{"id":3975,"date":"2012-08-09T14:14:53","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T20:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=3975"},"modified":"2012-08-09T14:14:53","modified_gmt":"2012-08-09T20:14:53","slug":"b-movie-army-close-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=3975","title":{"rendered":"B Movie Army Close-up"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the background, in the aftermath of a horrific battle, uniformed men unload caskets from a truck. Philip Strub had to tut as he read the description.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not how we do things,\u201d the director of the Pentagon\u2019s Entertainment Media office recalls telling film makers preparing to incorporate that scene into a movie. \u201cCaskets aren\u2019t just cargo. We always move them with full honors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strub was pleased when the director got the message, and the fallen warriors were treated with white gloves and respect. That was more than they\u2019d gotten from their robot-monster killers, of course.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the nature of Strub\u2019s role at the office that oversees the military\u2019s relationship with the American movie industry, a department that dates to the year the first Hollywood studio opened and is far older than the Pentagon building itself.<\/p>\n

Strub laughingly describes the relationship as \u201cmutually exploitive.\u201d Certainly, it\u2019s one that American moviegoers see all the time. The Pentagon doesn\u2019t keep statistics, but private counts put the number of movies the Department of Defense has supported above 1,000.<\/p>\n

This relationship became very public and deeply partisan earlier this year, when some Republicans in Congress accused the Obama administration of giving special favors to Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow\u2019s upcoming \u201cZero Dark Thirty,\u201d which tells the story of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden.<\/p>\n

The accusation was that the administration granted unusual access in the hope that the film, now expected to be released in December, would boost President Barack Obama\u2019s re-election bid, including meetings with Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers. The Pentagon confirms the meetings but says there was nothing unusual or improper in them. House Homeland Security Committee Chair Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., says he\u2019s still concerned that the filmmakers got \u201cspecial access\u201d to \u201csensitive information\u201d on a secret mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am still awaiting the conclusion of the ongoing Department of Defense and CIA inspector general investigations that I requested,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Strub points out that meetings with filmmakers aren\u2019t exactly rare. In fact, \u201cZero Dark Thirty\u201d didn\u2019t get official Pentagon support. Bigelow got some information, but others get much more. The practice of supporting films is so ingrained that the Pentagon even has a price list online for military hardware leased out to approved films.<\/p>\n

An hour\u2019s rental of an airborne command post \u2013 which in the event of nuclear war would serve as Air Force One \u2013 costs $72,000 for a movie the Pentagon wants to support. A B-1B long range bomber costs $50,529 an hour, and an F-16 fighter goes for $10,181 an hour. The budget-minded could rent a training glider for as little as $89 an hour. The rates include the wages of the military personnel involved in flying the planes. Tom Cruise would have been allowed to climb into jet cockpits in the 1986 film \u201cTop Gun,\u201d but he wasn\u2019t allowed to fly the fighters.<\/p>\n

Strub\u2019s job is to nudge an industry devoted to fantasy and fiction toward an odd sort of cinema verite. He and others in his department pore over scripts of television shows such as \u201cHawaii Five-0,\u201d even on weeks when the show isn\u2019t featuring anything military in nature. That way, they can be familiar enough with the characters that when they make suggestions in the future , they\u2019ll be able to fit them into the way a show works.<\/p>\n

Most of Strub\u2019s work is with feature films. His push for a change in the way military dead were handled came in the filming of \u201cTransformers\u201d \u2013 or maybe the sequel, he isn\u2019t quite sure. This summer, audiences can spot similar bits of military-approved detail in films about war with space aliens (\u201cBattleship\u201d) and by superheroes against other worldly gods (\u201cThe Avengers\u201d).<\/p>\n

Before the 1960s, film historian Lawrence Suid said, virtually every American film about the U.S. military had official support, which ran from advice on a script to the use of military hardware and installations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do the movies get from the Pentagon? Uniforms,\u201d Suid said, half-joking. As for how the Pentagon benefits from movies, he wrote in the book \u201cGuts and Glory,\u201d \u201crecruiting, as well as their efforts to inform the public and Congress of their activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The effectiveness of movies as a recruiting tool has never been quantified, but Suid notes that film helped each branch of service rehabilitate its tattered image after Vietnam. And it\u2019s no accident that many of the movies the Department of Defense supports are blockbusters, which attract teenagers, many of them approaching or at the age at which they can volunteer for service.<\/p>\n

Strub emphasizes that what he pushes for is an accurate portrayal of the military, not a sugarcoated one.<\/p>\n

As evidence, he notes the Pentagon\u2019s willingness to support a movie \u2013 as yet unmade \u2013 about the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, in which U.S. troops killed hundreds of apparently unarmed civilians, and the trial that followed.<\/p>\n

The first example of cooperation between the film industry and the military came in 1911, when director William Humphrey convinced Lt. Henry Arnold to fly his biplane in front of a camera for \u201cThe Military Air-Scout.\u201d By 1927, the relationship had helped create the movie \u201cWings,\u201d the winner of the first Academy Award for best picture.<\/p>\n

The importance of supporting films has increased with the advent of the all-volunteer military, Strub thinks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn World War II, virtually every American had a friend or relative in the service,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not the case today. A much smaller percentage of the country has a direct tie to the military, so for many Americans what they learn about the services comes through film. It\u2019s important that be an accurate portrayal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some classic films were rejected for official support, such as \u201cThe Deerhunter\u201d and \u201cApocalypse Now,\u201d both of which had an anti-war message, and \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life,\u201d the 1946 tale of a small-town banker contemplating suicide that\u2019s become a Christmas season staple on television.<\/p>\n

The list of films that received support would be familiar to most moviegoers, running from the obvious to the not-so-obvious: \u201cTop Gun,\u201d \u201cThe Killing Fields,\u201d \u201cJudgment at Nuremberg,\u201d \u201cFrom Here to Eternity,\u201d \u201cJurassic Park III,\u201d \u201cInvaders From Mars\u201d and \u201cIt Came From Beneath the Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could never hope to buy that level of exposure,\u201d Strub said.<\/p>\n

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