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Written by Brian Helgeland and filming right now. CBS News has footage from the set.

I saw this mentioned as Amy Ryan's next project around Oscar time and was immediately interested. I wonder when or if Helgeland will be given the reins to direct another film.

Wow, there's nothing I'd like to see less than Paul Greengrass making a film about Iraq.

So don't see it.

I feel obligated to, if only because I need to be able to talk about it with people.

But seriously, do we really need more melodramatic faux-verite run-and-gun bullshit about modern warfare? I can only imagine this soon-to-be-hailed masterwork will offer the same insight and awareness of formal/generic tropes as United 93.

Not surprisingly, the US Army is not assisting in the making of the film.

Jason Isaacs talks briefly about Greengrass' working methods.

I am teaching a 200 level college course on the invasion and occupation of Iraq and just this afternoon was approached by a veteran from the Army. I am using _Imperial Life in the Emerald City_ as the primary text for my course and he informed that he was one of the nonprofessional actors in Greengrass' film.

I was not aware of the production of _Green Zone_ and he was kind enough to his time so we could meet and talk about his experience in Iraq as well as on the film set.

I have included my syllabus if you are interested in making any observations and/or suggestions. If you want, I can also write again once I have spoken with this young soldier: perhaps if you have any questions you would like me to ask I would be more than happy to pass them along.

Return from Exile: Responding to the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq

The problems that have faced the U.S. Military and government agency planning and stabilization of Iraq, the postwar stage that is referred to as Phase IV, is a narrative of the military means employed as sufficient to destroy the regime of Saddam Hussein yet not sufficient to replace it with the nation-state America wished to see in its place. The specificity of the Anglo-American invasion and occupation of Iraq, then, allows us to question the Global North’s failure to respond to and rally against the political and diplomatic betrayals of fundamental political rights that it has wrought, including the Patriot Act and the failure to comply with the Geneva Conventions.

From President Bush's May 2003 announcement of the end of major combat operations in Iraq through the pre- and post-surge detention and trials in Guantánamo Bay, we will discuss a selection of archival coverage and cinema that looks to the period when the Allied Forces, led by the United States, took on unanticipated occupation duties, were forced to develop new intelligence-gathering techniques, armor its Humvees, revise its tactics and, after the prison scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay uncovered the widespread use of torture as a central tool in the battle against terrorism, review its detention practices.

* Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone
* Bush’s War, Michael Kirk, 2008
* Evan Wright, “The Killer Elite,” Pts. 1-3
* Generation Kill, David Simon, HBO, 2008
* Sigmund Freud, “Thoughts for the Times on War and Death”
* Samuel Weber, “Wartime”
* Stop-Loss, Kimberly Peirce, 2008
* In the Valley of Elah, Paul Haggis, 2007
* The Road to Guantánamo, Michael Winterbottom, 2006
* October Questionnaire: Responding to the U.S.-led Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, Area Studies and American Diplomacy
* My Country, My Country, Laura Poitras, 2006

Can't see much to gleaned from the Haggis/Pierce films.

Pilger: The War On Democracy / Documentaries That Changed The World

Broomfield: Battle For Haditha

Jehane Noujaim's Control Room is certainly worth attention.

I think you should include "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience." It was an Oscar nominee this year - check out the feature version, not the PBS version (which just won 2 Emmys) when you rent it. There's some good insight there into how soldiers actually behave and respond while in the field, and interact with Iraqis.

Not so useful for you in terms of overall strategy decisions.

"Imperial Life in the Emerald City" is a terrific book, but it doesn't have a conventional, movie-friendly narrative. Helgeland and Greengrass imposing one on it gives me The Fear.

I've used the book with my students as well -- for a screenwriting class, actually -- with great success, but the wholesale reinvention necessary to make it into a feature makes me suspicious about this one.

I also thought that United 93 was a vulgar bit of emotional pornography, so I'm predisposed against all things Greengrass.

Greengrass is giving a talk at the university I work at (Goldsmiths, University of London) tomorrow. I'm going along, so hopefully he'll provide some enlightening details about this film, as well as his previous films. Not that I've ever seen any of his films.

If you can handle the AICN-speak, some guy other there caught a test screening and early word is positive.

According to this, the film has been pushed to 2010. I guess with the Oscar field now opened up to ten films, they don't want to compete with The Hurt Locker which is now being favored as a shoo-in nominee.

Isn't this movie in danger of becoming irrelevant, fast?

Antoine Doinel wrote:According to this, the film has been pushed to 2010. I guess with the Oscar field now opened up to ten films, they don't want to compete with The Hurt Locker which is now being favored as a shoo-in nominee.

Strange. People had been predicting this as a probable Director and Picture nomination for months, and a lot longer than anyone had been watching The Hurt Locker (which I always assumed appealed to film fans but wouldn't to the Academy). I would have thought this film scoring nominations would be far more likely to take the nominations.

The film has officially been given a March 12, 2010 release date.

The Bourne Locker of Lies?

So, it's basically the 4th Bourne movie, at least according to Universal.

EDIT: Aw, pipped at the post.

I'm expecting a generic 'Middle-Eastern' remix of that Moby song for the end credits.