MOVIE POSTER MONDAY: Brian DePalma’s “Redacted”
In the grossly underrated Casualties of War (1989), director Brian DePalma makes it clear that the horrors of war affect everyone: soldiers, civilians, the innocent, the young, the evil. In Redacted, DePalma’s new film about the Iraq War, the latest casualty is truth.
Redacted focuses on the media and government controlling what the public sees — and the poster is a fascinating reflection of that, combining propaganda, reality, fiction and drama.
A brilliant move to have it appear printed on letterhead from Sitges, the Spanish film festival going on right now.
DePalma’s film is fiction, but the movie includes actual footage and photography, and the filmmakers claim the stories involved are based on real events.
For those of you not well versed in Spanish, the tagline at bottom reads: “Truth is the first victim of war.” I’m not too sure of the rest of it (I’m not well versed either) but it says something about the censorship of certain documents.
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The film has already brewed a mini firestorm. DePalma wants to stick the ugliness of war in our faces with the most horrific photos possible. However, many of them are “redacted” with black lines over faces in order to avoid possible lawsuits. Wouldn’t it really make a point to show the terror of war that’s reflected in peoples’ eyes?
And Movie City Indie reports on a circus of a press conference at the NY Film Festival, with an argument between filmmaker and distributor that maybe wasn’t as “real” as one might think. In covering the festival, my colleague Chris Cabin slammed DePalma’s Redacted, giving it one star out of 5 (see NYFF coverage — scroll down for review).
(thanks Movie Poster Awards)
Other Posts of Interest
- Radio Appearance Today…
- Ben Kingsley, TRANSSIBERIAN Kick Off IFFBoston
- Win A Free Film Pass: Independent Film Festival of Boston
- Movie Poster Monday: THE ORDER OF MYTHS
- Movie Poster Monday: The Real FROST/NIXON
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Love it.
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