If you’ve seen Top Gun or Transformers, you may have wondered: Does all of that military machinery on screen come with strings attached? Does the military actually get a crack at the script? Theaters of War digs deep into a vast new trove of recently released internal government documents to bring the answers to these questions into sharp focus. Traveling across America, filmmaker and media scholar Roger Stahl engages an array of other researchers, bewildered veterans, PR insiders, and industry producers willing to talk. In unsettling and riveting detail, he discovers how the military and CIA have pushed official narratives while systematically scrubbing scripts of war crimes, corruption, racism, sexual assault, coups, assassinations, and torture. From The Longest Day to Lone Survivor, Iron Man to Iron Chef, and James Bond to Jack Ryan, Theaters of War uncovers an alternative “cinematic universe” that stands as one of the great Pentagon PR coups of our time. As these activities gain new public scrutiny, new questions arise: How have they managed to fly under the radar for so long? And where do we go from here? 

 

Based on thousands of pages of documents acquired by Tom Secker through FOIA requests and thousands more acquired by Roger Stahl from various archival sites. Some analysis drawn from Matthew Alford and Tom Secker's National Security Cinema and David Robb's Operation Hollywood.

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DISTRIBUTORS

CREDITS

Director, Editor, Narrator, Executive Producer

Roger Stahl

 

Produced by

Chiasmus Films

 

Co-Producers

Matthew Alford, Tom Secker, Sebastian Kaempf

 

Interviewees in Order of Appearance

Matthew Alford, Tom Secker, Tricia Jenkins, Oliver Stone, Tanner Mirrlees, Sebastian Kaempf, Robin Andersen, Philip Strub, Duncan Koebrich, Travis Walker, George Lewis, David Evans

 

Videography by

Gavin Brennan, Karla Cote, Karsten Krause, Andrew Hart, Matt Peterson, Roger Stahl, and William Westaway

 

Animation by

Roger Stahl

 

 

PRAISE

"A devastating account ... one riveting revelation after another ... should be required viewing for media scholars, concerned citizens, and casual media consumers alike." Jonna Eagle, Associate Professor, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, Author of War Games

 

“Convincingly argues [that] the Pentagon’s covert influence over popular culture can have a decisive role in raising support for divisive wars.” Jonathan Cook, Middle East Eye

 

“A critical debate on the US military apparatus.” Público

 

"A high-impact documentary that the USA’s most powerful filmmakers and warmakers don’t want you to see ... gives us dramatic smoking-gun evidence of methodical and deadly manipulation." Norman Solomon, Author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy

 

"Riveting ... a must-see film." Matthew Payne, Co-author of Joystick Soldiers: The Politics of Play in Military Video Games

 

"An educational achievement." Daniel Espinosa, Propaganda in Focus

 

“Revelatory ... audiences will never see the military on screen the same way again.” Jessy Ohl, Associate Professor of Communications at The University of Alabama

 

"A cohesive and well-researched deep dive.  Recommended. ★★★" Video Librarian

 

"A powerful and well-researched expose. Highly recommend." Educational Media Reviews Online (EMRO)

 

"A must-see" Marcus Powers, Professor of Geography at Durham University

 

"Essential viewing" Scott Laderman, Professor of History at the University of Minnesota Duluth

 

"Tight, compelling ... sure to grab audiences from the living room to the college classroom."  Douglas Rushkoff, Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at CUNY/Queens

 

"A fast-paced, consciousness-raising work." Paul Achter, Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Communications Studies at University of Richmond

 

“Impressively documented ... Think propaganda’s the wrong word? Think again!” Stacy Takacs, Professor of English & American Studies at Oklahoma State University

 

"Blows the lid off one of the Pentagon's biggest open secrets"  Joshua Reeves, Associate Professor, School of Communication, Oregon State University and co-author of Killer Apps: War, Media, Machine

 

"Lively, engaging, and meticulously researched" Rebecca A. Adelman, Associate Professor of Media & Communication Studies at University of Maryland Baltimore County and co-editor of Remote Warfare: New Cultures of Violence

 

"Gripping ... You'll never watch an action movie, war epic, or superhero blockbuster the same way again." Matt Sienkiewicz, Associate Professor of Communication and International Studies, Boston College and author of The Other Air Force

 

"Hits us with overwhelming evidence" H. Bruce Franklin, American cultural historian and author of Crash Course: From the Good War to the Forever War

 

"Sheds brilliant, heavily researched cinematic light on a dark, ugly reality of American life. A vital public service. It deserves the widest possible audience." Bob Keeler, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for Newsday

 

"a must-see documentary" David Sirota, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and journalist