At the risk of being misunderstood...
Black Hawk Down was a good movie to watch, but often against the ostensible interpretation offered.
I knew it was going to be an exciting evening when the (African) ticket collector told me urgently 'it's all lies'. It was.
The film conflates two operations, the first, when the US troops were ambushed. Rather like Zulu, the film begrudgingly acknowledges the Somalis' success, but has to moderate it by having every US soldier kill scores of Somalis for his own life. But this ratio was actually created after the first conflict, when US troops exacted revenge not on the militias but on the Somali population, who were defenceless.
The film though is very compelling for all its dishonesty. Obviously it's really well shot and all of that, which keeps the adrenaline going. But what makes it so compelling is its near-eroticised image of the Other, the black African hordes who just keep on descending on the hapless country boys.
It is like Zulu. But more than that. It is like John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct Thirteen with its hystrionic fear of the black and latino gangs. The effect is so much of a caricature, that you feel yourself naturally cheering on the other side. Identification with the Somalis' heroic struggle against US imperialism is made all the easier by the fact that they are unencumbered with the cliché characterisation that makes the American soldiers so wholly unattractive.
Like Wilde said, no man of true sensibilities can read the death of little Nell without breaking down into tears of laughter - and when that Black Hawk I wasn't the only person in the Holloway Odeon chuckling.
I have to say, I felt the same about Pearl Harbour - but for the boring love story and the made-up rally at the end, you can't help but cheer on the Japanese, so beautifully does the film recreate their audacious assault. Come to think of it Red Dawn was a hoot too.
I see George Monbiot is tutting at the film now. But when I and fifty other protesters occupied the US embassy in London in protest, George was nowhere to be seen. His newspaper, as I remember, supported the US mission, and engaged in the dehumanisation of the Somalis that helped prepare British public opinion for the slaughter that followed.
Incidentally, Max admires the mien of the actors playing the Zulus in the film Zulu. That is not so surprising since they were played by their Zulu descendants. The sad part is that the once noble Zulus under Chief Gatsha Buthulezi had by that time been brought on board by the South Africans to split the national movement. -- James Heartfield Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-Machine Age is available at GBP19.99, plus GBP5.01 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'. www.audacity.org