‘Civil War’ Action Sequences Build on War Movies

April 16, 20248 Mins Read

Director Alex Garland and cinematographer Rob Hardy have worked together to make worlds that all feel like they could beat you up, whether they’re vast and weird (“Annihilation“), contained and sharp (“Ex Machina“), or geometric and severe (“Devs”). The pair’s collaborations have a consideration of space and power with an almost magnetic pull. The firepower of their latest film, “Civil War,” is quite literal. The camera’s job is to watch the journalist characters embedded in a military assault on Washington, D.C., witness the Lincoln Monument get blown up.

In this, “Civil War” joins a robust tradition of war films stretching back as far as 1925’s “The Big Parade” and 1926’s “What Price Glory?” that try to convey the power of violence itself: its horror, its allure, its twisted humor, and most of all its undeniable pull towards more violence. Hardy told IndieWire that he was much more influenced by photographers William Eggleston and Saul Leiter than specific war films or war photographers — although he did look at the work of Jessie’s (Cailee Spaeny) hero Lee Miller and others.

“For me, it was about sort of finding that singular moment — you look for the emotion, you want to be close enough to capture that in a subject, but also you want to be wide enough to feel the space and everything that’s going on around them. And typically, that works as a mid-shot with some headroom for me personally. So strangely [the style is] closer to the way someone like Kubrick might frame something than it is like a war photographer,” Hardy said.

Stanley Kubrick certainly knew a thing or two about war films. But if you can see some of his DNA in the style of “Civil War,” that got us thinking about what other combat films it shares a visual language with. Here are five war films (and one video game) that all share something — be it a sensibility, specific techniques, or a philosophical approach — with how “Civil War” tackles its action and combat sequences. They show just how successful war films can be at evoking strong feelings about violence, suffering, power, and courage, and also just how hard it is to tell war stories in a way that helps us avert them.

‘Paths of Glory’ (1957)

Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection

The combat sequences in “Paths of Glory” are nowhere close to the point of Stanley Kubrick’s blistering condemnation of the men who send other men to war. But the rest of the film wouldn’t work without the doomed assault that Kirk Douglas’ battalion makes on a very well fortified German position, less for the advancement of the French trench line and more for the advancement of their commanding general. Kubrick’s clinical eye doesn’t need to show the extent of the battlefield or give us a bird’s eye view of the destruction. Long tracking shots make the simple sets feel endless, and his artful use of shadows does the same amount of work, creating a sense of fear as adroitly as the expression on the actors’ faces. Equally powerful are the dark lulls in the trenches, where shafts of light promise the soldiers that they aren’t safe from violence, just standing on the edge of it. It’s a feeling the photographers in “Civil War” come to know well. Every anti-war film aspires to be as simple, and as brutal, as “Paths of Glory.”
‘Come and See’ (1985)

Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection

“Civil War” owes much to “Come and See.” You can point to specific tropes, like being defeated by a blast of artillery and having the sound become indistinct so as to convey that subjective, disorienting point of view. You could also point to specific characters, evil men who are studiously calm as they wield the power of life and death over people who are scared and helpless. Other films have done those, of course, but none have done them better. There is a further kinship, though, in how both films treat the act of bearing witness as a harrowing thing. “Civil War” has a lot more polished, less surreal close-ups of what it costs Lee (Kirsten Dunst) to look. But the way the camera lingers on the horror in her eyes is the same.
‘Saving Private Ryan’ (1998)

Image Credit: ©DreamWorks/Courtesy Everett Collection

“Saving Private Ryan” set much of the template for how modern Hollywood cinema treats extended combat sequences. This is true of how fragmented and handheld shots can be used to construct an on-the-ground feeling throughout the D-Day landing sequence. This is true of the editing rhythm that Spielberg constructs to slowly give the audience their bearing in the chaos as the heroes find theirs and begin to act as soldiers. And it’s true of how “Saving Private Ryan” shows the cost of great military endeavors with John Williams’ proud, mournful score playing underneath. If there’s ever a movie that portrays warfare as both awful and valorous, it’s this one. And it proves just how much of a movie can be given over to that.
‘Transformers’ (2007)

Image Credit: ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection

OK, so this is a curveball, but hear us out. Yes, “Black Hawk Down” built on Spielberg’s work and delivered a modern warfare movie that was entirely battle sequences. But “Transformers” — the original “Transformers,” straight from Michael Bay’s personal keg — was one of the first films of the 21st century to master the art of creating a particular kind of sequence that modern war films and superhero films have run with ever since. It’s the action sequence in which you have no idea what is happening or where anything is, but the sheer wall of sound coming at you short circuits your brain and the fragmented pieces of giant, falling Decepticons or whatever start to look and feel as vast as the universe itself. I could try describing it more, but you already know what it sounds like and the way that these city-destruction-fests make you feel. Bay’s use of fragmented sound effects, editing, and score to elevate action sequences is something that action films ever since have either succumbed to or fought against. But every large-scale action setpiece has had to reckon with it. The assault on the Capitol in “Civil War” does, too.
‘Zero Dark Thirty’ (2012)

Image Credit: ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

The impact of “Zero Dark Thirty” seems to have lessened over time, but that might be because the Seal Team Six assault that takes up the final third of Kathryn Bigelow’s film is so tautly edited that it leaves no room for other combat sequences to top its realism. Its use of night vision cameras and its ability to make the camera feel like another soldier on the mission is painfully precise. But there’s also something of a military practitioner’s perspective on how the camera tracks movement and what it settles on as important — it assesses threats and moves on. That perspective is sometimes clinical, sometimes fearful and adrenaline-fueled, and doesn’t leave too much space for sadness or horror until it floods in. Whether that is good enough determines whether you think a movie with combat sequences like “Zero Dark Thirty” or “Civil War” is ultimately a success or a failure in what it has to say about war.
‘Spec Ops: The Line’ (2012)

Image Credit: Screenshot/Spec Ops: The Line

This writer would bet money that no one involved in “Civil War” has played “Spec Ops: The Line.” It’s not even available on Steam anymore. But the thing that modern combat — in cinema and in real life — cannot escape is how much those engaging in it look and feel like they’re playing “Call of Duty” style first-person shooters and how exciting that can feel. Anything that creates a sense of immersion and involvement in combat ultimately creates the same sense of entertainment, mastery, and detachment that these games do. It’s only really special ones, like “Spec Ops: The Line,” that use the language of first-person shooters to tell a more nuanced story — one where the player character’s psychology deteriorates the deeper he goes into a ravaged Dubai while the game confronts the player with their choices to play this kind of game. The subversion of imagery from popular military shooters and the bad choices the game forces you to make get “Spec Ops: The Line” players to do the thing that every anti-war film hopes its audience will do: want to stop inflicting war on ourselves.