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Halliburton's KBR Figures Prominently in Unusual Iraq Documentary
Friday, June 30, 2006
By Catherine Donaldson-Evans
"The War Tapes," a slice-of-life, on-the-front-lines film shot by National Guard soldiers stationed in Iraq just as the insurgency was beginning to swell in 2004, goes to wide release on Friday. But the film has already won fans and accolades in limited release.
The project, crowned best documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival in May, depicts what it's like to be a soldier at war and captures all the mixed emotions that go along with the job.
But unlike other documentaries about war, this one offers a fly-on-the-wall view of the experience — primarily from three of the soldiers' and their families' perspective — before, during and after their deployment.
Director Deborah Scranton, who was asked to embed with the New Hampshire National Guard as a filmmaker, said she instead decided to "virtually embed," putting the civilian servicemen behind the cameras and directing them from New Hampshire over e-mail and instant messaging.
"I was really interested in getting as close to the experience of war as possible, to climb inside of it, to feel it all around," Scranton said in a telephone interview. "It was a very conscious decision [for me not to go to Iraq]. I felt it would diminish what the soldiers were creating."
Sounds great, but I've got to wonder how much of it was cut out on the direction of the military. I think its a mistake to call it and unfiltered look...
THE WAR TAPES
A startling film shot by soldiers captures the real action
by Julie Cozzo
Charlie Company is on a routine patrol in the Sunni
Triangle area of Iraq. Suddenly, their vehicle is rocked by an
explosion. One of the soldiers shouts, “Are we on fire?” A
second shouts, “IED, IED, IED.” There’s another explosion
up the road. A tanker truck is engulfed by flames. An
exchange of gunfire ensues, and then the dreaded words,
“Man down. Man down.” The War Tapes is the first movie shot entirely by soldiers and
it gives viewers an intriguing first person look at combat.
Footage, like the scene above, tells of experiences in Iraq
only soldiers could tell. These soldiers got the story that
2,700 embedded reporters never did.
Duncan Domey, one of the U.S. soldiers who taped footage
for the film, watched it for the first time with an audience
at the Tribeca Film Festival in late April, where it won Best
International Documentary.
“As the movie unfolded, I could feel the audience’s
changing moods, felt them relax with the jokes, and shift
in their seats with the heart pounding IED (Improvised
Explosive Device) explosions. They sure got it.”
The idea for the film came when Deborah Scranton, the
film’s director, got an offer from the New Hampshire
National Guard to embed herself as a filmmaker in
Operation Iraqi Freedom. Instead, she called the public
affairs officer, Major Greg Heilshorn, and asked if she
could give cameras to the soldiers. Heilshorn agreed.
The five soldiers who shot the footage taped their entire
year’s deployment with Sony miniDV video cameras. They
mounted tripods on gun turrets, inside dashboards and on
their kevlar helmets and vests. In one scene, they set fi re
to a decapitated cow by the side of the road so insurgents
couldn’t load it with an IED. In another, their testing of a
grenade fi ring machine gun is interrupted by a wandering
donkey.
They spent hundreds of hours learning about storytelling,
interviewing, framing shots and finding ways to share their
experiences through sound and image. They worked
closely with Scranton, telling her their stories daily, thanks
to online communication unavailable in any previous war.
“It was like we were sitting around a virtual campfire
chatting on IM together in the middle of the night,” says
Scranton. “This film is not about the internet, but it could
never have happened without it…They ripped open their
hearts and thoughts for us to look through their eyes at
what it means to fight in this war.”
The unit was based northwest of Baghdad in the deadly
Sunni Triangle, where it was under constant threat of
ambush and deadly IED attacks. They traveled 1.4 million
miles during their tour and lived through more than 1,200
combat operations and 250 direct enemy engagements.
That’s almost one a day.
The three soldiers who are the focus of the fi lm share similar
experiences in Iraq, but their personalities and reasons for
joining the military vary. Specialist Mike Moriarty saw it as
a chance to defend America and its freedoms and protect
his family. “It is something I absolutely have to do for
ensuring the future safety of my two perfect children,” says
Moriarty. Sergeant Zack Bazzi joined the military to travel
and see the world. He sees his deployment as “another
part of my job and not as this super patriotic struggle to
protect our freedom and our way of life.” Sergeant Stephen Pink
joined the military to help pay for college.
They all went to Iraq and did their jobs, no matter what it entailed.
That’s what Scranton wanted to show in the fi lm. “For me the
point of view of the fi lm was always about the soldiers’ point of
view. From the beginning, I promised them that we would tell the
story, their story, wherever it took us, no matter what.” The War Tapes doesn’t take sides nor is it overtly political. The opinions and
politics expressed in the film are those of the soldiers. Scranton
says, “They’re in Iraq to carry out a mission, but they have political
beliefs just like the rest of us, and they were constantly processing,
questioning and debating.”
The film’s producer, Steve James, director and producer of the
critically acclaimed documentary Hoop Dreams, tries to convey
the essence of the film. ”In many ways, Mike, Zack and Steve each
embody a lot of the contradictions and conflicts that America
struggles with about this war, with
one important difference:
they’re fighting it, too.”
thewartapes.com
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