How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
Why make a movie anyway? It seems pointless to go to all that trouble when the original is floating out there for all to see, easily available online by searching "Al-Ansakar Canal," "Bravo snuff movie," "America's throbbing cock of justice," or any one of a couple of dozen similar phrases that summon forth the Fox News footage, three minutes and forty-three seconds of high-intensity warfare as seen through a stumbling you-are-there point of view, the battle sounds backgrounded by a slur of heavy breathing and the bleeped expletives of the daring camera crew. It's so real it looks fake—too showy, too hyped up and cinematic, a B-movie's defiant or defensive flirtation with the referential limits of kitsch. Would a more polished product serve better, one wonders—throw in some story arc, a good dose of character development, artful lighting, and multiple camera angles, plus a soundtrack to tee up the emotive cues. Nothing looks so real as a fake, apparently, though ever since seeing the footage for himself Billy has puzzled over the fact that it doesn't look like any battle he was ever in. Therefore you have the real that looks fake twice over, the real that looks so real it looks fake and the real that looks nothing like the real and thus fake, so maybe you do need all of Hollywood's craft and guile to bring it back to the real. (Proud.1)
Billy lost us at the end there (wait…so it's real, but it seems fake, but maybe because it seems fake it's really real…uhh…), but this is a great example of how confused Billy is about reality. He was there, man, but the footage doesn't match up with his experience of the battle. So would Hollywood's version be more authentic, or less so? Well, if they go forward with the Hilary Swank thing, we could definitely answer that one for ya.