Films about war reporters?

[joeld42]

I'm starting on a project about a war reporter. Any reccomendations of great movies about war correspondents, or even movies with other jobs or reasons that people would voluntarily seek out conflict zones, unlike soldiers or civilians?

thanks,
joel

[OtisLovesUs]

I was reasonably entertained by "The Hunting Party" with Gere and Terrence Howard.

[Ralphy W]

The Killing Fields

[OtisLovesUs]

"Welcome to Sarajevo" too.

[Kelsey]

The Killing Fields

Darn, you took mine:)

Blood Diamond? I know it's not the heart and soul of the movie, but isn't Jennifer Connolly's character a reporter?

[Signal30]

Salvador, The Year of Living Dangerously and perhaps The Story of GI Joe (Burgess Meredith as WWII frontline reporter Ernie Pyle).

[Cycstorm]

Full Metal Jacket, kinda.

[twk69045]

The Killing Fields is the quintessential war reporter film. To a lesser extent since it's not really about war reporting but might be worth seeing if you're trying to canvas the entire collective that's out there - The Quiet American. One of the great Brendan Fraser performances, and there aren't too many out there.

[Jake Schuster]

My spec about a war photographer has had a respectable life on the contest circuit (and has also earned me many meetings). To prepare for it I read the autobiography of the great British photojournalist Don McCullin, contacted the amazing James Nachtwey's agency for further research, and have off and on been in touch with the man who wrote the standard textbook on the subject, Ken Kobré. I also spent a lot of time (and still do, as I prepare, for the future, another work about a war photographer) simply looking at photographs from conflicts going back to the American Civil War, and as recently as Iraq.

There's an excellent documentary on Jim Nachtwey on DVD. Its title escapes me, but it gives you a vivid picture of what a war photographer experiences on the ground. Nachtwey had a miniature digital film camera attached to his helmet, and you see everything pretty much as he did. Except the time a bullet scraped along the top of his scalp.

I avoided every movie that even touched upon it. Go to the source, never to the second-hand.

[Galen Young]

A couple more good ones -- Harrison's Flowers (2000), Under Fire (1983)

[marcal]

Also: Foreign Correspondent (sort of) and The Green Berets (hilarious)...

You also might want to check out this PBS documentary about war correspondents:

http://www.pbs.org/weta/reportingamericaatwar/

[thewire]

Circle of Deceit, directed by Volker Schlöndorff (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0772522/).

[Fortean]

REDS (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082979/combined)

And, not a very good film, (but, free to download at the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/details/Jack_London_)): JACK LONDON (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036051/combined)

[Sammy Glick]

Read Dispatches by Michael Herr (had a hand in the script for Full Metal Jacket). Fantastic book, also featuring crazy photojournalist Sean Flynn.

[tabula rasa]

Someone said "Welcome To Sarajevo" and that's a great one.

What's the based-on-the-true-story one with Michael Keaton about the CNN team trying to cover the first Iraq War?

Stretching the criteria of the question a bit, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND gives a nightmarish view of an outsider (doctor from the West) caught up in a foreign nation's war's weirdness and trying to piece things together (as a journalist might?) Same might be said for HOTEL RWANDA and SOMETIMES IN APRIL: insights into nightmares as exotic countries come apart at the seams.

[britwrit]

Yeah, Dispatches is absolutely one of my favorite books ever. A must read if you want to know anything about covering Vietnam.

Another good book, which is a cut under Dispatches but still quite good, is Once Upon A Distant War, by William Prochnau. It's about the early years of the war - circa the early 1960s -and the band of young reporters (like David Halberstam) who covered it. Tells you everything you need to know about what it's like to be a war correspondent during this period.

[Jake Schuster]

Dispatches is much more focused on the soldiers than on the actual life of a war reporter. You might also try Blood and Champagne, a biography of the preeminent war photographer, Robert Capa. One film about him is already in the can and another is in the planning.

[qualitycontrol]

I'm starting on a project about a war reporter. Any reccomendations of great movies about war correspondents, or even movies with other jobs or reasons that people would voluntarily seek out conflict zones, unlike soldiers or civilians?

thanks,
joel

If you're planning on setting this in Iraq, don't. Trust me.

[Jake Schuster]

Qc is correct. At every meeting I went to, every exec said the same thing to me (and this was in 2003): love the script, but anything to do with Iraq is off the table.

[Fortean]

What's the based-on-the-true-story one with Michael Keaton about the CNN team trying to cover the first Iraq War?LIVE FROM BAGHDAD (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319758/combined)

[thatcomedian]

Qc is correct. At every meeting I went to, every exec said the same thing to me (and this was in 2003): love the script, but anything to do with Iraq is off the table.
QC is probably right but for different reasons then when you were told that in 2003.

[Jake Schuster]

Actually, they foresaw a lack of audience even then.

[joeld42]

Thanks for the reccommendations.. most of these were new to me. So far, I am mostly using primary sources, the inspiration for this came after reading "My War Gone By, I Miss It So" by Anthony Lloyd, and since then I have read a bunch of other war reporter memoirs, including "Dispatches" and "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" (a very chilling book). Now I have some more on my list to read and a bunch of stuff to watch.. :)

It's not set in Iraq, though one version I've got starting with the character returning from iraq. I'm kind of still figuring out where to go with it.. right now I'm thinking mostly about Bosnia, Kosovo and Africa. I don't want it to be too unfocused, but I don't want it to seem like it's about any one specific conflict. Iraq actually doesn't seem very interesting from a war correspondant's perspective, it's so dangerous that foreign correspondants can't do much more than hole up in hotels (or embed) and let the locals do the hard work... it's actually kind of scary how little firsthand information we have about what's going on there.

It's still very much in the brainstorming phase. Tabula Rasa mentioned "Last King of Scotland", which is pretty much the tone I'm going for. I'm still trying to figure out what it's about, and that's kind of why I want to watch how some other people approached it. But it's keeping me up at night so I think that's a good sign...

joel

[OtisLovesUs]

joe,

Look up Michael Yon if you want to read firsthand reports from Iraq. The guy is self-financed (with direct donations from his readers), he's former military himself, but as a reporter he's on the front line too, in the sh*t.

He blogs and has a book out.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com

[Jake Schuster]

Anthony Loyd's (one L) book is very good, but the role of the war journalist, whether TV, print or photographer, has changed since the events he describes. Reportage is much more tightly controlled, and there are few guerrilla journalists in the field, as he in particular was, these days.

I will tell you, though, that in my experience Bosnia and the events in Sarajevo, as terrifyingly dramatic as they were, don't fly with film execs these days, at least not anymore. Which is why my next project about a war photographer will be as a novel. It'll touch on Bosnia, Rwanda and possibly (but not probably) Iraq, but will settle better as a work of fiction than as a screenplay.

One other thing execs said to me when discussing my script: "We find that audiences don't want to watch the news, then spend ten bucks to watch a movie about the news."

Even if it's about events that took place fifteen years ago.

Just so you know.

[tabula rasa]

I will tell you, though, that in my experience Bosnia and the events in Sarajevo, as terrifyingly dramatic as they were, don't fly with film execs these days, at least not anymore.

Without meaning to ask you for any undue use of your time, might I ask why you think they're cool to Bosnia?

My take (but that's my opinion versus your realworld experience) was: Bosnia's interesting because it's a current hot issue (Islam pushed into extremism) yet also where the Muslims are very Western, very "us" ... and the moral and dramatic conflcts can be very clearly drawn with (in most instances) the Muslims being the innocent victims of oppression -- without the story taking sides in the Iraq or 9/11 debate.

Interesting angles to be explored in Bosnia, I would've thought (though as the region cooled down, I've been thinking of setting my thing in a fictional post-USSR civil war, a la Chechnya, but Chechnya not being so eaily spun) ...

But what the hell, I always thought the defense of Stalingrad was romantic too ... :) Probably I'm too into "when our enemies are our friends" vibes.

I weep at BACK IN THE USSR more than CALIFORNIA GIRLS.

Anyway ... any specific reason(s) you can share on why you think BOSNIA is a turn-off?

[Jake Schuster]

Oh, it's perfectly fine. It's a fascinating, ancient conflict that resulted in events on Sniper Alley and elsewhere. But if you're looking at it from a marketing angle, trust me, it's not there. I discussed changing my script to the Bosnian conflict with these execs, and those who didn't say, "What? Where?" said this: "The deal is, we're in a war that's about factions and religions, and as far as most Americans are concerned, Bosnia, Iraq, Iran--they're one and the same. And for most people it's ancient history."

But if you want to write it, fine. I'd do it in a novel in a second, where it would have a perfectly good shot at being published without prejudice. But the movie business isn't so openminded.

[twk69045]

One more film to add to the list this late in the game. The Children of Huang Shi.

[tabula rasa]

Oh, it's perfectly fine. It's a fascinating, ancient conflict that resulted in events on Sniper Alley and elsewhere. But if you're looking at it from a marketing angle, trust me, it's not there. I discussed changing my script to the Bosnian conflict with these execs, and those who didn't say, "What? Where?" said this: "The deal is, we're in a war that's about factions and religions, and as far as most Americans are concerned, Bosnia, Iraq, Iran--they're one and the same. And for most people it's ancient history."

But if you want to write it, fine. I'd do it in a novel in a second, where it would have a perfectly good shot at being published without prejudice. But the movie business isn't so openminded.

Thanks for the feedback. That's certainly something to think about, and warning taken!

Still ... sloe-eyed Eastern bloc supermodels ... certainly there must be a place for them somewhere in this world! :)

[Jake Schuster]

A beautiful young Russian supermodel apparently hurled herself from her Manhattan apartment last week. Was it suicide? Murder? This still hasn't been determined.

It's an interesting thing, but as a 100% Russian born in America to first-generation Americans (and many of my uncles and aunts were born in the old country), we have never looked upon ourselves or our fellow countrymen as particularly glamorous. Oh, we get the occasional Makarova or Baryshnikov or Nureyev (who was more strictly speaking a Tartar), who retain a certain striking good looks, as well as talent, but when I see gorgeous slender Russian models I always wonder how they can be from the same country as most of the Russians I'm either descended from or see.

However, here's a Russian story, but I'm afraid it's mine, so you can't have it. My grandfather was from Pinsk, and like most Jews at that time he came from a large family. A few had already emigrated, escaping the Cossacks and the pogroms, and he was mulling over where to go. He considered Paris, which would have been disastrous, and my entire family would have been deported to the camps come 1940. (My grandfather also belonged to a Jewish cavalry faction in Pinsk, which was historic, and has made the history books; but that's another story.)

So he decided on NY. He comes to NY, and his brother Abrasha comes to join him in Brooklyn. Abrasha, being something of a playboy and gambler, immediately sees the new world for what it is, drinks like a fish, plays cards, and sleeps with multitudes of women (who look nothing like the Russian women he'd left behind, of course).

Abrasha then comes to my grandfather and complains that he's bored. Grandfather says, "Go back to Russia, there's going to be a revolution, I guarantee you won't be bored," so Abrasha returns to fight in the Russian Revolution. But it's not enough.

So he comes to Hollywood to write for the movies, and because he changed his name I have no idea who he became. But I bet he never got bored ever again.

A little off-topic, but I couldn't resist. :o