1 How does In the Valley of Elah depict American Soldiers and how does it differ from the way

The Hurt Locker and The Green Zone depict their American Soldiers? Throughout the course of Iraq war films each of them have their own unique depiction of American Soldiers, all which differ dramatically. Some examples of films that illustrate this difference in the portrayal of characters are In the Valley of Elah, The Hurt Locker, and The Green Zone. While similar in genre, the message that the films are trying to communicate about the way American Soldiers are viewed is not. In the film The Green Zone, the movie is written well, directed well and shot well. All the qualities of a blockbuster hit. This movie focused more on the conspiracy side versus what the soldiers felt and thought. The characters were easy to read and not very complex unlike a movie like The Hurt Locker and In the Valley of Elah, which both have somewhat complex characters. The Green Zone is good at what it was meant to be, a high packed action film that does not go deeper than a nice conspiracy theory. In the film, The Green Zone all of the American soldiers are portrayed as obedient and respectful soldiers with the exception of one character. The main character Sergeant Miller played by Matt Damon looks like a standard American soldier with the exception of the perfect uniform and good looks. He starts off like any other soldier, doing his normal duty of looking for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). When Matt Damons Character cannot seem to find them, he gets suspicious and starts to automatically suspect that they do not exist. He starts his own investigation, and he soon finds that his suspicions were correct. Matt Damons character finds out that Greg Kinnears character Clark Poundstone lied about what the source said and made up WMDs as an excuse to go to war. In every scene, he always looks his best and is looking out for the best interest for his team and Freddie. He has Americas best interest at heart;

2 he wants the American people to know the truth about the Iraq war. He is willing to sacrifice everything to reveal the truth. The Green Zones depiction of Matt Damons character is extremely heroic and selfless. Matt Damons character is rebellious and is only looking out for his own interest. Another depiction a person could argue is that his character is extremely rebellious and unrealistic. Since the movie was made to be a blockbuster hit the look and feel of the movie is unrealistic, which skews the depiction of the soldiers. Given that Matt Damons character is trying to do the ultimate good by telling the truth, there is a slight possibility that he is trying to get some kind of recognition or praise for going against the government. So then his depiction changes to a selfish person who is only looking out for his own good, while the rest of the soldiers are just doing their jobs. The soldiers that stand in Matt Damons characters way are depicted as terrible soldiers. In The Green Zone, one of the scenes has Matt Damons character questioning some Iraqis they captured and then all of a sudden a helicopter full of soldiers comes down. The soldiers proceed to take Matt Damons prisoners and when he questioned one of the soldiers the soldier started a fistfight with him. At first, a person could feel pity on Matt Damons character because a person ultimately feels he is doing some kind of good, but when a person looks back on it that soldier was just doing his job. Soldiers are told orders and generally they follow them. The Green Zone depicts other soldiers that are not in Matt Damons characters group as vicious and cruel human beings. The Hurt Locker is a film that is tremendously realistic, overall. The story, setting and situations are lifelike. Most movies shed soldiers in very halo like light and this film does not do that. The soldiers are in no way shape or form depicted bad, but they are depicted real. Each

3 soldier has a different story and has a different personality, which is why each character is depicted differently. In the film, The Hurt Locker each soldier that is introduced into the film is depicted in a different way. The main character Sergeant William James played by Jeremy Renner begins as a sort of fearless and heroic character. He disables bombs and seems to care less if they were to set off in his face. Yet when he returns home to his family he is a coward. A disturbing excerpt in the film is when he is talking to his son about things he loves and he basically tells his son that he loves war above all. This depiction is extremely accurate; most soldiers come back and do no know how to handle their life back home. Being a soldier is similar to leading two separate lives and unfortunately sometimes the soldier will rather war then home life. In the end, Jeremy Renners character turns out be addicted the wars lifestyle and when it comes to home life he is a coward and does not want to return home. In The Hurt Locker, Specialist Owen Eldridge played by Brian Geraghty, his character does not want to die and is extremely vocal about it. He has an extreme fear about dying almost the exact opposite of Jeremy Renners character. He sees a therapist about how scare he is of dying and throughout the movie has mini breakdowns about it. He then witnesses his therapist blow up, which does not help him get over his extreme fear of dying. Renner helps him get a little better by relaying on him to shoot an Iraqi. The question is what person is not scared of dying; most people have an irrational fear of their death. Throughout the movie his character proves to be another strange yet realistic depiction of an American soldier. During the film, The Hurt Locker, Sergeant JT Sanborn played by Anthony Mackie, his character bottles his emotions in until they storm out. Throughout the film he gets angry at Jeremy Renners character and that is how he channels his emotions through anger. At first he

4 fights with Renners character a lot and eventually he warms up to him. He warms up to him so much that he confesses that he does not want to die and hates Iraq. He cries to Renner saying that he wants a son and a family and that no one would care if he were to die. In this character we are seeing a whole different depiction. The whole movie shows different representations of each character, they all have different views on Iraq and life itself. In the Valley of Elah, there are two very different distinctions of the American soldier. They depict the American soldier of today and the American soldier of yesterday. A person would probably not think that there was much of a difference between the soldiers of today and yesterday, but this film show the American public that there is a huge difference between the combat of today and yesterday. The soldier of yesterday is Hank Deerfield played by Tommy Lee Jones. In the film, Hank is a retired military police officer, who goes looking for his son after the military reported him AWOL. In the film, the viewer sees that Hank is extremely old school, he believes in being neat, orderly, and honest all the things that a person would expect a soldier to be. Hank believes that there are certain rules to combat and that a person just cannot go around killing another person for no reason. He firms believes that a soldiers team will always have their back. Hank is truly the depiction of a perfect soldier. Hanks son Mike and Mikes team are todays soldiers. The depictions of these soldiers are a complete 180 from Hank. The military completely dehumanizes them, when they return from war they have no soul left. They do drugs, maybe to mask the pain they feel, but drugs nonetheless. They torture people, run over children and they kill each other. When Mikes fellow team member describes how he killed him, there was no emotion, no soul. These soldiers are definitely the opposite ends of the spectrum from Hank. The depictions of the soldiers are very

5 negative in this film, but not because they were negative to begin with, it was because war made them that way. In each film the soldiers depictions are different yet similar. They are all different because each character has a different personality and a different purpose. All of these soldiers were affect by the war in a negative way. None of these films depict soldiers in a bad light, but instead they focused the bad light on the war itself.