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An erudite friend, who was a committed socialist, once commented that most American films (especially, nearly all the classics) had a scene involving a gun (or rifle/machine gun). Somehow he related this to America's insidious gun culture, and how this permeated, even, in the artistic and creative circles of the nation. He highlighted this point, especially with respect to what a minimal role (or no role) guns and other similar projectiles play in our ordinary lives.

I thought about his comments, and yes Scarlett whips a pistol in GWTW, The Godfather is full of gunfights, Scarface (32) is the prototype gun movie and even Network ends in a bloody assasination. There are guns in Casablanca, and what would Double Indemnity be without it's phallic gun, however, to the best of my recollection, in CITIZEN KANE there are no guns!

He highlighted this point, especially with respect to what a minimal role (or no role) guns and other similar projectiles play in our ordinary lives.

Who exactly is the us in this statement? And considering your examples of classics involving guns are mostly gangster movies or war/war-related movies, how exactly would the presence of guns and "other similar projectiles" be incongruous in any comparison with "life?"

alandau wrote:He highlighted this point, especially with respect to what a minimal role (or no role) guns and other similar projectiles play in our ordinary lives.

40% of US households have guns, and it was even higher when the movies you mention came out, so I think it's a stretch to say they play a minimal role in ordinary lives.

I wonder how many Japanese households have swords?

George Bernard Shaw said it best when he said that "conflict is the essence of drama", and violence being such an obvious conflict, it makes sense that guns would be as prevalent as they are in cinema. And anyway, context is incredibly important. I personally feel a lot different about guns after watching something like Dirty Harry then I do after watching something like McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

GringoTex wrote:I wonder how many Japanese households have swords?

A good point. The majority of Japanese films that have received wide distribution in the Western world are just as violent as (perhaps even more violent than) contemporaneous Hollywood genre films. And just as with Hollywood Westerns and Gangster movies, Samurai and Yakuza films are not always a fair representation of present-day life.

Besides, the claim that "nearly all the classic" American films had a scene involving a gun is simply absurd. How many Lubitsch comedies involve gunplay, for example? Are there any guns in An American in Paris? Or The Heiress? The list could go on.

In my opinion, European intellectuals obsess over U.S. "gun culture" to an almost fetishistic degree. I own a .22 rifle. It's wrapped in a blanket in my closet, and I probably haven't fired it in eight years or more. I suspect a sizeable chunk of that 40% of American households have a similar relationship with their guns. I don't even own any ammunition for it.

This is why I never understood Antoine Doinel's remark about Tarantino sounding like a teenager for having said violence is his greatest tool... My mom was watching a PBS documentary on botany, the study of plants, and they introduced one man as having nearly lost his life in the pursuit of an extremely rare flower. They used this traumatic event as a hook, starting back to how he was as a child, before finally getting to the moment of life or death.

I don't see how violence is really not a part of most stories, whether it's physical or verbal. A film like A Woman Under the Influence pains me to watch, bringing back some terrible things I've seen in my life... Anyway, I hope I'm not derailing the thread.

Gun violence in the USA is a major, major social and cultural disease and problem.
Virgina Tech was a terrible, terrible tragedy and so is every other shooting incident.
Every day of my life i am sickened and deeply saddened by the way it is so embedded into American popular Culture and media of all types.

godardslave wrote:Gun violence in the USA is a major, major social and cultural disease and problem.
Virgina Tech was a terrible, terrible tragedy and so is every other shooting incident.
Every day of my life i am sickened and deeply saddened by the way it is so embedded into American popular Culture and media of all types.

After the Virginia Tech massacre, people in Australia were condemning America's gun culture and blamed everything on the country. I reminded these same people that a worse massacre occurred here in Australia in Port Arthur in 1996 where 35 people were gunned down and we only have under 10% of the US population. I think with a population of 300 million and the high rate of gun ownership, it is amazing it doesn't happen more often.

Even American musicals are not immune from this gun mania.
In TOP HAT, a graceful Fred Astaire, elegantly and sauvely transforms an innocuous cane into a menacing machine gun, mowing down a camp troupe in no time.

It was back in 1968 that movie critic Pauline Kael published her book on film criticism and titled it "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", which pretty much sums up the prevailing theme of all too many movies. One of the first feature films from the early 1900's was "The Great Train Robbery" in which a cowboy points a gun directly at the camera and starts shooting. Guns have always been part of our culture and it's just that damn simple. I am afraid of guns and would never consider owning one, but I am enough of a hypocrite to admit that I expect certain types of movies to provide a certain amount of action. The Second Amendment says we have a right to keep and bear arms because we need a Militia - since the Militia is now called The National Guard, let's give them the "bang bang" part and the rest of us can stick to "kiss kiss".

IN all honesty American gun culture is as inexplicable to me as dumnbing down subs on French movies. What is this ludicrous hangover from a Frontier aesthetic doing in the middle of urban life?

In the rural areas and especially out West, guns are an integral part of life, used for both hunting and protection. It's also become a rite of passage for boys into adulthood and responsibility, something akin to driving a car, though occurring at a younger age.

But I grew up in New Jersey, in the hardcore NYC suburbs, and there were a good amount of blue-collar folks there who would go deer hunting in Pennsylvania, where you can find places named Bucks County. For some it's just sport, for others it's food, and out West many get by on the extra cash from selling deer meat.

As for the urban population, some have guns in response to the high crime rates, others to be cool, and the guns-drugs-crime nexus is ever-thriving. America also has a pretty durable and prolonged military tradition, and in these days of quasi-empire and continuous wars, alot of the poorer classes wind up with firearms training. Also, the US has a whole infrastructure of guns dealers and gun clubs, NRA membership, gun magazines, etc. which foster and perpetuate the gun culture.

In American history, there's not only the frontier mentality of the Wild West you cite, but also Prohibition in the '20's which helped spawn urban gangsters and gangland shootings, and more recently Drug Prohibition for the past 30-odd years which has similarly resulted in an urban gun culture and rampant criminality.

exte wrote:This is why I never understood Antoine Doinel's remark about Tarantino sounding like a teenager for having said violence is his greatest tool...

The remark I made about Tarantino was more to the fact that in his films violence is never used a tool as a greater crux in his storytelling. Instead, Samuel L. Jackson says some cool shit and then blows someone away. How insightful. The way Tarantino described it, I gleaned that he got more satisfaction out of the acts of violence rather than what they actually did to propel or enhance his story. This part is probably best moved to the Tarantino thread.

I think we have to be careful here to separate gun violence and gun culture. I don't necessarily think the two are linked all the time. To take the Virginia Tech episode -- the individual was mentally unstable and he probably would've done something violent whether it was with guns or not. It isn't necessarily a reflection on gun "culture" (which really needs to be defined here), but more on the ridiculously bad gun laws which allowed this kid to posess a weapon in the first place and the teachers and mental health professionals who unfortunately couldn't reach him.

Also, I don't agree that since guns are in a scene in every "classic" film it represents insidious nature of gun culture. All of the movies cited have people wearing hats so does mean hat culture is creeping into the collective consciousness as well? I agree with exte in that violence permeates all stories - the Bible, Grimm's fairy tales etc. - but as film became popular so did mechanized warfare and the ability to reproduce firearms cheaply and efficiently. Film merely reflects those developments, rather than promotes them.

I've never been a particular fan of the cause and effect argument about the depiction of gun violence in cinema (or any other artistic medium) leading in any way directly to real gun violence.

The fault for the grotesque prevalence of guns, especially handguns, which are functionally usueless for much of anything but killing other human beings, belongs with the far too powerful whackjobs who run the National Rifle Association and their hired stooges in both parties. They long ago flooded the market far past any real demand and made it a fait accompli that handguns could never be seriously curtailed, just because of their sheer volume.

Not that it's all that important, but I live within about a 10 minute drive of the Tech campus. I've seen plenty of films there and in other theatres in the town, especially The Lyric, over the years. I was never a student there, but the place is still an important part of my life. I'm sorry it will likely long be known for this horrible, easily preventable incident.

Antoine Doinel wrote:I think we have to be careful here to separate gun violence and gun culture. I don't necessarily think the two are linked all the time. To take the Virginia Tech episode -- the individual was mentally unstable and he probably would've done something violent whether it was with guns or not. It isn't necessarily a reflection on gun "culture" (which really needs to be defined here), but more on the ridiculously bad gun laws which allowed this kid to posess a weapon in the first place and the teachers and mental health professionals who unfortunately couldn't reach him.

Exactly! I think I agree with most of what Polybius and Lemmy were saying as well, but A.D. really hits the nail on the head. I agree that gun violence is a serious problem in certain places -- and at certain times in less typical places, like Virginia Tech -- in America. But I disagree with people who use "gun culture" as some sort of catch-all phrase that can magically explain every instantiation of gun violence in America. In fact, with the notable exceptions that grab media attention, like Virginia Tech, Columbine, etc., regions of the country with high levels of legal gun ownership (like Iowa) see less gun violence than areas with tough gun laws (like New York City). So there are obviously other issues at play, like poverty, drugs, gangs, etc. To reduce everything down to the mythos of the Frontier and the Wild West is unrealistic.

At the same time, I would welcome stricter gun-control laws at the state-legislature level. That a young man with a documented history of mental illness could purchase handguns so easily is simply unacceptable. (I don't want anyone here to think I'm a gun-nut. Like David's father, my rifle dates back to my high school days of hunting squirrels and rabbits in the Ohio Valley.)

What was it Godard said? "All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun," right? I'm not sure guns in cinema are necessarily a uniquely American phenomenon when countries with strict gun laws like Japan and France, for example, regularly make movies with guns or gun violence. It seems more like a human characteristic, we love the spectacle of violence and are going to get it with whatever means possible whether it's a knife, gun, or machete.

Just to add my own little history related to guns, I grew up in a middle class suburb off Chicago where guns were relatively uncommon. Most of the people who had guns there were rifles or shotguns for hunting, which as a child I would occasionally accompany my father on pheasant hunts. But that was only for a short period of time and we always ate what he shot.

My Dad had two guns in the house, one was an early twentieth century revolver my grandfather gave him with no ammo, and the other is a shotgun with birdshot ammo (the kind of ammo Dick Cheney shot that guy in the face with). But my father really never liked guns after spending 13 months in combat during the Vietnam War, so when there was a city collection of handguns he gave them my grandfather's old handgun to get it out of the house. Soon afterwards he stopped hunting entirely, he had only hunted for two seasons and only then because his friends persuaded him to give it a go and buy a shotgun. After he stopped hunting he threw out all the ammo and hid the gun where my my brother and sisters couldn't find it. I'm not really sure why exactly he did this, but I've always suspected it had something to do with the war and his fears of his children getting severely injured or worse from it.


I've always been in favor of strict gun control laws in the US and I personally don't own a gun nor do I have any intention of ever buying one. This gun culture of America's that I keep hearing about I don't think is as widespread as many outside the US believe; I've lived in Illinois, Maryland, Indiana, New Jersey, and northern Virginia and virtually everyone I knew not only didn't have a gun, but they had zero interest in getting one. Two friends of mine own(ed) guns, one was a South Korean foreign exchange student (oddly coincidenctal considering what happened in Virginia) girl who bought a 9mm pistol because she was scared of the black people around her. No joke. I tried to reassure her that they wouldn't bite her head off or even bother her, but she was terrified ever since a drunken black student had banged on her first floor window one night. I think someone put a bunch of racist nonsense in her head when she was born and raised in Seoul. She's back home now. The other friend of mine that owns a gun bought one after college when he moved to (surprise!) Texas.

Antoine Doinel wrote:The remark I made about Tarantino was more to the fact that in his films violence is never used a tool as a greater crux in his storytelling. Instead, Samuel L. Jackson says some cool shit and then blows someone away. How insightful.

So, when Jules at the end of Pulp Fiction has his epiphany and goes out of his way to prevent death and violence from occurring, that's just an unrelated matter? The real point is that we get right back to taking gleeful pleasure in watching him kill?

I don't know, I never found the opening hit by Jules and Vincent to be pleasurable. The raw power was impressive, sure, but the terror was palpable and the sentiment unpleasant. Which is to say, I find the violence in Pulp Fiction more complex than you apparently do.

I started a thread a while back about midpoints in movies (the point of no return), and I was wondering how much different The Godfather could be if it didn't have its midpoint: When Michael Corleone has to kill the Turk and the police chief at the restaurant. Some questions came to mind: How else could Michael rightfully take his place as the next Godfather without finally shedding blood himself? What if it was off screen? It wouldn't be as strong cinematically, and as an audience we would've missed out on the suspense of that scene.

What if he had just shot the Turk, and not the police chief? Or, what if the studio wanted to avoid the suggestion or promotion of such violence against the police (which was a national debate in the early 90s with a particular rap song, "Cop Killer")? Then Michael would not have had a good enough reason to flee to Sicily.

I guess I'm beating to death the obvious: it's all about how it's done, not what is done, like Roger Ebert said. I'm sure many agree that although a police chief is publicly murdered, it was done artfully and backed up well within the plot.

Getting back to the original post in this thread, you'd have to define 'ordinary lives'. Even though the great bulk of us don't have guns passed around in our living rooms and kitchens, they still permeate the news on the television and in the newspapers. It's what they thrive on: gun shots, stabbings, fire, suicide, and car accidents, even though none of those incidents may occur for us in 'real life' on a day to day basis.

Also, I don't think I'm familiar enough with the 'gun culture' to think of it as insidious. If you ask me, it's just too broad a term. It's like claiming the internet is dangerous. Well, there's too much going on with the internet for such a blanket statement. Are we talking about gagsta rap videos with guns being shown or rapped about left and right? Or permits in Florida that grant people the right to carry one on them? Or just Columbine and the VT massacre? Maybe if we could narrow this down a bit...

My personal definition of "gun culture" is where mass of people believe possessing gun is essential freedom. This definition fits America. It may also fit other nations, but I do not know enough to comment on that.

Guns have the following possible purposes:
1. They kill people (offensively or defensively). Every spiritual tradition in the world would condemn this.
2. They kill animals and birds (for those who enjoy hunting). Every spiritual tradition in the world would condemn this also, when done as a sport.
3. They are a sport (e.g. target-shooting). I can think of other ways to entertain myself, since once it is there, gun can be used to kill people.

I am an American, and am proud of being an American. But I am proud of America despite its obsession with guns rather than because of it. For a culture to have the belief that guns are an essential freedom, it has to have a propensity for violence. Americans do. And our arts reflect that. This does not mean that all American works of art depict violence, but a significant proportion does. The most disturbing aspect of this is that we have lost our sensitivity to life, and believe that many problems can only be solved through violence.

This subject transcends the scope of this forum. However, given that it has been raised, and I am passionate about the subject (as many others are for the opposite point of view), I have found it necessary to express myself.

Guns have the following possible purposes:
1. They kill people (offensively or defensively). Every spiritual tradition in the world would condemn this.
2. They kill animals and birds (for those who enjoy hunting). Every spiritual tradition in the world would condemn this also, when done as a sport.
3. They are a sport (e.g. target-shooting). I can think of other ways to entertain myself, since once it is there, gun can be used to kill people.

Unless you are familiar with every spiritual tradition in the world, you should not be making these claims so nonchalantly. If, for example, you were to read your Old Testament you would see many examples, very many, of God requiring blood to be shed, be it offensively or what have you. Now whether that blood is shed by sword, or stone, or gun, it makes no difference.

Furthermore, you should also know that throughout history there have been many examples of religions that require blood sacrifice from a human. They probably don't use guns, but that does not matter since you are arguing the basic principle of taking a life and whether or not it is condemnable by the entire religious output of the world.

You would also be hard pressed to find most religions condemning sport hunting. Given that religions are primarily human-centric, and tend to isolate humans from the world of beasts as being particularly favoured by the divine (let's not forget that Adam was given by the Christian God dominion over the world), somehow it's doubtful every single one of them would make the same fine distinction between killing for the pleasure of eating and killing for the pleasure of sport, especially given the general placement of animals in the chain of being.

Lastly, you're entering a very strange area because, A. it's irrelevant whether or not you can find "other ways to entertain [your]self," and B., you cannot stop there, but now must also condemn knife throwing, axe throwing, then sling shots, then B.B. Guns, and then knives or axes in general. Soon all objects that can cause death must come under your definitions because excluding them is wholly arbitrary. Make no mistake, your specifics are about guns, but your topic is really death in general.

My, we're going in strange directions aren't we?

One thing always perplexes me: why do so many people find guns owned by citizens abhorrent, but find guns owned by governments and the military perfectly acceptable? I'm no expert on statistics, but I'm more than sure that the violent actions of wayward countries have killed far more than the violent actions of wayward individuals.

Mr_sausage wrote:

Antoine Doinel wrote:The remark I made about Tarantino was more to the fact that in his films violence is never used a tool as a greater crux in his storytelling. Instead, Samuel L. Jackson says some cool shit and then blows someone away. How insightful.

So, when Jules at the end of Pulp Fiction has his epiphany and goes out of his way to prevent death and violence from occurring, that's just an unrelated matter? The real point is that we get right back to taking gleeful pleasure in watching him kill?

I don't know, I never found the opening hit by Jules and Vincent to be pleasurable. The raw power was impressive, sure, but the terror was palpable and the sentiment unpleasant. Which is to say, I find the violence in Pulp Fiction more complex than you apparently do.

You might have not found it pleasurable but there is a reason that the soundtrack CD has one track devoted to Jules' bible quotation.

I would take Tarantino and his (supposed) use of violence as a tool of storytelling more seriously if he didn't fetishize the violence in his films to a ridiculous degree. It's somewhat telling that the film many consider his finest (Jackie Brown) is also the one the most measured in its use of violence.

Antoine Doinel wrote:You might have not found it pleasurable but there is a reason that the soundtrack CD has one track devoted to Jules' bible quotation.

I would take Tarantino and his (supposed) use of violence as a tool of storytelling more seriously if he didn't fetishize the violence in his films to a ridiculous degree. It's somewhat telling that the film many consider his finest (Jackie Brown) is also the one the most measured in its use of violence.

That is a problem that I think could be reasonably argued extends far beyond Tarantino. Aestheticized and anarchic violence is what gives many well respected films their power, even though said films are generally condemning said violence; Pulp Fiction just goes about it far too overtly for the tastes of most here. What about Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, or Videodrome? All of the aforementioned strongly fetishize exactly what they claim to oppose, violence in most cases, and this well crafted and unique fetishization is why I'm drawn to them, certainly, even if no one else here is for that reason.

It might be obvious to say this, but I'm not really a fan of guns because they make it much easier to kill rather than just injure. Just pull the trigger whereas with knives etc it is much more up close and personal. Not to say that people wouldn't go around committing similar acts, but it would take a heck of a lot more thought and commitment, and most importantly time - time that could be used to stop the attacker.

Also panic is a big factor, it would be very easy for the girl Roger_Thornhill talks about to have accidentally shot someone if she felt threatened. Here in Britain now that we have armed police we have a string of incidents involving people accidentally being shot - from the major of Jean Charles De Menezes to various crazies waving replica swords. So even when they are in 'responsible hands' there is always a danger of error and much higher chance of killing rather than disarming a suspect (which might be part of Robotron's concern over armed military and government groups - the other thing Robotron is probably thinking of is the worrying trend of governments having armed militias in their employ to guard against their own populations)

I suppose it was inevitable that the police officers involved in the Jean Charles shooting didn't get disciplined, but did have a talking to about breaking health and safety rules - come on, this is a such a big issue it doesn't deserve to be insulted by being compared to someone not bothering to wash their hands after using the toilet!

In terms of films I think there is a fascination with guns, but that is in a context of a fascination with people and events outside the norm of our usual lives - gangsters, murderers, robbers, policemen, cowboys etc. We could suggest guns are particularly American because it was a country where the gun was important in taming the land and there is a fascination with the roots of the country, but there is a fascination outside as well. Whether it could be put down purely to American influence is debateable. Godard could be said to be influenced by American films in his "guy, girl and gun" quote, but it also hits on how it is an important tool to create drama in film (and perhaps is too easy of a dramatic crutch to fall back on?). Death and the threat of death features in almost all films, probably because we are fascinated by the unknown.

I like exte's point about Michael Corleone's use of the gun in The Godfather as the turning point of the film where he sells his soul and murders to fulfil his need for vengeance. I agree that the use of guns depends both on context (the need to represent the reality of a situation) but also on how they are used - casually or with a nod to the consequences of their use. The Godfather example is quite good as that even goes beyond the physical consequences to the moral cost of killing (and the way Michael drops the gun as he leaves is as if he has something nasty sticking to his hands, but similar to Lady Macbeth he can't wash the blood off his hands so easily)

Was this thread set up in response to the Virginia shootings? I think it might be interesting to debate this supposed link to Oldboy that the media is suggesting. Is there something to South Korea's influence by American culture that is then filtered through the media and then strangely affects American culture through an event such as the one in Virginia? I haven't seen Oldboy yet, but the Korean films I have seen seem to have a similar conservatism to Hollywood action films - the black and white approach to events that completely alienated me from horror films such as The Eye, but which I felt benefited cop dramas or thrillers such as One Take Only and Bangkok Dangerous as the 'rushing towards the inevitable' and bleak conclusions of those films seemed to work within the conservative style of that particular genre.

Not that the above should be seen as my endorsement of parallels between filmic violence and real life. I think things are much more complex than that, and there will always be desperate and unhappy people who'll do terrible things for many sorts of reasons.

Antoine Doinel wrote:

Mr_sausage wrote:

Antoine Doinel wrote:The remark I made about Tarantino was more to the fact that in his films violence is never used a tool as a greater crux in his storytelling. Instead, Samuel L. Jackson says some cool shit and then blows someone away. How insightful.

So, when Jules at the end of Pulp Fiction has his epiphany and goes out of his way to prevent death and violence from occurring, that's just an unrelated matter? The real point is that we get right back to taking gleeful pleasure in watching him kill?

I don't know, I never found the opening hit by Jules and Vincent to be pleasurable. The raw power was impressive, sure, but the terror was palpable and the sentiment unpleasant. Which is to say, I find the violence in Pulp Fiction more complex than you apparently do.

You might have not found it pleasurable but there is a reason that the soundtrack CD has one track devoted to Jules' bible quotation.

Pretty evasive of you to not mention that reason. I would think because it's a powerful speech and a highly memorable performance. I would not necessarily think it is there because the scene as a whole is meant to be completely pleasureable.

Antoine Doinel wrote:I would take Tarantino and his (supposed) use of violence as a tool of storytelling more seriously if he didn't fetishize the violence in his films to a ridiculous degree. It's somewhat telling that the film many consider his finest (Jackie Brown) is also the one the most measured in its use of violence.

There is nothing ridiculous nor particularly fetishized about his violence. It is the same kind of violence that you will find in countless martial arts films, or samurai films, or Italian westerns, ect. His violence (I'm thinking mostly of Kill Bill here, but the others to a lesser extent) is completely in keeping with the cinematic tradition that has found him; to complain about Tarantino is to complain about the tradition also. Kill Bill is, yes, juvenile, but not for its violence, which is the violence of a cartoon, being done to characters who are types more than people.

Mr_sausage wrote:

Antoine Doinel wrote:You might have not found it pleasurable but there is a reason that the soundtrack CD has one track devoted to Jules' bible quotation.

Pretty evasive of you to not mention that reason. I would think because it's a powerful speech and a highly memorable performance. I would not necessarily think it is there because the scene as a whole is meant to be completely pleasureable.

Really? That is not what people in this thread have said previously, citing the scene and performance as being "terrifying". And on said soundtrack CD, I seem to recall they kept the sound of gunshots firing in.

Antoine Doinel wrote:I would take Tarantino and his (supposed) use of violence as a tool of storytelling more seriously if he didn't fetishize the violence in his films to a ridiculous degree. It's somewhat telling that the film many consider his finest (Jackie Brown) is also the one the most measured in its use of violence.

Mr_sausage wrote:There is nothing ridiculous nor particularly fetishized about his violence. It is the same kind of violence that you will find in countless martial arts films, or samurai films, or Italian westerns, ect. His violence (I'm thinking mostly of Kill Bill here, but the others to a lesser extent) is completely in keeping with the cinematic tradition that has found him; to complain about Tarantino is to complain about the tradition also. Kill Bill is, yes, juvenile, but not for its violence, which is the violence of a cartoon, being done to characters who are types more than people.

There is a difference between Tarantino's homage to martial/samurai films when he decides to turn them into slo-mo ballets (I'm referring to Kill Bill). As I recall chop-socky flicks were made on the cheap with fairly poor editing at best.

Despite my arguments, I like many of the films with "excessive" violence and whatnot. I guess we got this point largely because I don't believe Tarantino really knows what he's talking about when it comes to uses of violence in films (despite his track record). I think enjoys how it looks, rather than what it means. It will make his WWII picture (if and when it gets made) at least interesting.