The writer and director opens up about the film’s political aspects, or lack thereof. <\/p>
All-out war is tearing through the US in director and writer Alex Garland\u2019s upcoming Civil War, which stars Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog) and Wagner Moura (Narcos) as journalists trying to capture its horrors.<\/p>\n
Trailers for the dystopian film have set the scene for an explosive watch, both literally and metaphorically. Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com<\/a>, Garland himself called the film \u201cdifficult\u201d and went into its political aspects, or lack thereof.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a difficult film. And it\u2019s hard to know what to say,\u201d he told us. \u201cI just felt the less I say, the better. And the more the film says, the better. The further I am away from it seems like it makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite not wanting to say too much, Garland did agree that the film was \u2018political\u2019, but that what each viewer considers political may differ.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s many sorts of different things. But it is partially a political film. Absolutely. It is,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, how could it not be? But also, politics is such a broad term, that in some respects, you\u2019d have to define what you mean by that. And there is not\u2026 there isn\u2019t a consensus about what that means.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I could say yes, but that could be misleading. It depends what you meant and it could also depend on what a reader meant if they saw that word.\u201d<\/p>\n One thing he is adamant about, however, is the importance of journalism and journalists, and how that drove his focus in the film.<\/p>\n He explained: \u201cI wanted to tell the story about journalists. I grew up around them. My dad was a cartoonist on a paper and all of his closest friends were journalists. And so they were just around the whole time. And I liked some of them very much. And they were big figures in my life. And I hugely admired them and respected them.<\/p>\n \u201cI slightly felt journalists have come under an increasing amount of attack. It\u2019s been growing for a long time, but it reached a kind of frenzy. And I just objected to it. I objected to it. Maybe because of my childhood, that could be the reason.<\/p>\n \u201cBut mainly I objected to it, because we need journalists, they\u2019re not a luxury, they\u2019re a necessity. If you have any state that does not have a free press, you\u2019ve got a major problem. So the idea of journalism being eroded as a necessary force for good overall, I just didn\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p> Civil War lands in cinemas on Friday 12th April. Check out more of our Film<\/a>\u00a0coverage or visit our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>\u00a0to find out what\u2019s on.<\/strong><\/p>\n Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only \u00a310 \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to\u00a0The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n The writer and director opens up about the film’s political aspects, or lack thereof. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":49419,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/alex-garland-discusses-why-civil-war-is-a-difficult-film-to-talk-about.jpg",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/alex-garland-discusses-why-civil-war-is-a-difficult-film-to-talk-about-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/alex-garland-discusses-why-civil-war-is-a-difficult-film-to-talk-about-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/alex-garland-discusses-why-civil-war-is-a-difficult-film-to-talk-about.jpg",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/alex-garland-discusses-why-civil-war-is-a-difficult-film-to-talk-about.jpg",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/alex-garland-discusses-why-civil-war-is-a-difficult-film-to-talk-about.jpg",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/04\/alex-garland-discusses-why-civil-war-is-a-difficult-film-to-talk-about.jpg",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The writer and director opens up about the film's political aspects, or lack thereof.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/49418"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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