Lions for Lambs

Lions for Lambs. Dir. Robert Redford. Prod. Robert Redford, Matthew Carnahan, Andrew Hauptman, and Tracy Falco. By Matthew Carnahan. Perf. Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2007.Kevin A. MillerGOVT 2301-2002Robert LittleSummer I 2012

Annotation:Robert Redfords Lions for Lambs revolves around the orchestrations of a Special Forces covert military strike in Afghanistan. The film starts off detailing the military action in Iraq, 3,555 dead since the Iraq War started in 2003. This puts the audience squarely in the center of the political action and creates the pivotal political conflict which is the foundation of the films central moralistic theme.The political plot is advanced first by Sen. Jasper Irving, played by Tom Cruise. Sen. Jasper Irving happens to be an ambitious politician with his sights set on achieving higher office. He expediently calls his one time supportive journalist to feed her the newest strategy in the War on Terror with a new plan for Afghanistan. The political expediency of doing this is to distract from the failures of the Iraq War to be able to reposition the American public into supporting this new Afghanistan initiative. This political plot is fueled further by Janine Roth, played by Meryl Streep, who initially supported the Iraq War effort. It is this inner conflict of being a puppeteer of her own making that has culminated in this meeting. She is pointedly derided by Sen. Irving at her now questioning of his new Afghanistan plan. He painfully reminds her of what he calls a windsock, swaying with public sentiment that also relates to political government propaganda. Professor Malley, played by Robert Redford, a political science professor enhances the plot further. It is his class that spurs his two students Arian and Ernest to enlist in the Army. Politically Malley tries to convince them otherwise, which gives the films title: Lions for Lambs. He suggests that the young men are being sent to their death by incompetent generals.Analysis:The film Lions for Lambs engages the material covered in the course in four distinctive ways. Foremost, the film deals with the Constitution. In particular, Article 1 of the Constitution is clearly reflected in the film. Article 1 deals with the congress or legislative branch, specifically section 8 conveys the ability of the congress to declare acts of war. In this case, the film represents this with Sen. Jasper Irving, a senator and member of congress. It is he who had to vote and give authorization for the president going to war. Furthermore, he believes in the war fervently. This is even shown more clearly in the scene when he meets with Janine Roth, the journalist. He undeniably states that he voted for the war in Iraq and justifies it by stating that Iraq was a nuclear power and a militaristic attitude first when confronting foreign conflicts. Even in the face of enormous colossal mistakes made, he believes that military force is the best option for the United States to eradicate future threats.Furthermore, the film deals with the notion of popular sovereignty. This is defined as the authority in society ultimately rests with the people. This can also be expressed as the will of the people and the majority opinion. This is clearly expressed in the film in two unique ways. One of those is the high public support for the war in Iraq. This is also clearly displayed in the scene in Sen. Irvings office when he and Janine Roth discuss the American peoples role in the United States entering the Iraqi War. He states unequivocally that when he tells her she is like the windsock the blows with the prevailing opinion. This is however not the only scene in which once can see the fickleness of the majority opinion. The scene that best epitomizes this is the one where Todd Hayes gets into a heated debate in Professor Malleys class. The majority of the class or will of the people in this case clearly advocate giving clean needles to drug addicts. Hayes uses this opportunity to show the majority that they havent clearly thought this out by using the analogy of having a car lane for people who have decided to drink and drive. With this satirical example, Hayes clearly shows how the majority opinion does not always equal righteousness.Moreover, another issue the film deals with is that of propaganda or yellow journalism. Propaganda or yellow journalism is used to spread rumor by newsprint and is used to help persuade the attitudes of people toward a certain cause or position. In the film, this is shown in a couple of scenes, but none more explicit than when Janine Roth has the discussion with her boss about the interview with the senator. She clearly feels that there isnt enough information to report the story about the new successful war plan for Afghanistan. When Janine insists she is not comfortable with the story, her boss blatantly tells her that she must publish the story based solely upon Senator Irvings story that he feeds to Janine. She doesnt want to be the supposed windsock that clearly portrayed her career when she favored the Iraqi invasion. When Janine decides she does not want to sway public opinion once again, she decides to leave rather than publish the story.

In addition the film also focuses on what education really teaches us or otherwise known as political socialization. One of the moralistic teachings of Professor Mallays thought provoking political science class is that of engagement whether it is home or abroad. This is emphasized explicitly twice in the film. The first instance is the scene when Arian and Ernest are giving their class presentation. Their project is about that of engagement and how one should just not speak about actions but rather do them. To emphasize their point of active engagement and helping their country and fellow citizens, they both enlist in the army to the shock and dismay of Professor Mallay. Even when he invites them to dinner to have a discussion about them changing their mind about enlisting in the military, the two young men counter him by saying he taught them that real political action begins with engagement because of righteousness not whether ones personal opinions qualifies someone elses righteousness. In film, there is always some truth in the fiction of a story being told. In Lions for Lambs, this is the case as well. In the beginning sequence of the film, there is a newswoman giving statistics about how many U.S. soldiers had died in Iraq. She said 3,355 lives had been lost since the Iraq War started in 2003. Since the film was made in 2007, the number of deaths reported by the New York Times as of January 2007, was around 3,000 dead. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/us/01deaths.html?pagewanted=all Another example of a piece of accurate truth in the film was how many U.N. resolutions the Security Council. According to Tom Cruises character, Sen. Jasper Irving, there were 16 U.N. resolutions against Iraq. When researched, this proved to be true, prior to 2002, the Security Council had passed 16 resolutions on Iraq. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=125770&page=1#.T-q2zWN0gaM.The movies content did an amazing job of being objective, it never demonized anyone; even the people who attacked Arian and Ernest are shrouded behind darkness gun fire, and smoke. It also did a great job staying fairly neutral on topics such as the war. During the flashbacks between Malley and Hayes, Redfords character openly opposes joining the military. However, in the scene between Malley, Arian, and Ernest the two young students believe in volunteering for the army; keeping both sides of the issues of our troops well represented.

The person who wrote Lions for Lambs, Matthew Michael Carnahan, was channel surfing when he saw a cable news report about five U.S. soldiers drowning after the Humvee crashed into an Iraqi River. He felt guilty about not doing anything in regards to what was happening in the Iraq War. He decided to write a play which turned into the movie Lions for Lambs. Six years before that was apart of a group called the Advisory Board Co. He frequently spoke about nursing practices. Mr. Carnahan was also a political science student at USC. He also worked as an intern during the Clinton years to defend Hillary Clintons health care plan. He then decided to move into screenwriting, which led him to write multiple scripts. After making the feature film The Kingdom (2007), he wrote Lions for Lambs (2007). (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/nov/04/entertainment/ca-carnahan4) This film introduced two new pieces of evidence to me. One being that no matter how free the press is it can be bought. Not even by a corporation or the government, but by the people. The media will but positive spin on stories if the American people want it, it is about ratings. Another item I learn about from the film is that inside politics you can be a hero one minute and seen as a fear monger the next.

Opinion:The movie Lions for Lambs is self serving at best. If the intention was to revisit the Iraq War and the failed policies of the Bush Administration, it achieves that perfectly. It does not seem to inform on anything else and does little but serve a left leaning constituency. It tries to be too moralistic and offers platitudes. There are superior actors playing diminished roles due to the forced action and themes the movie tries to portray. The actors do try their hardest though under such trying circumstances. Overall, it is difficult to give this film a rating. For acting, this film gets 4 out of 5 stars. For content, this film gets 2 out of 5 stars. As for going to see this film, this film would get 1 star out of 5 stars. Overall, the film receives 2 stars.Miller 5