Alex Garland’s Civil War depicts a fictional US conflict that is less about conveying a political perspective as it is a tense statement about the normalization of violence and collectively losing sight of the bigger picture.  

Poignancy in film is sometimes on purpose, sometimes just coincidence. Civil War is a bit of both. Here is a film that recognizes the diplomatic atmosphere being as strained as it has been in a very long time, but also comes to theaters exactly at the right time when those conflicts are heightened to a worryingly improbable end. Civil War may depict a fictional conflict in the United States, but it’s message speaks to the global increase of violence in our lives driven by the splintering of society towards radical perspectives – in specific those who act upon them and those who pretend they aren’t a threat. 

Those exact perspectives aren’t clearly defined in Civil War, which is a detriment to those viewers who are hoping the film will champion their own specific views. Instead, director Alex Garland makes the choice to not explicitly detail the cause of his fictional civil war, but instead realize the greater implications of that conflict on the general population. It recognizes the general opportunity of how things could get out of control here in the US, as if to demonstrate that the systems of our precious constitution are just as susceptible to abuse as anywhere else in the world.

Civil War

Directed By: Alex Garland
Written By: Alex Garland
Starring: Kristen Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley-Henderson

Release Date: April 12, 2024

Advertisement

By not providing a concrete reason for the conflict, Garland’s film suggests the flaws of humanity make it inevitable. He reinforces this theme by peppering in accounts of people who are pretending the war isn’t happening, as if to suggest their ambivalence played a role. The film contrasts the experiences of those people with their heads buried in the sand by spinning a narrative around those who are paid not to: war correspondents. 

The story focuses on a renowned journalist Lee Smith (Kristen Dunst) who has made a name for herself covering harrowing atrocities across the globe, and her colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) who lives for the thrill of experiencing the thrill of battle in person. As the civil war is upon the precipice of conclusion, they decide to race to Washington D.C. to try and interview the President of the United states before he is captured by his opposition. In this journey they are joined by Sammy, a veteran reporter who would rather die than stop working (Stephen McKinley-Henderson), and Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a young and inexperienced photographer who looks up to Lee. 

Lee and Joel are an experienced 2-man crew who have been together through some very dangerous conflicts depicted to the audience through flashbacks. Sammy and Jessie’s involvement thus represents a hazard because they don’t just have to worry about themselves, they have to look out for two people who don’t have the same capabilities as they do. But while Sammy is willingly putting himself in danger and has the wherewithal to know exactly what he is getting himself into, Jessie does not. Joel and Lee’s opposing perspectives on the approach to their work is something that makes their working relationship function, but it creates conflict in regards to Jessie. 

Lee is reluctant to bring Jessie in under her belt and show her the ropes because she has seen the worst of humanity and fears Jessie isn’t prepared for it both emotionally and physically. Lee doesn’t want to have to care about someone else because it may compromise her ability to do her own work. Meanwhile Joel is excited to be able to share his enthusiasm for being in the thick of the battle and wants to help Jessie experience this for the first time. For her part Jessie realizes the uncomfortable burden her presence places on the group, but knows that if she wants to further her career this is a golden opportunity she would never get if she played it safe. 

In this way, all of them essentially exploit the pain and suffering of others for their living. This experience has essentially numbed them to the motivations of the conflict, which is part of the reason why the film doesn’t spend time commenting on them. Furthermore, it isn’t really possible for Lee & Company to be on one side or the other because the integrity of their craft and personal safety requires them to be ambivalent. In many ways they hide behind it like a shield. While they can’t ignore the conflict, their reasoning to not be on one side or the other is just as selfish as those who are ignoring the conflict. 

You could construe this as a criticism of the media, which I think may be valid. But I think the point is the fact that our society is at a point where “sides” are necessary in the first place. This is a bigger criticism of the world’s social development as a whole. Rather than be motivated by the greater good, we’re motivated by selfish desires and we channel that into picking “sides”. At one point in the film, the main characters encounter a man with a gun who has captured and tortured two men because they were stealing from him. He comments on how he had gone to high school with one of them, suggesting the extremes that have become necessary – even in a civilized first-world nation – for individual survival. 

Director/writer Garland first made a name for himself in cinema by reinventing the zombie genre for the 21st Century with his script for 28 Days Later. In many ways, Civil War feels like a zombie movie. The world it depicts has fleeting reminders of normalcy amidst a harrowing almost post-apocalyptic fight for survival. There are gripping action sequences with sound design that pummels you into the back of your seat. And yet most of the film is quiet, expressing the void of humanity from this possible future. Garland depicts empty streets with the occasional roving military vehicle, others are littered with the carcasses of cars and equipment abandoned long ago. Like a zombie movie it hinges on humanity’s hubris – despite all our impressive accomplishments we’re still a deeply flawed species. 

Kristen Dunst portrays Lee the entire film with the aghast expression of someone who has seen too much. But Jessie’s inclusion in her life is what ultimately breaks her. Not because she witnesses her loss of innocence first-hand, but because Lee sees herself in Jessie. From this outside perspective Lee begins to feel the guilt that she had hid away for all these years. Reporting on these terrible events doesn’t necessarily bring heightened concern from the general public, instead it fuels our tolerance for them. 

Civil War offers us the ultimate paradox of our modern information age; the more we know about what is going on, the worse off we are. Truth becomes the enemy not because of what it means to us, but because of our selfish reactions towards it. The film conveys a pulse-quickening tale of survival in a harrowing dystopia of fear towards knowledge. It flies in the face of every horror film where we’re told that the most frightening thing is the unknown. 

The label of elitism sticks to opera like superglue. The label is a fake, but one for which no cultural chemical capable of removing it has yet proved effective. Still, opera populists are trying and appear to be making progress.

Los Angeles Opera last week unveiled two new productions of operas old or avant-garde: Verdi’s 19th century chestnut “La Traviata,” and Huang Ruo’s 2021 “Book of Mountains and Seas,” based on ancient Chinese myths. Both are literally worlds apart, they were given in theaters large (the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion downtown) and small (the Broad Stage in Santa Monica), and they were designed for different audiences. The performances I saw were well attended and enthusiastically received.

Both raised the question of what makes opera elite, as opposed to, say, a Lakers game. Wealth or privilege, say the lexographers at Oxford, a university where wealth and privilege have sway. As I write, tickets purchased on the L.A. Opera website for the Wednesday performance of “La Traviata” range from $89 to $329. The next night, the Lakers take on the Denver Nuggets at Crypto.com Arena. Cash in your crypto (if you still can) for nuggets of gold: Tickets on the Lakers website begin at $249, rising to five grand. Event parking at the Music Center is $10, a quarter of the price Crypto.com charges for a Lakers game.

Opera has been popular entertainment through much of its early history. Castrati were the pop stars of the Baroque era. At the time Verdi wrote “La Traviata,” he was so popular that his latest tunes were as closely guarded before a premiere as a Beyoncé track.

There were peanut galleries in all the great 19th century European opera houses, and there have been cheap seats ever since. As a student, I often attended San Francisco Opera several times a week, standing room being no more than the price of a movie. Tickets for L.A. Opera mainstage productions start around $35 or less, and they go fast.

The intimidation factor is often the main reason credited with keeping new audiences away from opera. What to wear? There is no dress code. Some people dress up, and hard-core fans can be found in jeans.

What to know? When I listen to a rap recording, I sometimes employ a guide to follow allusions in the lyrics that may escape me. If “La Traviata” is a mystery to you, arrive an hour early and the company’s music director, James Conlon, will explain it to you in his engaging pre-performance talk. A plot synopsis is in the program and English translations of the libretto are projected on screens during the performance.

That said, there is always the danger of a welcome turning into glad-handing. In the recent past, L.A. had been in the process of becoming a leader in taking bold theatrical chances, making our opera some of the most relevant theater anywhere and L.A. the hippest opera city in America. But we have entered a culturally risk-adverse period. Our present age of anxiety — which includes post-pandemic economic challenges to the arts, diminished attention spans and audiences seeking escape from all but virtual reality — has ushered in an atmosphere of caution in just about everything presented to the public.

A successful L.A. Opera strategy for building new audiences has, therefore, been precisely the opposite of challenge. Real old-fashioned opera, the more retro the better, has become the new cool.

The “Traviata” production the company imported from San Francisco Opera fits right in with period sets and costumes so formulaic as to feel ironically surreal, along with park-and-bark direction for the singers. There is a hint of wink-wink-nod-nod kink in a party scene (this is from San Francisco, after all), comic not erotic.

The performance sounds far better than it looks thanks in large part to Conlon’s commanding conducting that makes everything seem to matter despite appearances. The standout in the cast is the Violetta of Rachel Willis-Sorensen, her silvery and supple soprano making for a more brilliant than affectingly consumptive character. The starchy tenor, Liparit Avetisyan, as Violetta’s lover Alfredo, seems to like singing to the audience more than to her.

Ironically, the appeal may be that this is just outdated enough and nonthreatening enough to feel newly fashionable. The silly kink brings a smile. Any intimations of feminism dare seem threatening. By escaping modern theater, by not allowing “La Traviata” to be upsetting, we are offered a three-hour escape from reality.

In its attempts at opera for all, the Los Angeles company also has found ways to take opera out of the opera house. On May 3 and 4, Conlon brings back his warm, magnificent, family-friendly and free L.A. Opera production of Benjamin Britten’s “Noah’s Flood” at Our Lady of the Angels downtown. Expect to leave the cathedral feeling better than when you entered.

Experimental opera was also sent off Grand avenue. At the Broad Stage, “Book of Mountains and Seas” — part of L.A. Opera’s annual collaboration with Beth Morrison Projects, makers of new opera — was everything that “Traviata” was not. The imaginative production by puppeteer Basil Twist proved stunning. The cast contained a dozen equally ideal singers. What vague narrative there is comes across as barely explicable. Words and music didn’t matter all that much. The escape from reality, in this case, was of the go-with-the-flow variety.

A scene from “The Book of Mountains and Seas,” produced by Beth Morrison Projects.

(Steven Pisano)

Huang Ruo’s impetus is “The Classic of Mountains and Seas” from ancient China, which describes the mythic plants and creatures with odd powers. The four tales selected from “The Classic” for the opera — the birth of the hairy giant Pangu, a spirit bird who attacks water, the folly of 10 suns, and a giant who thinks he can capture the sun — are dramatized through the fuzzy ritual of a puppet being assembled.

The singers, the Ars Nova Copenhagen, are the real stars. Indeed for the West Coast appearances of “Mountains and Seas,” which is currently touring, this amazing Danish chamber choir might well have set the scene for the 75-minute opera with Lou Harrison’s “Mass for Saint Cecilia’s Day.” The group’s meditative yet exhilarating recording of this Californian mix Harrison’s gothic chant and ancient Asian tunings is a model for what Huang Ruo was after. Still the sounds were entrancing and the giant puppet impressive.

Atmosphere may not an opera make, but as escapes from reality go, there are far fewer appealing ones than this. And with luck L.A. Opera’s efforts at taking the elitism out of opera may make a difference. In the next two months, the town will be the site of an informal opera-for-all festival.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic is remounting “Fidelio” with Deaf West Theatre next month, Opera America and World Opera Forum host conferences in L.A. in June, and new work is coming from Long Beach Opera and the Industry — along with dozens of offerings from L.A. Opera, the happily populist Pacific Opera Project, Beth Morrison and others. Anyone with a stage, a costume, a voice and an idea is welcome. That is the L.A. opera ideal.