Director Winkler gets real with Iraq war film

By Bob Tourtellotte

CANNES, France (Reuters) – Acclaimed U.S. director Irwin
Winkler did not wait for U.S. troops to leave Iraq to make
“Home of the Brave,” a movie that looks not only at the horror
of war but also at the lives that soldiers left behind.

When finished later this year the film will join a long
list of films on a similar theme, including the Vietnam-era
tales “Coming Home” and “Born on the Fourth of July.”

But while those films were made well after the fighting was
over, Winkler has chosen to comment on the impact of the Iraq
war while the conflict is still in progress.

“I felt very much that I had to tell a story that was
deeper than what you see on TV,” Winkler told Reuters after a
news conference to present clips from the film.

“When you watch a story on television, or somebody getting
shot in a war, you don’t know who they are. So I spent time
making audiences know who the characters are.”

“Home of the Brave” opens in a military camp south of
Baghdad and introduces audiences to soldiers played by Samuel
L. Jackson, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Jessica Biel, among
others.

The troops are ambushed during an operation, just days
before they are due to go home. Life and limbs are lost, and
the men and women find themselves emotionally scarred.

In one early scene the soldiers play video games, and the
director is clearly making the point that war is no game.

Winkler, whose work spans decades from “Rocky” to
“Goodfellas” to the recent “De-Lovely,” gave reporters a
40-minute glimpse of footage from “Home of the Brave” during
the Cannes film festival.

“If we had any political statement to make, it is that
everyone is injured by war,” he told reporters.

Winkler said that although the story is about U.S. military
men and women, “Home of the Brave” is relevant to audiences
worldwide because of the Iraq war’s global impact and because
armed conflicts are occurring on many continents.

He told Reuters the U.S. military gave him no support in
making the movie. In fact, “they were not very favorably
impressed with what we were saying,” he said. Winkler looked
away, chuckled to himself and added: “They hated it.”