‘Civil War’ director explains the film’s release during an election year

Nick Offerman plays a third-term president in ‘Civil War’

A24

Civil war Writer-director Alex Garland answers some of the biggest questions surrounding A24’s upcoming action drama: why now? What is he trying to say? And why exactly are Texas and California allies in the movie?

At the South by Southwest Film & TV panel the day after the film’s world premiere,… Previous machine And Extermination The director answered some burning questions about the film. Civil war It raised eyebrows about its timing, as it comes amid a contentious election year in which President Biden claimed that “democracy is at stake” given his opponent Donald Trump’s history of attempts to subvert election laws.

“When I worked on… Previous machineIn terms of artificial intelligence, people sometimes use the word “emergent” or “predictive” (to describe the film) and I always feel a little embarrassed when people say that because at the time I wrote it, there was (already) a big controversy going on about it,” Garland said. “I think that all the topics in (Civil war) has been part of a huge public debate for years and years. These discussions have been growing and growing in size and awareness, but none of it is secret or unknown to almost anyone. I thought everyone understood these terms, and at that point, I felt compelled to write about them. If you think back to when I wrote this in June four years ago, there was an election coming up and we were just dealing with Covid — the same conversations we’re having now. match. That’s where it came from.”

“American divisions here resonate almost precisely in many countries around the world,” Garland continued. In the case of America, there is an additional danger given its power and importance in the world. America has an internalized concept of its exceptionalism, meaning that it feels immune to some types of problems. One of the things history shows us is that no one is immune. No one is exceptional. If we do not apply rationality, decency and thought to these problems, anywhere, they can spiral out of control. I’m not trying to attribute (these problems) to America, that would actually be wrong. I can take you home (to Britain) and I can show you the same things that happen in my country. But the repercussions here are much greater.”

Garland also added that the massive availability of guns in America was not a factor in the film’s setting here (although guns are used heavily in the film). “Any country can disintegrate into civil war whether there are weapons floating around the country or not,” he noted. “Some civil wars have been carried out with machetes, and yet they have managed to kill a million people.”

At one point, Garland somewhat enthusiastically points out that the film is trying to create a conversation about political division in general that denigrates the other side.

“Why do we talk and not listen?” Asked. We have lost trust with the media and politicians. And some of the media is great and some of the politicians are great, on both sides of the divide. I have a political position. I have good friends on the other side of this political divide. Honestly, I’m not trying to be nice: what’s so hard about that? Why are we closing this? Left and right, they are ideological arguments about how to run a country. That’s all they are. They are not right or wrong, or good and bad. Which one do you think is more effective? That’s it. Then you try one, and if that doesn’t work, you downvote it and try again in a different way. This is a process. But we made it ‘good and bad’. “We have turned it into a moral issue, and that is stupid. I personally attribute some of this to social media.”

Garland was also asked about the ambiguity of conflict in war. The film imagines a near-future dystopia in which the United States is torn apart under the authoritarian rule of a three-term president (Nick Offerman). The story follows journalist Kirsten Dunst as she makes her way across a hostile and divided America. However, the film avoids current red-state versus blue-state divisions (Texas and California are allies in their fictional conflict). In fact, the politics of the conflict are left almost completely unexplained in the film, leaving the viewer with no clues as to what led to the conflict beyond what was revealed in the trailers (although one of the president’s first actions was to disband the FBI, which (What appears to be a reference to Trump, who has called for the office to be “defunded”).

“I personally think about the questions We are “There are a lot of things that are clearly answered,” says Garland. There is a fascist president who destroyed the Constitution and attacked (American) citizens. This is a very clear statement that has been answered. If you want to think about why Texas and California aligned, putting aside their political differences, the answer is implicit in that. So I think the answers are out there but you have to step into them and not expect to be spoon fed these things. It makes assumptions about the audience…and the warnings (about the country collapsing) are all there, but for some reason they don’t get any traction. (I wondered) Is this polarization? Is it just that we are unable to absorb any information because of the position we have already taken? And then make a film that depolarizes it.

Audience reaction to the film has been overwhelming, with viewers calling it a disturbing, disturbing and masterful work of cinema (Read more Early Audience and Critic Reactions), while critics have so far given it a 77 percent on Rotten Tomatoes (Read more “Hollywood Reporter”review).

The film’s timing has been a source of online debate. “The potential danger is that (right-wing) groups are not known for media literacy or nuance,” one reader wrote on the American Civil War subreddit ahead of the film’s SXSW premiere. “A psychotic gang of rednecks who commit terrorism (in the film) in order to ‘own the liberals’ may be an obvious criticism of us, but could be construed as a role model for MAGA groups if not carefully portrayed.”

While others said the film’s subject matter feels too close to home at the moment. “The thought of another American Civil War happening today keeps me up at night,” another reader wrote on the American Civil War subreddit. “This is the movie I want to stay away from. Even if it’s based on a political scenario that’s so far removed from ours. I just don’t want to entertain the idea of ​​something so terrible.”

While the idea of ​​a modern-day civil war may seem far-fetched, a 2022 YouGov and think tank poll Economist It found that 40% of Americans believe that a new civil war is “at least somewhat likely in the next ten years.”

Civil war It also stars Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Sonoya Mizuno. The film will be released in theaters and IMAX on April 12.