O Tempora, O Mores

I was sceptical of Lions for Lambs when I saw it advertised at the cinemas. Somehow, the idea of watching Tom Cruise portray a rabidly militant Republican Senator pushed all the wrong buttons, and so it became a wait-until-DVD moment. Watching it tonight, I was pretty impressed: the script is fantastic, the ensemble casting spot-on, and the message powerful. I could devote many more lines to reviewing it in full, but instead, I'll focus on what hit me as I rented it today: the profound effect of terrorism on recent cinema.

Going back a few days, the thought was with me as I watched Iron Man on the big screen. In early scenes, the script goes out of its way to emphasise that Tony Stark - weapons-maker, industrialist and all-round American anti-hero - is, first and foremost, a patriot. The truth of this assertion is never questioned, but what does come under siege is the working definition of patriotism itself. At first, the description hinges on having a bigger stick than the other guy; but as Stark questions the logic of producing arms to save the world, this view becomes unstuck.

Here as elsewhere, the choice is to support the system for the principles on which it rests, or abandon the system when those principles cease to be applied. Moreso than the films, it's a central theme to the Star Wars comics that sculpt the context for Episodes II and III: the dilemma of Jedi defending a morally indefensible Republic for the sake of its democratic ideals. When the system breaks down, can it be repaired from the inside out, or must a new structure replace it? We're getting away from terrorism, but only into related areas. Like it or not, the moral, social and political dilemmas of our time are being played out in our cinemas, and not always with the intended effect.

From the outset, some films make their agenda plain. V for Vendetta is an obvious example, as are Syriana, The Constant Gardener, Children of Men and Apocalypto, but the retconning of older stories to incorporate modern terrorism is, in one sense, more significant. Batman Begins is an interesting case in point: beyond the corruption of Gotham City, Raz Al-Ghoul is best described as a corporate jihadi, while Daniel Craig's new-look 007 in Casino Royale faced terrorists and their backers rather than the traditional communists. We might count S.P.E.C.T.R.E as a terrorist organisation, but the definition of modern terrorism is not nearly so - for lack of a better word - corporate. It is no longer the evil henchmen, white cats and grey jumpsuits so aptly parodied by Dr Evil in Austin Powers: it is dirty, violent, random and brutally personal. Even Bruce Willis, repraising his role as John MacLean in Die Hard 4.0, is fighting a different breed of terrorist to his original enemies. Pure profit is no longer the incentive: instead, the effect is mayhem, and the motive ideological.

Periphary but related themes are the mistrust of government, corporate crimes, lies in the media, socio-political relations and the ubiquitous question of 'religon', usually translated as 'Islam vs. Everything Else.' Notably, The Kingdom failed spectacularly at all of the above, the bitter irony of which being that the writers were trying to protest exactly the ignorance they ended up committing. The first and last scenes achieve what the intervening hours utterly bungle: an effort at painting Saudis and Americans as equally (morally) human. 300 deserves a longer critique for similar reasons, but the practical upshot is the Battle of Thermopylae being used as an allegory for the military triumph of Western democracy over the Middle East. Babel is a better, if ultimately disturbing, example: there are always people on both ends of a bullet, it says, and neither of them needs must be a monster.

There are differing interpretations of all these films, but what can't be denied is that Hollywood, by and large, is trying to come to grips with terrorism and its consequences. How their efforts are viewed now as distinct from the reaction of future historians is yet to be seen, but with the privilege of hindsight, what influence might we see? Stylistically, all films belong to a certain era, and it seems extremely doubtful that a new Fight Club could be made too soon: a story in which our generation lacks a defining war, where violent terrorism is espoused by the protagonists, and where - in the triumphal, final moments - Western civilisation literally collapses, skyscrapers emblazoned with an ironic smiley face tumbling into rubble as the anarchist lovers look on and grin. Instead, we have Southland Tales, where Armageddon is pre-empted by left-wing terrorism, and a chilling reversal of T.S. Elliott's famous line prevails throughout:

This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a whimper, but with a bang.