[ThisWeek] Why We Fight at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre...

Why We Fight (PG-13)

Friday, April 28
7:00 PM
Saturday & Sunday, April 29 & 30
4:30 & 7:00 PM
$5/adults, $2 children 12 and younger
(see Review below)
* * *

Next week at the Kenworthy-

Brokeback Mountain (R)
Friday & Saturday, May 5 & 6
7:00 PM
Sunday, May 7
4:00 & 7:00 PM

* * *
Also in May at the Kenworthy-

Neil Young: Heart of Gold (PG)
May 11-13, 7:00 PM
May 14, 4:30 & 7:00 PM

Match Point (R)
May 18 & 19, 7:00 PM
May 21, 4:10 & 7:00 PM

Rendezvous Talent Showcase
May 20, 7:00 PM
$10/general admission

Inside Man (R)
May 25-27, 7:00 PM
May 28, 4:05 & 7:00 PM

Coming in June: Boys of Baraka; Children¹s Matinee series: Dreamer; Cheaper
by the Dozen 2; Wallace & Gromit

Regular movie prices:  $5/adult, $2/child 12 or younger
KFS series pass prices:  $30/10 films, $75/30 films. KFS pass good only for
Sunday movies.

For more information on movies, events, rental rates, and/or to download a
schedule, visit our website at www.kenworthy.org
* * *
This week¹s review-

Why We Fight

Documentary film written and directed by Eugene Jarecki
Rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It contains some disturbing war
images.
Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes

As reviewed by Sean Axmaker writing for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The title of Eugene Jarecki's provocative documentary is a reference to the
propaganda documentaries produced by Frank Capra during World War II, when
the question wasn't so divisive.

The crux of "Why We Fight" is a prophetic warning from President Dwight
Eisenhower. In his 1961 farewell address, Eisenhower cautioned the country
to resist the pressure exerted by the "military-industrial complex," a
now-familiar term that he coined to describe the program he himself created
to keep America militarized, and urged Americans to keep its power to
influence government policy in check.

Framed by 9/11 as well as Korea, Vietnam and the many other American
military excursions since World War II, with the invasion of Iraq as both
argument and illustration, Jarecki mounts an argument that more than
influences state policy, the military-industrial complex shapes it.

Jarecki has an agenda, to be sure. We're talking no-holds-barred alarm at
U.S. military imperialism, justified to the public with such malleable,
vague concepts as "freedom" and Orwellian transformations of unthinkable
ideas into defensive strategies with a simple name change (think
"pre-emptive strike").

The Bush administration makes an easy target, with its recent history of
publicized "facts" since proven wrong. But Jarecki is more alarmed at the
culture behind the administrations and the way the media allows the
government to shape the debate and the definitions of war and international
policy.

There's plenty of ammunition here for liberal conspiracy theorists, which
surely will limit the audience to those already in Jarecki's political camp.
Which is too bad, for it is a sobering history lesson as well as a political
polemic on foreign policy and the growth of war into America's biggest
business.


As reviewed by Manohla Dargis writing for the New York Times

The title of Eugene Jarecki's "Why We Fight" sounds like both a declaration
and a question. While variations on these three words are repeated
throughout the film - posed as a question to various Joes, Janes and
sometimes little Timmy - it is clear from the start of this agitprop
entertainment that Mr. Jarecki has a very good idea why America has seemed
so eager to pick up arms over the past half-century.

Calvin Coolidge famously said that the chief business of the American people
is business; 80 years later, Mr. Jarecki forcefully, if not with wholesale
persuasiveness, argues that our business is specifically war.

Mr. Jarecki borrowed the title "Why We Fight" from a series of films made by
Frank Capra for the military during World War II, and it's after that war
that the story of the military-industrial complex begins. It's a story Mr.
Jarecki tells with appreciable energy, using images culled from newsreels,
educational and military films, and original material. Bombs explode, wars
are fought, and talking heads fill the screen. The editor of The Weekly
Standard, William Kristol, waves the flag for the right, while Gore Vidal
shakes his pompoms for the left, invoking American amnesia. Everyone sounds
smart, if not always convincing, as when Mr. Vidal states that Truman
dropped atom bombs on Japan only to frighten Stalin and declare war on
Communism, even though the Japanese were trying to surrender.

Mr. Vidal's assertion would give some historians pause and others an attack
of apoplexy. Which raises a problem with films of this type: Who's telling
the truth? 

One person's politically convincing argument is another's propagandistic
screed, and whether you buy the film will doubtless depend on your existing
beliefs. That said, even those of radical political persuasion might find it
hard to accept Mr. Jarecki's argument that American militarism is,
underneath the talk about freedom and democracy, a simple question of
dollars. If nothing else, such thinking ignores that wars are fought not
just by governments working in concert with big business and lobbyists, but
also by people. In this respect, Mr. Jarecki's use of a retired New York cop
named Wilton Sekzer, who lost his son on 9/11 and supported the invasion of
Iraq because he believed President Bush's assertion that the two were
linked, is problematic, and not only because one grieving father cannot
represent an entire nation.

In Mr. Jarecki's formulation, successive American governments have waged
wars and conducted secret military operations for profit, and then sold
these campaigns to us as necessary, even righteous. The idea is that because
the public buys the lies, it also buys the wars. Too bad this doesn't
explain why people buy lies, including the obvious ones.

There's something comforting in the idea that our mistakes can be pinned on
presidents, propaganda and Halliburton, perhaps because then it seems as if
we didn't have anything to do with them.


As reviewed by Chris Hewitt writing for the St. Paul Pioneer Press

"Why We Fight?" In a word: Money.

Eugene Jarecki's documentary is like a Michael Moore film without Moore, and
that's a good thing. Where Moore preaches to the choir, Jarecki goes for
balance, collecting opinions from both sides of the political aisle about
how military-centric the United States has become. The movie begins, in
fact, with a Republican hawk, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who said goodbye to the
presidency with a speech in which he coined the term "military-industrial
complex" and eerily predicted an economy that relied on wars to help it
flourish.

Jarecki believes that prediction has come true, and so do most of the people
in his film. The surprise is that those people include Republican Sen. John
McCain, who pauses in the midst of criticizing Vice President Dick Cheney to
take a call from Cheney (suggesting that either Cheney has amazing timing or
amazing wiretaps).

The arguments in the handsome, fluid "Why We Fight" head in the same
direction as they did in "Fahrenheit 9/11," but Jarecki is a more
levelheaded filmmaker, one who is willing to acknowledge viewpoints that
don't agree with his own. He bites off more than he can chew ‹ a segment
about a young man enlisting in the Army goes nowhere ‹ but the biggest
accomplishment of the movie is that it eschews name-calling rhetoric and
focuses on the issues. Instead of figuring out where to point the finger of
blame, "Why We Fight" says we must realize we have a war machine that has
gotten out of control.

The film comes up with several answers to the question posed by its title,
but it might more aptly be called "Why We Shouldn't Fight." Says McCain,
whose intelligence and calm make parts of the film seem like round one in
the 2008 presidential campaign: "We have not an obligation to go out and
start wars, but certainly to spread democracy and freedom, throughout the
world."

Should you go? It's a breath of fresh air, especially since civil,
intelligent discourse is so rare these days.

Film reviews researched and edited by Peter Haggart
* * *

Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
208-882-4127
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org
To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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