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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Warriors’ tale


Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Anthony Swofford in Sam Mendes' new film,
Scott Bowles USA Today

Sam Mendes has spent his Hollywood career looking at how men approach their work. The director examined the suburban drone in 1999’s “American Beauty.” In 2002’s “Road to Perdition,” he turned Tom Hanks into a hit man who is indifferent to the job. In “Jarhead,” which opens today, Mendes again takes a look at the workplace. But this time, the stakes are higher. And employees, Mendes points out, are dying. “I don’t know that people realize we’re really at war,” he says. “Or what that does to a soldier.” “Jarhead” explores that, often in painstaking detail. But the film is less about war than it is about the warrior.

And it’s that approach, says William Broyles Jr. – who co-wrote the screenplay with “Jarhead” book author Anthony Swofford – that may help the movie avoid the pitfalls of selling a wartime movie during a time of war.

“This is a love letter to the guys in the field,” says Broyles, a former Marine who wrote 1995’s “Apollo 13” and 2000’s “Cast Away.”

“To the grunt, the political context is irrelevant,” he says. “They’re not worried about politics. They’ve simply got a job to do. And this movie is concerned with how they do that job.”

Mendes explores that job by approaching his movie’s combat in a distinctly un-Hollywood way.

Though it is seen through the eyes of eager Desert Storm soldiers, there are virtually no battle scenes in “Jarhead.” The movie takes no stand for or against the conflict. Some soldiers want out of the military. Others are desperate to stay.

“I don’t want to tell people what to think about war,” says Mendes, who was born in Britain and educated at Cambridge. “I just want them to think about it.”

Though “Jarhead” avoids any references to the current war, the film’s timing and parallels are obvious – and intentional. In one scene, after the surrender of Iraq, a soldier proclaims, “We’ll never be back here.”

“Obviously, there’s a good bit of irony to that scene,” Mendes says. “A lot of what began in that first war (in 1991) can be extrapolated to what we’re seeing today. I think those remain issues we should be talking about, even arguing about.”

But are audiences in the mood for debate? Tackling war in the Middle East hasn’t been easy terrain for filmmakers.

The FX television show “Over There,” Steven Bochco’s series based on the current Iraq war, was canceled this week because of poor ratings.

The documentary “Gunner Palace,” which followed American soldiers on patrol in fallen Baghdad and enjoyed some of the strongest reviews of the year, took in just over $600,000.

Some scholars wonder whether 24-hour news coverage of the conflict has left audiences weary.

“The Iraq war has entered an uncertain phase of undetermined length,” says Kevin Hagopian, a film historian and professor at Penn State University. “No matter how supportive these dramas may be toward the American troops … these dramas simply remind Americans of all political stripes that we’re in a military quagmire.”

Mendes became intrigued about doing a Gulf War film after reading Swofford’s book, which was published just before President Bush’s push into Iraq in 2003. The book, about Swofford’s experiences as a Marine sniper, was an immediate best seller.

“Everything about that war seemed so far away,” says Mendes, 40. “The media never really was allowed in. All you’d see were these tiny little bombs like they were hitting toy towns. There was no sense that this was actually a war, that there was a human toll.”

Viewed through the prism of 9/11, Mendes says, the 1991 war suddenly became more relevant.

“I don’t think anyone realized how important that war was,” he says. “It’s pertinent because I think we still don’t know what is happening to soldiers on the ground in the desert.

“I’m interested in those personal stories, not taking a political stand.”

In the film, Jake Gyllenhaal plays Swofford, a third-generation enlistee who quickly comes to regret his decision to join the military.

Mendes considered several other stars for the role – including Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio – before choosing Gyllenhaal, who has become an early Oscar contender for his portrayal.

Gyllenhaal, 24, says he wasn’t so much interested in a shoot-‘em-up war film as he was Swofford’s personal journey from civilian to soldier – and to manhood.

“I love the idea of how these young guys are struggling with becoming something larger in the middle of this extraordinary world,” he says. “Some of the guys feel like they’ve just reached heaven. Some feel like they just walked into hell.”

Though the movie works hard to give the spectrum of the soldier experience, don’t expect to find “Jarhead” playing in any military recruitment offices. Though the film hired a crew of former Marines as advisers, the military lent no official assistance on the film.

Soldiers in the film are trained to kill. Some are violent racists. Others are outraged at what they see as inept and timid leadership. Most go stir crazy in the desert, driven to near hysteria by heat and boredom.

For Mendes and his actors, divorcing their personal politics from the film proved more important than they initially thought.

“Everyone has their own opinion about what this country is doing,” says Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Troy, a Marine who finds his true calling in the military. “Personally, I wish we hadn’t gone to Iraq.”

But Sarsgaard, whose father was in the Air Force and whose uncle died in Vietnam, says the actors did what soldiers in the field have to do.

“You have to tell yourself, ‘To hell with politics. There’s a job we have to get done,’ ” he says. “In that sense, I don’t think it’s like any war movie I’ve seen. There’s no agenda except to show the family they create and the personal journeys these guys are going through.”

Swofford says he never expected those journeys to become the fodder for a best seller or a big-budget film when he returned home to Oregon from Desert Storm.

In both the book and film, he paints a portrait of men primed for battle and left feeling cheated when the ground assault lasts only four days.

“I was a guy, sitting alone in a room in Portland, just wanting to tell people what it’s like to be in a war, even if it lasts just four days,” Swofford says. “Especially if it lasts just four days.”

Jarheads – the nickname for Marines because the high collar on their dress blue uniform makes their heads look as if they were sticking out of a Mason jar – are changed the moment they are trained for war, Swofford says.

“You really are marked,” he says. “You’re changed for life.

“And I don’t think a lot of war stories and movies tell that. They’re more interested in battles and soldiers getting their legs blown off or getting blinded by fire. I’m more interested in the personal side of it.”

Mendes says he believes audiences will be, too.

“I don’t think people are battle-fatigued,” he says. “If anything, they’ve tuned out to what’s happening.

“I don’t know that many people realize what a war does, on the personal scale. Hopefully, this will get people thinking. That’s the best thing a film can do.”