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| Written Saturday, July 12th, 2008 "Generation Kill," a seven-part miniseries from HBO Films, is the first-hand narrative account of the young Marines of the First Reconnaissance Battalion - the "tip of the spear" for the American military's march into Iraq. David Simon and Ed Burns, the team behind the acclaimed HBO series "The Wire," are executive producers of "Generation Kill," as well as co-writers with journalist Evan Wright. Simon and Burns recently talked about the miniseries in separate interviews. Today, we begin with David Simon's thoughts on "Generation Kill," and the Q&A with Ed Burns will run next weekend. Q: What was the overall strategy behind your storytelling on "Generation Kill?" David Simon: Ed and I and the other writers on "The Wire" looked for the drama in small moments. Visual hyperbole or grandisose drama might work in fantasy or some other genres, but we're more interested in capturing the real in any given universe. So if we're writing about longshoremen, for example, we want longshoremen to believe we really caught their world. If we don't shame ourselves in front of them, then chances are the average viewer will follow. That's the standard we applied to "Generation Kill." It needs to feel real--not just to Marines, but to the Marines who served with the First Recon during the invasion of Iraq. If it doesn't feel like we're doing our best to approximate their world, then we've failed. If we capture these characters as they are portrayed in Ernie's book, then we'll have achieved something. Q: How would you describe the book? David Simon: Evan Wright wrote what I believe at this point to be the best military journalism to come out of the Iraq war - certainly in terms of the day-to-day experience of the rank-and-file Marines and soldiers. coming out of narrative journalism, my first career, I really responded to what he had accomplished. Evan was embedded with the Bravo Platoon of the First Reconnaissance Battalion, the guys who were the point of the spear going into Baghdad. For five weeks they were in thin-skinned Humves, drawing enemy fire, tripping ambushes and generally creating a huge diversion for the American invsion. They were on their own, operating as a small, isolated unit for the most part. And Evan caught it all. He had the fortitude to go with this unit. They took away his satellite phone, because operating outside of friendly lines, it wasn't the kind of gig where you could report every day. This was different from the great mass of reporters who was embedded with larger, more secure units. As a result, the book is rare reportage, not only on the nature of modern warfare, and not only on what was does to a country that endures it, but on what war does to the warriors themselves. Some of them are quite changed by it; others, not at all. Ultimately, while as filmakers we were careful to leave our politics behind, I think the narrative account sounds as a dispassionate testament to what we unleashed when we went into Iraq, and how little thought was given to the implications of going into Iraq. Click Here For Part Two Of This Interview |
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