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[1] P. W. Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003), p. 226 [return to page 1 of essay]
[2] Singer, ibid., p. 76
[3] Singer, ibid., p. 159
[4] Tom Gregory, The Huffington Post, August 21, 2007
[5a] Jean-Luc Godard, Godard on Godard (Translated and edited by Tom Milne; Da Capo Press, Inc.: New York, 1986), p. 28
[5] David Ayer, DVD commentary for Harsh Times (Crave Films/Genius Products, LLC., 2007).
[6] Interview with Rebecca Murray on the website, About: Hollywood Movies
[7] The genre-shuffling does not end there: The Jacket is also loaded with psychedelic digital-effects sequences that take us inside Jack’s hallucinating mind, like a somewhat milder version of “drug-cult movies” such as Nicolas Roeg’s Performance (1970) or Ken Russell’s Altered States (1980), while at the same time delivering a message about drug use as a life-destroying dead end.
[8] Nina K. Martin, “Dread of Mothering: Plumbing the Depths of Dark Water,” Jump Cut no. 50, Spring 2008.
[9] Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia (Translated from the German by E. F. N. Jephcott; Verso: London, 2002), pp. 232 - 233. Gracchus the hunter died after falling from a cliff while stalking a chamois, but the ship that was meant to carry him to the underworld has lost its way; so Gracchus remains inert but fully conscious, doomed to sail all over the earth looking for his own burial place.
[10] Murray, ibid. [return to page 2 of essay]
[11] Murray, ibid.
[12] Ayer, ibid. The Jacket also begins with green-tinted night-vision footage of war — U.S. planes strafing target sites with bombs, bodies exploding — which Maybury sets to composer Brian Eno’s ironically delicate, wistful, Satie-like piano music. (Eno first collaborated with Maybury in 1978, when Maybury assisted Derek Jarman on the dystopian punk-rock musical, Jubilee.) This motif of night-vision could be seen, in both The Jacket and Harsh Times, as a metaphor for seeing into “dark corners,” and perhaps for uncovering secrets and disinformation.
[13] Singer, ibid., p. 14
[14] Singer, ibid., pp. 207-208
[15] Ayer, ibid.
[16] Ayer, ibid. [return to page 3 of essay]
[17] Ayer, ibid.
[18] Ayer, ibid.
[19] Ayer, ibid.
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