'Jarhead': Whose Stories Are They?
9 Nov. New York Times - 'Jarhead': Whose Stories Are They?. Excerpt follows:
"Joel Turnipseed, a former Marine who wrote 'Baghdad Express,' a memoir of the first gulf war, was sitting in Minneapolis watching Monday Night Football with his wife last week when a commercial for the film 'Jarhead' came on the television..."
"Mr. Turnipseed said he was shocked... That scene is in my book, not Tony's, he added, referring to Mr. Swofford..."
"A little later on in the game there was another commercial for the film, this one depicting a scene in which a marine colonel gives a motivational speech to soldiers under his command. Much of the scene and some of the dialogue, Mr. Turnipseed recalled, seemed to come directly from the opening pages of Baghdad Express..."
'Jarhead' a Viciously Dishonest Lie
11 Nov. Rocky Mountain News: 'Jarhead' a Viciously Dishonest Lie. Excerpt follows:
"By now you've probably read the varying reviews of Jarhead, the new movie that purports to be about the Marine Corps and the first Persian Gulf War. Based on the memoir of the same name by Anthony Swofford, both the movie and book bear only a superficial resemblance to anything real."
"First, the book. Third-generation enlistee Swofford joined the Marines to escape a dysfunctional family, but unfortunately he brought a lot of that dysfunction into the Corps. In the end, he dishonored the uniform he wore..."
Hollywood: Rotten to the Corps?
13 Nov. Washington Times - Hollywood: Rotten to the Corps?. Excerpt follows:
"...It's pretty clear those making movies in Tinsel Town don't know any real men like Aaron Mankin. They apparently prefer cowardice over courage; witless whiners to real patriots; gutless wimps and hollow phonies to men who know the meaning of self-sacrifice and integrity. That's the only conclusion one can draw after seeing Hollywood's latest anti-military travesty -- Jarhead..."
Major Chip on His Shoulder
Major Brooks Tucker in the National Review.
Quote:
There is a telling moment during Jarhead when its main character, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, hears an American helicopter blaring a Sixties pop song as it flies overhead into battle. He turns to his Marine sniping partner, Troy (Peter Sarsgaard), and quips, "That's from Vietnam, can't we get our own music for this war?" It seems screenwriter William Broyles Jr., himself a former Marine and Vietnam vet, and Sam Mendes, the director of American Beauty, can't steer clear of subtle linkages and comparisons between Vietnam and our past and current war with Iraq. During the pre-combat phase of the movie, which is the first two thirds of the flick, the Marines in Jarhead fantasize about combat by watching Apocalypse Now and The Deerhunter. Marines in the early Nineties no doubt looked to Vietnam as the last big war, but they were more likely to find motivation from active duty vets who'd fought in Beirut and Panama, not from the Hollywood screen. The same could be said of curious moviegoers looking to the Hollywood Jarhead for a realistic and compelling account of the common grunt's experience during the Persian Gulf War
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Marines Believe Gulf Film Makes Them Look Soft
18 Jan. London Daily Telegraph - Marines Believe Gulf Film Makes Them Look Soft .
Quote:
Few audiences can have watched Jarhead, the film about an American marine in the first Gulf war, more intently than that at Camp Ripper, a base in western Iraq filled with thousands of marines.
But there will also be few places on Earth where it is so reviled.
Sam Mendes, its British director, has explained how, by bringing Anthony Swofford's autobiography to the screen, he hoped to expose the barbarity of military life...
Being a marine can be brutal, the men at Ripper admit. Boot camp was not pleasant and, although incidents of sergeants physically attacking their men when they muck up are rare now, older hands say that they were relatively common in 1991, when the film is set.
But unlike the action on screen, the violence is normally constrained by discipline, the marines say. That restraint is part of their professionalism - and is meant to keep them alive.
Aim a gun at a friend and threaten to kill him, a soldier said, and you face jail and a dishonourable discharge, not a few words of complaint from your corporal...