Our weekly documentary film curated by our editorial team at 21WIRE.
How many of your favorite movies been shaped and directed by the Pentagon? Since the 1970’s, a number of successful Hollywood blockbuster hits, including Patton, Apocalypse Now, Top Gun, Three Kings, Saving Private Ryan, Blackhawk Down and others – had their productions and budgets augmented by the US military machine – including the use military bases, heavy weaponry, submarines aircraft and aircraft carriers – generously made available to the studios… but at a price. The quid pro quo is that Pentagon’s ‘experts’ are then allowed to vet hundreds of screenplays each year, and even have direct input into the story lines.
Operation Hollywood explores the cozy relationship between the big entertainment studios and the military industrial complex, and asks why Americans, and the world, accept that the Pentagon will use movies to promote its own brand of propaganda – in the furtherance of a US-centric global agenda of militarization.
Run time: 52 min
Director: Emilio Pacull
Distributor Arte France and Les Films d’Ici (2004)
For additional background on this topic, listen to author Jay Dyer’s highly informative lecture on the subject.
