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This is not an advertising segment for Sony Films,
but this is now the second copy of Black Hawk Down I bought.
The two-DVD edition just wasn't enough,
in preparation, I had to get the three-disk edition.
What I didn't quite realize in an act of
brilliance for someone who's supposed to be able to research,
is in fact having then subsequently bought this History Channel documentary,
it is disk three of the DVD that I bought.
But moving on from that point,
it comes to what's not in the film.
The film has terrific background,
but if you listen to one of the audio commentaries and I
think it's the third one which has some of
the veterans there's a point where there saying,
"ah I think this is where the guy has got dragged through the streets."
Don't go any further than that,
and it's not depicted within that film.
Whereas, if you go to the documentary from
the History Channel you get those images within the first couple of minutes.
It's montage through and then reflected back again,
and we're talking about editing censorship manipulation.
I started off talking about the index of censorship book underexposed.
Ridley Scott needed to put a film together that was acceptable to the American public,
and there were some things that revealed a 1993
in the public domain that perhaps by the time you get to 2001 didn't need to be seen.
Now, let's put this into another context.
This film was in production before the events of 9/11 in 2001.
I believe, I believe,
I believe that the release date was brought forward.
So we came into 2001 rather than 2002 so that it might be considered for the 2002 Oscars.
Now it was a very well-received film.
It was critically acclaimed but when it came to the Oscars,
it won in technical categories rather than for acting or best picture.
Now, the reason I mention this is it portrays the military in a very positive light.
Couple of the things that Ridley Scott was accused of,
in making this film,
as being very pro-war and he was quite open in saying,
"No I am not pro-war,
I am pro military,
I'm pro the commitment of the armed forces to doing their job in
almost impossible circumstances and to support those around them."
Now, In doing that and knowing what
the reaction has been to 9/11 there
were one or two things that the film did not touch on.
I think in terms of
the broad narrative they weren't necessarily critical to what goes on,
but its what's in and what's out,
and this is something that we need to deal with a little bit later on.
Now, I'm going to pause there.
I still haven't actually talked about the images.
We are going to do that but I want to go back to the source material itself and
actually think about the books and the website which I've mentioned.
But before we do that,
just consider what happened with 9/11.
Again that's another instance where you had 24 hour news coverage.
You probably are aware of the Falling Man.
You can find the documentary on that,
although I an not going to talk about it now.
The person who for one reason or another chose to try and escape the Twin Towers
by falling rather than being enveloped
in flame or part of the collapse of the building itself.
I think most of the news media in 2001 were quite
careful not to show ground shots after 9/11.
Again, live rolling TV.
But what do you actually want to report for your audience and what will they tolerate?
Let's come back to that a little bit later.
Dr Emmett SullivanSenior Tutor
