The Long Take: Civil War and the Ideals of Apolitical Art
Maybe The Real Civil War Was the Friends We Made Along the Way
No fantasy seemed to captivate America more in recent years than the idea that the country is on the verge of a Second Civil War. Much of this possibility is evoked by the media, and the argument goes like this. As the country becomes more politically polarized and there’s a slim chance that the red-blue divide could ever reconcile their differences, the two sides have no choice but to commit violence on one another and go their separate ways.
To the detached observer, this seems like a ridiculous idea. In spite of some catastrophic events and a short term rise in crime, America has never been less violent than any time of its era. And to even commit and practice this possibility, it will require a lot of fiscal spending, particularly in military and defence. Much of the commentary surrounding it hoped that the country would be less divided, but in effect, it exploits the anxieties and fears of their audience, pitting them against their own people that don’t really deserve it. But this thesis of societal collapse lingers on, so long as there’s less trust in many of their institutions and that many people still believe that a civil war or the dumbest conspiracy theory could happen.
Hence, it seems to be a shocker that a film titled Civil War was recently released during an election year. When the first trailer was released, online reactions have been pretty mixed, ranging from anger to bemusement. Not only is director Alex Garland toying with these same anxieties, but that the conflict doesn’t make sense, with California and Texas, two states with contrasting ideological positions, having a united army against government secessionists. Criticisms have also been levelled at Garland for being too politically milquetoast to take on this topic, as his previous films - Ex Machina, Annihilation and Men - all take rather mild stances against misogynistic characters. But Civil War refuse to take a side. As Suzy Weiss wrote in The Free Press:
[...] when I left the IMAX theater where I saw the movie, I could not tell you what it was about. This is not just because I no longer have an attention span and don’t pick up on analogies (I went to a state school, people), but because the movie never bothered to explain itself.
Alex Garland has designed Civil War to be controversial, in the same manner that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is set up to reach the broadest audience quadrant. And if ever the film falls short of its missions, then critics would deem it as something worse than ‘provocative’; it’s dull. Thankfully, the film is far from that, and the final product is a carefully crafted piece of dystopian work that constantly challenges its audience’s individual principles. It also makes the case that art aiming to be apolitical could be as riveting as its political peers. This isn’t to argue that art shouldn’t be political, nor that apolitical art can be free from politics. It’s art that frees people from the fringes of politics dominating the current routine of life.
The film depicts an America that’s unrecognizable to the viewer. America has collapsed, and the President of the United States is serving his third term (instead of two terms), with a cabal of war journalists covering the conflict as if it was Vietnam, Iraq, Ukraine or Gaza or anywhere else. It’s not interested in deeply exploring why America devolved (The war transcends the traditional political paradigms of left and right, and an event that’s called the ANTIFA massacre might be the root cause of it) nor does any of its characters take any familiar political stances.
Civil War is an example of apolitical art, one that attempts to be non-partisan, and not fall on a certain side of politics. The term ‘apolitical art’ is controversial among the cultural commentariat, where they believe that all art is political or that its creative layers are bound to be. That’s not to say political art doesn’t have a place in normal society or that further works shouldn’t be cemented into the canon. But the argument against apolitical art being that it’s not as partisan as the author, or that it does embrace politics at some point is a laughable one, defining the author’s hubris.
So here is what Garland is not trying to do, according to its champions and detractors. The film’s champions claim that it’s a love letter to journalism, which it’s not. Lee’s philosophy of journalism, which she describes Jessie, is “we take pictures so others can ask these questions” rather than have the journalist involved in the story. But that’s an indictment of the profession as practiced in the era of smartphones and Web 2.0, because the characters we witness in the frontline are capable of making dumb decisions and have the most witless instincts. For one, we see journalists being happy in hotel rooms following a suicide bombing. Her colleague Joel often looks for sensationalism. In another instance, two reporters from Hong Kong are speeding in their cars. Jessie is sometimes reckless in the trip resulting in a scenario, a damsel in distress before she can find her own footing as a photojournalist.
Garland is not using real-life footage or the few modern references to push a particular and familiar kind of politics. The film received flak from progressives for crediting Andy Ngo - a makeshift journalist notorious for reporting against ANTIFA, a far-left movement that’s actually referenced in the film - for supplying the archived footage of rioters, and thanking Helen Lewis, a journalist at The Atlantic, for the production of the movie. Lewis leans to the left, but is quite controversial in some quarters for her mildly critical views of the transgender ideology. To these people, it’s a compromise of that mission to be non-ideological. But it’s possible that they only retrieve it from Ngo, because it’s the only source coming from him and that Lewis is not a far-right Nazi1.
But while Civil War is politically refrained, it doesn’t mean that it ultimately chose the outcome that leans to a particular aisle. Lee, Joel and Jessie are ultimately the story. When they photograph tensions in slow motion, and interact with some of the particular factions of the conflict, they will choose implicitly who to sympathize with once the movie concludes.