Carnegie at the Movies (Part 1)

Argo, directed by Ben Affleck (2012).

This historical drama is adapted from Antonio Mendez’s book The Master of Disguise and Joshuah Bearman’s 2007 Wired article The Great Escape. Iranians storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, in retaliation for President Jimmy Carter giving Iran’s Mohammad Reza Shah asylum in the United States during the Iranian Revolution. More than 50 of the embassy staff are taken hostage, but six escape and hide in the home of the Canadian ambassador. For me, Argo is one of the best American films for many years. It’s a movie that can appeal to audiences of all ages and genders. Despite knowing how the story ends, I was on the edge of my seat as I watched it. Affleck handles the material splendidly, and nothing in the movie felt tacked on. It is a perfect combination of historical education and entertainment.

Thirteen Days, directed by Roger Donaldson (2000).

This movie on the Cuban missile crisis is of special importance now when many in the West and the majority in Russia praise nuclear deterrence and deny the importance of nuclear disarmament. The movie demonstrates how precarious deterrence is, how hard it is to control escalation, and how treacherous nuclear weapons are as a foundation of security.

The Last Emperor, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci (1987).

This movie offers a glimpse into the complicated and contradictory life of China’s last emperor, Puyi, during his reign in the late twentieth century. As Puyi oscillates between being a Son of Heaven, a political exile, a puppet ruler, and a rehabilitated Communist, China and its people grapple with a changing political identity as uncertainty looms. Puyi, who displays poise in the face of upheaval, sets the stage for a pendulum-like narrative that pulls Chinese society along with it. Indeed, as the film draws to a poignant close, the viewer wonders in what direction these ideological swings will take the Chinese people during the twenty-first century.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, directed by Stanley Kubrick (1964).

On the face of it, the story of a psychopathic U.S. general launching World War III appears utterly bizarre. But on reflection, the craziest thing about this film is mutual assured destruction (MAD), the nuclear doctrine on which international security rested for decades. The threat of nuclear war that had overshadowed the lives of our parents has drifted into the background with the end of the Cold War. However, as the underlying problem has not been resolved, it is useful to watch this movie from time to time.

Lawrence of Arabia, directed by David Lean (1962).

If you want to understand Syria today, watch the meeting scenes set in Damascus in this movie. They will show you the relevance of tribes, honor, and disrespect—all valuable insights.

The Attack, directed by Ziad Doueiri (2012), based on the novel L’attentat by Yasmina Khadra.

The novel fascinated me, and the film did too. The story is about a famous and respected Arab-Israeli surgeon, Dr. Amine, who works in a major hospital in Tel Aviv. He is used to emergencies resulting from terrorist attacks. One day, he is kept busy treating the many victims of a bombing. Later that night, he is told that his wife was the suicide bomber. He then starts a long quest in Palestine to understand why and how she perpetrated such an unexpected and violent act. This film perfectly illustrates the many facets of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Battle of Algiers, directed by Gillo Pontecorvo (1966).

This movie depicts the French struggle to root out and destroy the underground network of the Algerian National Liberation Front, which was fighting for independence from one hundred thirty years of French colonial rule. The French won the battle for the capital, Algiers, in part through the systematic use of torture to extract information from Algerian militants, but ultimately lost the war and departed in 1962. That paradoxical contrast is the real message of the film. Its themes of armed resistance, urban terrorism, and the abandonment of ethical codes to justify the use of torture in order to obtain “actionable” information resonate powerfully in this era of the U.S. “war on terror.”

This Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, directed by Luis Buñuel (1972).

Still the best filmic expression of European urban anxieties: a feral, largely immigrant underclass, living in desolate concrete housing projects and cut off by peripheral motorways, poor public transportation, incomprehension, fear, and mutual loathing from well-heeled metropolitans in the nice central districts. There are no prospects, jobs, or money—and, even before the financial crisis or rioting over veils, all that is on offer is drugs, and endless conflict with repressive police. Former French prime minister Alain Juppé required his cabinet to watch the film soon after its release. But, like other European governments, they clearly failed to find lasting solutions. An epic of social exclusion with snarling, in-your-face characters shot in grainy black and white, La Haine represents critical European cinema’s elemental antithesis to Luis Buñuel’s debonair, technicolor, and seductively surreal The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972).

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, directed by Stanley Kubrick (1964).

Anyone in our field who does not name Dr. Strangelove as their all-time favorite foreign policy movie should be drummed out of the profession. It stands head and shoulders above all potential rivals. It is wickedly humorous on so many levels that I’ve lost count. It is brilliantly written and acted, with a B-52 payload full of memorable lines and characters:

General “Buck” Turgidson: “Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!” and “Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than 10 to 20 million, tops.”

Major T. J. “King” Kong: “Well, boys, I reckon this is it: nuclear combat toe-to-toe with the Rooskies.”

President Merkin Muffley: “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!”

I am laughing just writing these immortal words. I mean, come on, what other choice is there?

Wag the Dog, directed by Barry Levison (1997).

A terrific black comedy in which the White House hires a Washington “fixer” to deflect media attention from a presidential sex scandal. Together with a Hollywood producer, a neurotic White House aide, and a spinmeister known as the “Fad King,” the fixer manufactures a fake U.S. war with Albania to distract from the scandal just days before an election.

The movie was released just before the Monica Lewinksy scandal and the Clinton administration’s 1998 missile strikes on suspected al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and Sudan. When the film came out, many in the United States highlighted the uncanny (some would say, prescient) comparisons between art and life.