The following essay is part philosophical, part query into the role of art and artists in today’s social and political climate. It is disguised as a movie review of a popular film, Lions for Lambs, which spurred its writing.
I watched the film Lions for Lambs the other night. Some of you know this film already, starring Robert Redford, a very tired and grandmotherly looking Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise. I’m not really a fan per se, of any one of these actors — except for having a fantasy once, of replacing Tom Cruise as Joel in Risky Business — particularly the scene at home, frolicking on the stairs with Rebecca De Mornay in tow. I also enjoyed the goading and inspiration Joel gets from Miles, his best friend in the film, just before the soon-to-be-called escort girl De Mornay shows up. It just might be a metaphor for life as well.
“Joel, you wanna know something?” Miles says. “Every now and then say, 'What the fuck.' 'What the fuck' gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future. If you can’t say it, you can’t do it.”
Ah Miles, you are so right! But I digress — on to Lions for Lambs.
The film’s entire plot centers around two main groups, playing the role of former Lions to their ailing and misguided Lambs. In doing so, they give back, as educators and mentors, a sense of self-discovery and global awareness. They do not, however, command or take from (them) their lives by putting them in danger, figuratively or otherwise. A third group, Ernest and Arian from Special Forces on a covert mission in Afghanistan, are ordered to capture the mountainous “high ground,” hold it, defeat the enemy, and sow the seeds of Democracy. They are the reason and the source of debate, amongst the previous group’s individual, moral, and patriotic beliefs, exit strategies, and solutions for winning the war on terror, which are flayed out in front of the now passive Lions. Ernest and Arian are the thorn in their side, their conscious pricking the air out of the war’s reality and its inevitable outcome of winning, losing, and dying. They represent the immutable truth — stay or go home.
Like some varsity debate squad, the antagonists only have one hour to make their case; and while it is a luxury for them, one hour is crucial for the survival and future of Ernest and Arian. Time is not on their side. And as the government that put them there on that abandoned hilltop is unable to prevent either the outcome or their fate, university professor Dr. Stephen Malley (Robert Redford), journalist Janine Roth (Meryl Streep), and Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) try to put the pieces of a mismanaged war back on the rails to a victory or some acceptable conclusion, or at the very least, they try to convince one another to do something they no longer can — make a difference.
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