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The Military in the Movies - transcript of a programme from America's Defence Monitor "The MILITARY in the MOVIES" EXECUTIVE Admiral Gene LaRocque (USN, Ret.), PRODUCER: Pres., Center for Defense Information HOST: Admiral John Shanahan (USN, Ret.) Director, Center for Defense Information DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH: David T. Johnson DIRECTOR of TELEVISION: Mark Sugg PRODUCERS: Glenn Baker Jennifer Hazen Stephen Sapienza PRINCIPAL ANALYST & SCRIPTWRITER: Glenn Baker SEGMENT PRODUCER: Glenn Baker NARRATOR: Kathryn R. Schultz VIDEO GRAPHICS: Adam Luther ORIGINATION: Washington, D.C. PROGRAM NO.: 1020 INITIAL BROADCAST: 26 January 1997 CONDITION OF USE: Credit "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" (Center for Defense Information). (C) Copyright 1997, Center for Defense Information. All Rights Reserved. Videotapes also available. The MILITARY in the MOVIES" features comments from: PHILIP STRUB, Department of Defense, Hollywood Liaison Dr. LAWRENCE SUIDAuthor, "Sailing on the Silver Screen" JOE TRENTO, National Security News Service Includes film clips from the following movies: "Wings" (1927, Paramount Pictures) "Test Pilot" (1938, MGM) Film Clip of Bing Crosby singing at Motion Picture Industry's All-Star Bond Rally, 1945. "The Longest Day" (1962, 20th Century Fox) "From Here to Eternity" (1953, Columbia Pictures) "The Green Berets" (1968, Warner Brothers) "Apocalypse Now" (1979, Zoetrope/Paramount) "Gardens of Stone" (1987, Tri-Star Pictures) "An Officer and a Gentleman" (1982, Paramount Pictures) "Top Gun" (1986, Paramount Pictures) "Crimson Tide" (1995, Hollywood Pictures) TRANSCRIPT Air Force NEWS: "No matter where you are, you're never too far from Air Force Television News." Admiral PEASE: "...CNN was onboard the aircraft carrier..." US MARINES Recruiting AD: "You will be changed forever." Frank GIFFORD: I'm Frank Gifford of "Monday Night Football." I hope you get a chance to see us once in awhile. but good luck. We want you to know that we are very proud of what you are doing. We are very proud to be a part of the military and we feel we are on "Monday Night Football." Good luck and God bless you each and every one of you. Joe TRENTO: Suffice it to say, we're talking about many millions of dollars, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars spent on polishing the image, polishing the appearance of the Pentagon and the military services. Philip STRUB: Hollywood wants something from us: equipment, access to installations, stories, personnel. And we have the opportunity to tell the public something about the military. Trainee at Media Awareness Exercise: "Ma'am, basically, all the soldiers here are heros in one way or another." NARRATOR: "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" presents a special three-part series: "The Military, the Media, and You." MARINE Drill Instructor: "Don't change that channel!" Admiral JOHN SHANAHAN (USN, Ret.): I'm Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, director of the Center for Defense Information. For more than 90 years the military and Hollywood have worked together to make war movies. These movies create powerful impressions about the military establishment. How closely do these impressions reflect reality? And what's really going on when the military cooperates with the entertainment business? I think you'll find the answers surprising. NARRATOR: The military puts a vast amount of resources into public relations efforts aimed at enhancing its image with the American people. Mr. JOE TRENTO: The Pentagon won't tell us how big their PR apparatus is. INTERVIEWER: Joe Trento runs the National Security News Service, a nonprofit news organization that investigates military issues. Mr. TRENTO: There are literally hundreds of offices, activities and events all determined to do two things: To increase the Pentagon budget and to decrease public criticism and the media criticism of the Pentagon. NARRATOR: Air shows like this one cost thousands of dollars, but generate uncritical publicity and provide an opportunity for the military to present a powerful "wild blue yonder" image to the public. Media awareness training exercises help troops "get ready for prime time" by sending out mock reporters during operational exercises and tutoring troops on how to respond when a microphone is stuck in their face. Air Force News Announcer: "This is a special edition of Air Force Information News." NARRATOR: The Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Maryland, equips 3800 personnel a year with a broad array of public relations and media skills. But the image factory of Hollywood is where the military has the most profound effect on public consciousness. The Pentagon receives over 200 requests per year from movie producers seeking assistance. Phil Strub is in charge of reviewing the scripts and helping to determine which ones are going to get military cooperation. Philip STRUB: When Hollywood comes to us with a request for production assistance, we have an opportunity, an important opportunity, I think, to tell the American public something about the US military and help recruiting and retention at the same time. NARRATOR: When a moviemaker wants to make a war movie, or even a film that just incidentally includes the military, the natural place to go for props is the Pentagon. Dr. Lawrence SUID: Each side is using the other for its own ends. Filmmakers want to get cheap equipment or free equipment, free use of men. NARRATOR: Lawrence Suid has written several books on the history of military cooperation with the movies, including Sailing on the Silver Screen: Hollywood and the U.S. Navy. Dr. SUID: From the service point of view, they wanted to use the films for recruiting, for going to Congress to get money for aircraft carriers, airplanes, submarines, whatever, and so they wanted to make sure the films would serve that purpose. NARRATOR: It's a relationship of mutual exploitation. Moviemakers save money -- where else are you going to get an aircraft carrier, for example? -- and get instant production values from the presence of authentic military hardware. In exchange, the Pentagon gets to influence how it is portrayed on the silver screen. It's an alliance that stretches back to the days of silent movies. The 1927 epic, "Wings," won the first Academy Award for Best Picture for its depiction of World War I aerial combat. (Film clip from "Wings," 1927, Paramount Pictures) Mr. STRUB: Prior to that there was technical advice and that sort of thing, but in "Wings" the military cooperated in the production on a large scale for perhaps the first time. (Film clip from "Test Pilot," 1938, MGM) NARRATOR: During the 1930s, Hollywood movies about the military usually dealt with preparedness themes and projected a sense of American security and invulnerability, a sense that was shattered by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Dr. SUID: Part of the reason that Pearl Harbor was so traumatic is that all during the late thirties these films had conveyed the idea that the American military could protect us from any attack, and suddenly we get wiped out. So one, we get wiped out, which is traumatic. But two, the question, how did it happen when the Navy and the Air Force said it never would happen? So this, I think, is very important up to World War II. (Clip of Bing Crosby singing in the Motion Picture Industry's All-Star Bond Rally, 1945.) NARRATOR: During the war the entertainment industry played a major role in supporting the troops and vilifying the enemy. But even before World War II, Hollywood stopped depicting Nazi and Japanese atrocities. Dr. SUID: The only reason that I've ever been able to find, and no one's challenged it so far, is that someone in the Pentagon and the State Department suddenly realized that we were going to beat the Japanese and the Germans, and that our real enemy was the Soviet Union and we were going to need allies after the war. So, how are you going to turn the enemy around? Well, the same way you create the images, with film. So, from about the beginning of '44 onward, through the 1960s, into the seventies, you have almost no portrayals of Germans committing atrocities, Japanese committing atrocities. (Film clip from "The Longest Day," 1962, 20th Century Fox) NARRATOR: Most Hollywood scripts seeking military cooperation in the 1950s and sixties contained flattering images of the armed forces. However, the 1953 Oscar-winner "From Here to Eternity" proved controversial. Its searing depiction of military life just before the outbreak of World War II led the Army to refuse access for filming at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii until certain changes were made to the script. Dr. SUID: It showed the Army brig as committing atrocities on prisoners and the Army's comment was, "We don't do this anymore, so we don't want to show it." So, they had a long debate back and forth and they sort of moderated a little bit here and a little bit there. And if you listen to Frank Sinatra's explanation of why he's dying, he says, "I fell off a truck," and then he throws in a little bit about being beaten also. (Film Clip from "From Here to Eternity," 1953, Columbia Pictures): (Sinatra's Character, a soldier): "I escaped just like I said, just like I figured. In the back of a truck, on the top. They rode me right out, just like I figured. Only the tailgate opened up, Pru, about a mile back and I fell out on the road. You should have seen me bounce. I must have broke something. Pru -- Fatso done it, Pru. He likes to whack me in the gut." Dr. SUID: It gave the Army enough. It did not benefit the Army, but it was in the Army's best interest to give them the facilities in Pearl Harbor to get a slightly toned-down image. NARRATOR: During the Vietnam War, Hollywood shied away from movies with military themes, especially ones with pro-war messages. "The Green Berets," starring John Wayne, was the exception. Released in 1968 as public sentiment against the war was growing, the producers received unlimited cooperation from the Army following a personal letter from Wayne to President Johnson. (Film Clip from "The Green Berets," 1968, Warner Brothers) Reporter to Sergeant in film: "I'm Hugh Parkinson. I happen to be a newspaperman. Since you've been in Vietnam, perhaps you can answer a question that many of our subscribers ask." Sergeant: "We'll try." Reporter: "Why is the United States waging this ruthless war?" Sergeant: "Foreign policy decisions are not made by the military. A soldier goes where he's told to go and fights whomever he's told to fight." Dr. SUID: When you go back to John Wayne's "Green Berets," Fort Benning charged him $18,000 for all the fuel, equipment and everything he used. Well, obviously, he'd been there a pretty long time and it cost a lot more, but the Army and the Pentagon wanted the movie made, so, you know, you cook the books a little bit. (From "The Green Berets") Wayne's Character in film: "What are you going to say in that newspaper of yours?" Reporter: "If I say what I feel, I may be out of a job." NARRATOR: Just as the bombing of Pearl Harbor had put the lie to the claim that America was protected from attack, the Vietnam War undermined the movie-borne message that the United States would always prevail in conflict. Public disillusionment with the war also tarnished the image of the military. Dr. SUID: When the war ended, we had lost, and Hollywood doesn't like to make movies about losers. So, at first they did nothing. And then the people who thought the war was wrong finally put up their money, after it did no good, and started making a series of antiwar movies or anti-Vietnam movies showing how bad we were there. Well, they overdid it, one. And two, if they really believed it, they should have done it when it would made some difference. NARRATOR: Films such as "The Deer Hunter," "Platoon," and "Apocalypse Now" depicted an unrelentingly bleak view of American involvement in Vietnam. None received Pentagon support in their production. Dr. SUID: "Apocalypse Now" did not get cooperation and, in truth, it was for one reason and one word. The springboard is that they're sending Martin Sheen up the river to "terminate" Marlon Brando. And the Army said that we simply cannot show one of our officers going to kill another officer. (Film Clip from "Apocalypse Now," 1979, Zoetrope/Paramount) Martin Sheen's Character: "Terminate the Colonel." Officer to Sheen's Character: "He's out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct and he is still on the field commanding troops." Civilian advisor: "Terminate with extreme prejudice." Dr. SUID: If they would've changed the word from "terminate" to "investigate and take appropriate action," they probably would have gone along with it. But it was that one word that really hung them up. NARRATOR: Despite their differences over "Apocalypse Now," director Francis Coppola found the Pentagon more than willing to cooperate a decade later with "Gardens of Stone," which depicts the Vietnam War's impact on the Army at home. The Army's close cooperation lent the film an aura of authenticity. Dr. SUID: The Pentagon doesn't hold grudges. They gave him full cooperation on "Gardens of Stone," which is really a very powerful antiwar movie. The funeral at the end where they fire the 21-gun salute and the widow jerks back is terribly powerful. But it showed things fairly accurately, and so the Army said, "Well, whatever he did last time is gone. If he does a better job this time, we'll be glad to help." (Film Clip from "Gardens of Stone," 1987, Tri-Star Pictures) NARRATOR: Following a slew of anti-Vietnam movies, Hollywood began making pictures such as 1982's "An Officer and a Gentleman" that helped rehabilitate the military's tarnished image. Ironically, it had to be made without Pentagon cooperation. (Film Clip from "An Officer and a Gentleman," 1982, Paramount Pictures) Dr. SUID: The Navy would have nothing to do with "An Officer and a Gentleman because of the sex, the language, and the fact that one of their guys commits suicide when he washes out. So, it's made without Navy cooperation, and yet it's real good for the Navy because the character, the hero, is really a very nice guy and at the end, just like in all the earlier Navy movies, in his white uniform he comes along and rescues the girl. NARRATOR: This process of rebuilding the military's image in the wake of Vietnam reached its peak with the release of "Top Gun" in 1986, that year's top-grossing movie. The Navy saw this peacetime story of naval fighter pilot school as an opportunity to significantly boost its image and lent unparalleled support in the form of a carrier, aircraft, and technical advice. (Film Clips from "Top Gun," 1986, Paramount Pictures) Mr. TRENTO: How did they get the cooperation? They allowed the military to rewrite their script. They essentially gave them the script and anything in the script that the military did not like or didn't think reflected well on the military was edited out and rewritten. Mr. STRUB: "Top Gun" was significant to me and to others because it marked a rehabilitation in the portrayal of the military. For the first time in many, many years, you could make a movie that was positive about the military, actors could portray military personnel who were well-motivated, well-intentioned and not see their careers suffer as a consequence. NARRATOR: On top of glamorizing the image of Navy pilots and stimulating a surge in flight training candidates, "Top Gun" also served to boost public confidence in American weapons technology, in general -- technology that would be extensively tested in battle just four years later. Dr. SUID: "Top Gun" also in large measure, in my view, prepared the American people for the Gulf War. Before the completion of the rehabilitation, the American people had more or less decided the United States military couldn't do what it said it could do. "Top Gun" showed that we could shoot down airplanes, that our aircraft carriers could go anyplace, and that our pilots were the best. And so, when the Gulf War comes along, there's no reason for any American civilian to believe that we can't beat Saddam Hussein. NARRATOR: However, the success of "Top Gun" backfired on the Navy just five months after the end of the Gulf War when the story broke about sexual harassment at the 1991 Tailhook Convention, an annual gathering of naval aviators. The Pentagon's own investigation into the scandal cited "Top Gun" by name and reported that "Some senior officers...told us that the movie fueled misconceptions on the part of junior officers as to what was expected of them and also served to increase the general awareness of naval aviation and glorify naval pilots in the eyes of many young women." Dr. SUID: So, there's this paradox with the movie. It rehabilitates, but it also sets the stage for, in some measure, the scandals that have occurred since. NARRATOR: Joe Trento believes Pentagon cooperation with the movies is aimed in part at countering the negative publicity caused by such scandals. Mr. TRENTO: General Joe Ashey flying a young attractive female enlisted aide to his new command from Italy back to the United States, involving a midair refueling that cost $300,000. An incident like that that becomes public and gets on "20/20," for example, and a lot of people watch it, does enormous damage to their image, and so they have to make up for that. And so, they look at that and they say, 'Well, how can we make up for this? Well, can we get a movie made about the Air Force that will make us look better? Can we get some favorable pieces on "20/20" or "60 Minutes"? Can we get some better coverage in People magazine using one of our heros, say from Bosnia?' And that's how they think. It's a battle. It's a war. Mr. STRUB: I don't think our participation is a reaction to negative publicity or negative coverage in the media. It is a component of public affairs. It reflects a desire on our part to take advantage of an opportunity to tell the public something that we think is accurate about us. NARRATOR: The military provides support to only about one-third of the 200-plus requests for assistance from moviemakers it received a year. How does the Pentagon decide which scripts to cooperate on? Mr. STRUB: Typically, we don't cooperate with a production when we feel that the military portrayals are so unrealistic, so wildly unrealistic that it goes beyond artistic license, and drama, and action into a realm of such pure fancy that we think it's actually misleading. An example would be "Crimson Tide," where we feel that the premise -- that is, an armed mutiny aboard a nuclear submarine is just so impossible an event to have ever taken place that we just couldn't see our way toward providing assistance. (Film Clip from "Crimson Tide," 1995, Hollywood Pictures) Mr. TRENTO: They don't deal with reality. They deal with what can improve their image. They don't care about anything except that. Mr. STRUB: We're often asked what is the picture that you would never touch. And it's very hard to come up with one because although you could say, well, we would never do a dramatization of the My Lai incident of the Vietnam War, for example. But I don't know if that's true, strictly speaking. NARRATOR: My Lai, the 1968 massacre of an estimated 150 unarmed civilians by American troops in Vietnam, and its subsequent coverup was perhaps the worst disgrace in Army history. Mr. TRENTO: What if you wanted to make a movie about My Lai or something bad in American history? You will not get military cooperation. They demand censorship of the scripts. Mr. STRUB: Obviously, it would give everybody a great deal of trepidation to pursue that, but it's all is how it's handled in the script. If it's handled in such a way that the viewer understands how something horrible like that can take place, in some kind of awful, catastrophic extremis of events, how people may or may not feel guilt, how wrongdoers are punished, how steps are taken to prevent that from happening again, you know, all these are factors that would mitigate our apprehension over the subject matter. NARRATOR: Once a script is modified to the Pentagon's satisfaction and it agrees to cooperate, there is the question of who pays for the military's participation. Mr. STRUB: The support that we provide, the physical production support that we provide is at no cost to the taxpayer. Mr. TRENTO: Of course, it costs huge amounts because they write it off as training. So, you'll be flying F-18s and F-15s around, and that's training. These things cost thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars per hour to fly. The reality is that the costs are not sensibly calculated. NARRATOR: Often the weapons and personnel are provided free of charge. But if the moviemakers require military hardware to perform especially for the camera, the production company generally pays for the time. An Army Blackhawk helicopter costs the producers $5,250 an hour for such special duty, a tiny fraction of what, say Tom Cruise costs them. Mr. STRUB: If they're on an aircraft carrier and they're filming flight operations just as a target of opportunity, they're not going to be charged for that. On the other hand, if the director says, "You know, I'd really like that F/A-18 to launch in the next 15 minutes and turn left and fly a course of 180," then the clock is going to start. That they'll pay for the catapult launch, they'll pay whatever associated costs are incurred to launch that aircraft, to fly that aircraft. NARRATOR: Beyond the issue of costs, there is the ethical question of whether it is appropriate for the military to participate in the movie industry at all. Mr. TRENTO: I think that the whole idea of using the military in the entertainment business is insane and it's absolutely absurd to let the military dictate through tax-paid equipment -- through their control of tax-paid equipment what goes in movies. Mr. STRUB: My feeling is the taxpayer is burdened with the considerable cost of retaining people, of recruiting people, and to the extent that we can foster good morale about staying in the military or joining the military is a way that we can save the taxpayer money. Dr. SUID: There is a congressional stipulation that the services are supposed to promote themselves. And implicit in that is to promote yourself positively. No organization is going to help create a negative image of itself. NARRATOR: The question is, how accurately does the image projected in the movies portray the realities of military life? Since the draft ended in 1972, fewer and fewer Americans have had contact with the armed forces and the military has become more isolated from the rest of society. Mr. STRUB: We try to foster images in these productions that continue to show the US military as a normal part of society, that the people who are in uniform are not any different from anybody else. They've chosen a career in the military, but that doesn't make them different people. So, to the extent that we can demythologize or set the record straight, perhaps in contrast to some of the overblown imagery of the military that you see in these pictures, that's an objective that we think is a worthy one to pursue. NARRATOR: But whether Pentagon PR is busting myths or creating them depends on your point of view. Mr. TRENTO: I have great admiration for a lot that the military does. There's a huge professional contingent of people in the military who earn very little money, who risk their lives and work very hard. But I want to separate that from this Disney World vision of the military that the Pentagon PR office is trying to create. NAVY/MARINE CORPS News Newscaster: "I don't think it's any coincidence that the best flicks of '96 involved military themes in one way or another." NARRATOR: In an era when cuts in government spending are viewed as essential to the country's economic health, the Pentagon's budget has been off-the-table in Congress. Does its image in the movies boost support for military spending? Mr. STRUB: It's probably true to say that we feel that our participation in these films conveys a positive, a generally positive image about the military and, hopefully, that has a resonance in the American public. And if as a consequence of that feeling of goodwill or trust about the military results in our getting support for our programs, then I guess you could make that point, that there is some effect. But we don't approach this moviemaking business as if there is a causal relationship between a movie and a budget, or a movie and a specific recruiting objective; it's more general than that. Mr. TRENTO: This is directly related to keeping the base of public support for the military at a very high level in order to get money they need to operate in Congress. You've got to look at some things. They've been very successful. We've had a huge collapse of all our enemies around the world. There has not been a similar collapse in the Pentagon budget or, for that matter, in the national security budget on the intelligence side. Why is that? It's because they've kept saying, "There are dangers. There are dangers. There are dangers." Military Officer (Congressional testimony):"This is a very dangerous world." William PERRY, Secretary of Defense (before Congress): "There are serious threats to our interests." Military Officer (Congressional testimony): "The danger." Military Officer (Congressional testimony): "There are transnational threats." Military Officer (Congressional testimony): "The US is affected by transnational threats." Secretary PERRY: "These are the dangers we face every day." NARRATOR: The movies can also become a battleground for interservice rivalry, as each branch of the armed forces vies for a bigger slice of the military budget pie. Throughout the Cold War the Navy promoted movies that depicted nuclear missile submarines and carrier-based aviation as key to countering the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the Air Force pushed its case with support for movies about long-range bombing missions and heroic fighter pilots. Mr. STRUB: The end of the Cold War has meant for Hollywood a big problem because we no longer have the great villain in the form of the Soviet Union. And so, they're finding it difficult to come up with appropriate villains for us to fight. NARRATOR: The same could be said for the Pentagon. But in any case, the military's days in Hollywood may be numbered. As computer-generated graphics become cheaper and more realistic, moviemakers are becoming less and less dependent on military cooperation. Mr. TRENTO: That is going to be the future in moviemaking, where it'll all be computer-generated, you won't have to be submitting anything, and I wonder what the Pentagon's going to do then. Also, I must remind the producers out there that the old Soviet military and all its apparatus is available for rental, cheap, and they don't really care what you put in your scripts. Admiral SHANAHAN: Hollywood is in the business of glamour and image-making. On the other hand, the US military is in the business of protecting the American public, which sometimes involves killing people and destroying things. This is not glamorous, but it's sometimes necessary. It's important we keep a clear distinction between movie-made images and reality. Join us next week when we begin a series on the legacy of nuclear weapons. Until then, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I am Jack Shanahan. [End of broadcast.] CONDITION OF USE: Credit "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" (Center for Defense Information). (C) Copyright 1997. Center for Defense Information. All Rights Reserved |