hussein was coined Operation Red Dawn, the film found its place in history. The movie was immediately recalled by the press as "Cold War propaganda" and "jingoistic." But the central theme of the storythe bitterness of dying to protect ones countrywas overlooked, as was the uncomfortable analogy to the war against insurgents in Iraq.
John Milius, the films writer and director, who also co-wrote Apocalypse Now and Conan the Barbarian, discusses making Red Dawn, an American mujahideen and Bushs preemptive world.
I was surprised to wake up Sunday morning to see Red Dawn on tv. Can you tell me what you thought when you heard this?
I was very proud, you know. I was just thrilled. Its nice to be liked someplace in the world. I have very strong supporters in the military.
It seems the film itself, while it was a Cold War-era film, has a broader message. What message do you think people latched onto?
[I]t was almost like a Revolutionary War message. Its the nature of Americas struggle against oppression. But the movie, because it was a rare patriotic movie in a time when that really wasnt done very often, I think it really struck a chord. It really struck a chord with people whove grown up [with it] Theyve told me, "God, I just love that movie." Because everybody, I think, had that fantasy of what would happen if your home was invaded and you would fight the Russians and whatever.
I came of age watching the film, and it allowed us to indulge that fantasy in a very real way.
When I was a kid in the early 60s and 50s, even, actually I went to high school in Colorado. One of the big things we wanted to be, aside from football players and skiers and everything elsewe wanted to be mountain men. And so we read everything about Jim Pritchard and Jim Carson, all that kind of thing, you know, to be a woodsman. The greatest fantasy of all was that we were going to go up to the mountains and resist the Russians with flint-lock rifles, cap-lock rifles, anyway.
One of the great scenes in that movie is when the kids go into the store and get to take everything. (Laughs) You take your sleeping bags and all the neat knives and thermoses and, of course, they take the football.
I revisited the film after Sept. 11 because we had been attacked and, in a sense, we were at war. The one scene that really stuck out was when the Wolverines execute the Russian soldier and the mayors son, Daryl. The rationale that Jed [Patrick Swayzes character] gives is, "We live here." For me that sort of summed up the anger and fear that followed Sept. 11.
Thats the emotional core of it, isnt it though? Thats it. We live here. This is what we are. At the time I remember that was a very, very powerful scene... [I]t was extremely [difficult] to shoot that. We were way, way up on a place called Johnsons Mesa. It snowed. The wind was blowing in. It dropped below zero, everybody was getting frostbite, as well as the fact, I remember, everyone had dysentery. So you had the problem of everyone having to rush to various facilities wearing Avirex assault gear. Its funny how those are the things you remember.
I remember the power of that scene and that they got into it because of the fact that it was so bitterly cold. And yet it was so beautiful at the same time. Everybody became kind of strongly attached to the place. There are a lot of different scenes people think of as the most powerful moments.
I always rememberone of the things I love is when they talk about the "Seige of Denver." (Laughs) Its like people are eating each other like Leningrad. It was the whole idea of taking the Russian mythwhich was true to them and extraordinarily powerfulof the Great Patriotic War and using it against them.
When I watched the film recently, it seemed like the Wolverines were sort of a mujahideen, at least in a strategic sense, the attacks on convoysthis is stuff were seeing now. Were you addressing the Soviets in Afghanistan?
Yeah. The movie was made because the Soviets were in Afghanistan. Actually, the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan the year before. Remember, we wouldnt let them go to the Olympics or they withdrew from the Olympics, and thats when the movie was made; thats when the people at MGM decided were going to make this patriotic movie thats mirroring the situation in Afghanistan, and well release it during the Olympics.
And the movie was very successful. It was just roundly hated by the liberal community and critics. I was vilified and excoriated to a degreeand I was one who was used to being vilified and excoriated for my moviesbut that movie really got their dander up.
I think the movie is a very complicated look at what war does to people. I dont think any of the characters are resolved as to their role in the whole thing; it seems like a bunch of them want to be children rather than fighting.
Yeah, and you see the tremendous cost of everything. Nobody comes out of it whole or unscarred. The ones that in the end, when they get away, theyre looking down on this vast plain and say, "Were free now." And he says, "Free to do what?"
In Iraq the tables have turned; the United States is in a situation where were occupying a country and we have to make ourselves open to the attacks that the Wolverines were perpetrating in Red Dawn.
I think thats a whole other thing. Were doing what we said were going to do. Bush was very clear after 9/11 about what he was going to do, and he hasnt really deviated from that, even though people havent liked it or anything else. Hes been fairly resolute in saying, "Youre either for us or against us." And where we find people against us, were going to go get em and were not going to tolerate blowing apart our cities and killing tens of thousands of Americans. Were not going to roll over.
Its very interesting. Again, its one of these cases where, when people are not involved directly, they dont seem to care. We have a more [divided] nation now than we did in Vietnam
" ... were not going to tolerate blowing apart our cities and killing tens of thousands of Americans. Were not going to roll over."
You can sure see that in the Amazon reviews.
Red Dawn is actually a solid film. It's got several emotionally powerful scenes, including the one where Swayze kills his boyhood friend...or Harry Dean Stanton talking to his sons through the wire at the re-education camp...or C Thomas Howell's progression from scared kid to stone-eyed killer. The politics may have changed, but the situation is timeless.
Will Smith seems to have survived "Independence Day"
The politics hasn't changed either... Just a different incarnation.
Can anyone confirm this?
I saw part of Red Dawn on TV and appreciated what it was about, but doubted the realism of untrained kids being able to fight successfully against trained soldiers. The Sovs were tough and well-drilled troops.
That doesn't take anything away from American courage or ideals. Even at the battles of Lexington and Concord, the Redcoats ran down and slaughtered a large number of their ambushers. There were just too many of them, ultimately.
In the town square of Arlington, Mass., there's a monument to one of the Minutemen, who had been caught, bayonetted several times and shot more than once, but who survived to a ripe old age.
I'm sure you're right, now that I'm thinking about it. I remember Swayze crying over the picture of them on the same little league team...
Gives me a reason to watch it again.
WOLVERINES!!!!!!!
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