Film Industry = Government Subsidy?

[Gahid]

I'm reading a collection of small print essays by a man named Ian Svenonius. In it he argues that a country's main artistic art-form will predetermine the destiny of that nation. Despite his ridiculous premises he has a lot of very interesting things to say, one of which was,

While the US Army and Navy subsidizes movies such as The Sum of All Fears almost entirely*, they insist on cursory scrubbing of the scripts, ensuring not only triumphalist endings but the heroic behavior of men in American uniforms.

*I am aware that this is contradictory to the NY Times article. Very strange author. Files under FACTION.

When Hollywood's Big Guns Come Right From the Source
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

The military deployment involved two B-2 bombers, two F-16 fighter jets and the National Airborne Operations Center, the highly secure communications aircraft, in a modified 747 jet, reserved for the president and his top staff in case of nuclear attack.

Three Marine Corps CH-53E helicopters, a UH-60 Army helicopter, four ground vehicles and more than 50 marines and Army troops also took part. There was an aircraft carrier, too: the John Stennis, a 97,000-ton, nuclear-powered floating city with more than 80 aircraft and a crew of 5,000.

The massive mobilization by the Pentagon was part of a joint assault with a staunch historic ally, Hollywood. It might have been called Operation Product Placement, but most people know it as ''The Sum of All Fears,'' the new movie adaptation of the 1991 Tom Clancy book about nuclear terrorism.

The military establishment has been cooperating with Hollywood for nearly a century, with a noticeable break in the Vietnam years. But in recent times, with movie budgets swelling into the hundreds of millions of dollars, the Defense Department's contribution -- and thus the American taxpayer's -- has grown ever bigger and more elaborate.

It seems to have reached a new high with ''The Sum of All Fears,'' for which Paramount Pictures deployed two Hollywood stars, Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman, supported by the celluloid equivalent of a small nation's armed forces.

Besides huge amounts of hardware, the government also provided access to its inner sanctums. Mr. Affleck, who plays the C.I.A. agent Jack Ryan, consulted with officials and analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency's headquarters in Langley, Va., where the C.I.A. director, George J. Tenet, also gave the filmmakers a personal tour.

An Air Force pilot from the National Airborne Operations Center and Chase Brandon, the C.I.A.'s Hollywood liaison, served as advisers on the set in Montreal. In pursuit of realism, Mr. Brandon said he took unclassified material from bulletin boards and desks in Langley so the filmmakers could replicate the C.I.A.'s Russia desk, down to the scraps of paper, in Montreal.

Total charge to Paramount Pictures for use of the equipment and personnel? Less than $1 million. Value to Paramount? Priceless. ''The Sum of All Fears'' is the nation's box-office leader, having taken in $61.8 million since its release two weeks ago. The movie cost $68 million to make.

What Hollywood gets out of this relationship is clear -- a level of realism that would be almost impossible to duplicate, even digitally.

''Audiences sense the real thing when they see it,'' said Mace Neufeld, the movie's producer. ''That makes a difference in the quality of the film.''

The military gets the chance to put its best foot forward, which officials say is essential in seeking recruits at a time when there is no draft and the nation is on a war footing.

''We want the opportunity to communicate directly to the American public through that powerful medium,'' said Philip M. Strub, the Pentagon's special assistant for entertainment media.

But it is less clear what taxpayers reap from the relationship. Supporters say that if a positive portrayal of the military helps draw recruits, the entire country benefits, while critics say that taxpayers are subsidizing Hollywood and get little more than pro-military propaganda in return.

''The military does a lot of great things,'' said Ivan Eland, a defense analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group. ''But this is the bureaucracy enhancing its own reputation at taxpayer expense. It's doling out subsidies to people who toe the government line.''

The Pentagon says it denies more requests than it accepts, ''Courage Under Fire,'' which starred Meg Ryan, being a recent example. ''There wasn't a good soldier among them,'' Mr. Strub said of the characters in the 1996 movie.

Cooperation between the military and Hollywood is practically as old as celluloid itself. When D. W. Griffith made ''The Birth of a Nation'' in 1915, West Point engineers gave him technical advice on his Civil War battle scenes and provided him with artillery. The director turned to the Army again in 1924 for the making of ''America'' and received more than 1,000 cavalrymen and a military band.

Lawrence H. Suid, who examines Hollywood's relationship with the military in ''Guts & Glory'' (University Press of Kentucky, 2002), said that in ''America,'' the secretary of war justified the cooperation by saying Griffith's combat sequences allowed the Army to study the Revolutionary War with a precision never before possible.

Nowadays, the Pentagon explains its involvement by saying that promoting a positive image of the military is good for recruitment, though it is not clear that this full-throttle participation has actually translated into more recruits.

New figures from the Pentagon suggest that there has been little change in recruitment in the last few years, even accounting for increased interest after inspirational movies like ''Top Gun'' or disasters like the Sept. 11 attacks.

The C.I.A., eying the derring-do images created for the military, the Secret Service and the F.B.I., got into the act only in the last five years. Mr. Brandon, the agency's liaison to Hollywood, said the C.I.A. saw a chance, and a need, to burnish its image.

''We've been made to look worse and worse,'' said Mr. Brandon, 55, a former undercover operative. ''We finally felt that we owed it not only the public but to our own work force to have some portrayal that makes us feel better about ourselves. When all you ever see are ugly stories and ugly representations, it takes a pretty dedicated and secure and confident individual to come in every day and fight the good fight when everyone is dumping all over you.''

''We've had operations fail, we've had traitors in our midst,'' he said. ''We're not looking to rewrite that history or whitewash those representations. But we hope the good things will be presented along with the negative.''

A positive portrayal can also help justify a partly secret budget to a skeptical public. But Mr. Brandon disputed the idea that taxpayers were subsidizing Hollywood. ''If we can communicate the quality of the men and women who are here and the nature of the mission we carry out, that works to our benefit and it works to the public's benefit,'' he said.

The C.I.A. charges filmmakers nothing for its assistance. It has little equipment to show off, but has locations like its lobby and analysts desks, which have appeal because few people ever get to see them.

But the Pentagon has an elaborate reimbursement structure.

If a film crew happens to catch, say, a Blackhawk helicopter in flight, there is no charge. If the helicopter is doing a maneuver specifically for a movie, the filmmakers are charged the cost of the fuel, which for a Blackhawk is more than $3,600 per hour. The filmmakers are not charged for the helicopter's depreciation, nor are they charged if they are spending the night on, say, an aircraft carrier at sea, because the carrier would be out anyway.

As for salaries for military personnel, the Pentagon does not pay if the personnel are off-duty and working as extras. But it requires that all of its equipment be operated by active-duty personnel, and it pays their salaries. So when a Blackhawk is being flown by a military pilot, even for a movie, the pilot is paid by the government. This is often justified as ''training.''

In the case of ''Black Hawk Down,'' the filmmakers paid about $3 million to ship eight helicopters and about 100 crew members to the film location in Morocco.

By contrast, ''Windtalkers,'' the story of Navajo code talkers in World War II, had access to military locations but because it used off-duty soldiers, the production company paid the Pentagon almost nothing.

The aircraft carrier Stennis has been used extensively in movies, including as the site for the premiere of ''Pearl Harbor.'' In ''The Sum of All Fears,'' the Stennis was at sea when the movie's visual effects crew flew out to gather overhead shots and film on board. There was no charge for that because the carrier would have been under way whether a film was being made or not.

The Pentagon does not charge for technical assistance, which can be extensive. ''The Sum of All Fears'' used numerous military experts, including a radiologic assessment team to help approximate the effects of a nuclear blast.

''We told them how Marines would do a rescue, what happens if a Navy ship is under attack from a certain type of aircraft, what the Air Force might do to assess the damage posed after a radiologic incident, what the Army might do in civil defense following a mass casualty,'' Mr. Strub said.

Government officials say Hollywood access is denied if it would interfere with operations or readiness, and no classified material is ever exposed. They also insist on overall positive portrayals of the military -- that is, after all, the point -- or they will not cooperate.

In the original screenplay of ''The Sum of All Fears,'' for example, the carrier was blown up by one or two cruise missiles. Pentagon officials said that was unrealistic, and they did not like the impression that a carrier was so vulnerable. In the end, the filmmakers accepted the Pentagon's assertion that the carrier would not be blown up and showed only its flight operations being destroyed. This was done with miniature models and visual effects.

Mr. Suid, the author, said the film industry and the military establishment know exactly how to help -- and use -- each other. ''You have a study in mutual exploitation,'' he said. ''Each side wants to get whatever it can.''

[Gahid]

It is important to note that my qualm stems not from our tax dollars funding movies, but rather from the latent tendency for Hollywood to glamorize war (common knowledge). The subsidizing of movies which adhere to a nationalistic doctrine is the missing link which illuminates contemporary American propaganda.

[Kindnugs]

The Pentagon does not charge for technical assistance, which can be extensive. ''The Sum of All Fears'' used numerous military experts, including a radiologic assessment team to help approximate the effects of a nuclear blast.

So our tax dollars went to help produce that piece of shit movie?

[Faille]

I think of all the things the US military wastes its money on, helping make mmore authentic, albeit propagandized, is way way down the list.

[Gahid]

Suspect you missed my second post.

[Tolanin]

american culture glamorizes all violence, where have you been for like the last 200 years? movies today are alot less propagandaesque than most of the past war movies so i dont think thats a huge issue, they dont portray gun shot wounds like they hurt about as much as stubbing your toe anymore so thats good, right?

[Gahid]

This is not about violence. This is about a team of script writers receiving help from the government without the knowledge of the people. They don't include Uncle Sam in the credits. There is no "ADVERTISEMENT Paid for by the US Government" displayed across the bottom of the screen. Even the Pentagon admits it offers the assistance in return for a more positive image (and more suckers willing to sign away property rights to their body).

EDIT: Once again, it is common knowledge that Hollywood glamorizes the American military. It is not common knowledge that they are paid to do so.

[brekk]

And if a film came out that made a US soldier look like a pussy during wartimes there would be death threats and riots for the head of the director.

And they aren't PAID to do so. War movies sell well in america when they show a positive view of american soldiers.

If Germany made a movie showing german soldiers wimps and allied soldiers as awesome would it sell well overthere? (i know not the best example as not even germans like nazis) They arent doing it to help the government, theyre doing it to sell tickets.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

When the hell did the last movie come out that actually glamorized war? The 60s? Most war movies lately are about how you either die in war or it screws with your head for the rest of your life.

[Suineg]

Allowing them to use resources and them "paying" are two vastly different things.

Also being in the military there are several organizations that hire people like me both retired and active to play in movies and consult.

Myself and 4 of my other Marines were in Pearl Harbor. We had to take vacation time for it and were not allowed to be billed as being part of the military. There is no endorsement whatsoever. We just happened to have a job. I was also given a spot for the show VIP with Pamela Anderson but umm yeah didn't even bother showing up to that

Take off the "I hate the government" pin from your punk leather jacket and take a hit of reality.

[Kindnugs]

Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar

When the hell did the last movie come out that actually glamorized war? The 60s? Most war movies lately are about how you either die in war or it screws with your head for the rest of your life.

Forest Gump I believe... Fight hard and even you can own a shrimp boat.

[fucker]

Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar

When the hell did the last movie come out that actually glamorized war? The 60s? Most war movies lately are about how you either die in war or it screws with your head for the rest of your life.

like....all?

windtalkers, black hawk down, private ryan. these 3 are on top of my head now but there are more

maybe they dont glamorize war itself, but they sure like to show every single marine as a superhero, and make the enemy look like nonhuman. As someone else said, there is no adv message, but the propaganda is there

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar

When the hell did the last movie come out that actually glamorized war? The 60s? Most war movies lately are about how you either die in war or it screws with your head for the rest of your life.

Blackhawk Down was pretty terribly glamorizing war.

[Cybsled]

Stargate SG-1 was endorsed by the Air Force, because it portrayed them in a positive light. They provided access to locations, technical assistance, and other stuff.

Propaganda is only dangerous if you don't recognize it as being such. For both sides it ends up being win/win: The film makers save some bucks, and the military gets to polish their image.

[tad10]

The Pentagon spending $ for a movie is no different then the Pentagon spending $ for an ad.

I don't see the problem. Though Sum wasn't a very good movie as I recall.

The long article in the OP is poorly written and extremely biased (e.g. this whopper "But it is less clear what taxpayers reap from the relationship")