Online viewing tip: Gunner Palace.

What a dizzying weekend of remembrance and Americana that one was. As the papers and newscasts whiplashed between the 40s and the 80s, it was suddenly all flags and lofty rhetoric like some runaway Bruce Conner clip, but of course, without the irony.

The Reagans in Normandy in 1984

Some - not all, but some - of the confusion and overlap could be directly traceable to one particular moment highlighted unwittingly by David Greenberg in Slate the day before Ronald Reagan died:

It was Reagan who kicked off the D-Day mania when, in 1984, equipped with a backdrop chosen by Michael Deaver and a speech penned by Peggy Noonan, he lauded a band of aging US Army Rangers in front of the very 130-foot rock face they had scaled with fire department grappling hooks and ladders 40 years before...

... Reagan spoke for a constituency that wanted to reclaim America's pride in its military strength. His farewell address in 1988 called for the revival of a feel-good history that would teach schoolchildren "who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those thirty seconds over Tokyo meant." If this rhetoric sounded fuzzy and nostalgic, it shouldn't have been surprising, since Reagan's vision of war came from Hollywood, where he had discharged his own service obligations as part of the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Corps. (At times Reagan even confused the real war with memories of films he acted in or watched, as when he "remembered" having liberated the Nazi camps.)

He wasn't entirely alone in his confusion and still isn't. No one could possibly hold Tom Hanks or Steven Spielberg's urge to be a part of this weekend's remembrance ceremony in Normandy against them, for example, but at the same time, no one could possibly overlook their presence as a rather obvious symptom of our persistent melding of myth and memory. And to a large extent, that tendency became chronic with the Reagan presidency, the one many at the time called the first postmodern presidency (a term that's been applied to successive presidents in varying senses ever since).

As Richard Corliss reminds us in Time, Reagan was an "also-ran star" in Hollywood, but after two decades plugging away at it, he'd trained himself for the medium that would fit him like a well-worn leather riding glove: Television. His team created a series of set pieces so effective they're still stalwarts of the presidential repertoire 20 years on. Besides the dramatic outdoor backdrop, the classic would probably have to be the walk across the White House lawn to and from the rattling helicopter. Jacket flapping gently in the wind, First Lady at his side, and what's that? A question from the press? A cock of the head, a hand to the ear... Sorry, can't quite catch that, check you later, this man is on the move.

George W Bush signed as hard as he could this weekend that his true mentor has not been his own father, but rather, Ronald Reagan. Problem is, his team is nowhere nearly as skilled. As has been said here and elsewhere over and again, they've got no sense of subtlety - or shame. Dressing up like you've just come back from the war you're declaring over - "Mission Accomplished" - at least a year too soon simply isn't going to fool that many people. Thankfully, in Normandy this weekend, Bush refrained from trying to make the linkage he's attempted in the past between Saddam Hussein and Hitler, this current war and WWII. The Reaganesque pomo pastiche of historic iconography and contemporary politics can only be taken so far.

Besides the many differences in approach (and sheer talent) between Michael Deaver and Karl Rove, though, there's another vital difference between 1984 and 2004. In the mid-80s, with even analog video still a rarity in most homes, never mind the various forms of DIY media on the Net, it was pretty tough going for activists or anyone seeking to get an alternative take on just about anything out to an audience beyond a very immediate circle. Xeroxed zines were a blast, but that blast was very limited indeed. Now, though, we're soaking in alternative, argumentative opinion and conjecture, swamped from the left and right and points beyond, online and - here's the rub for anyone hoping to determine and freeze the imagery of contemporary history - on screens large and small. The apparent ease with which the photos taken at Abu Ghraib slipped away from the control of the authorities and the threat that more - including video - might again is the only example needed here.

On this particular weekend, being tipped off to a site for a work-in-progress, Gunner Palace, had particular resonance. In part because the film has no overt political agenda, but mostly because, as we remember the heroic sacrifice American soldiers have made in the past - and rightfully so - it's important to remember the soldiers facing a daily and persistent threat their lives now. We can argue about the responsibility and the reasoning behind their situation, but in the meantime, there they are. Read the piece. Watch the clips.

Consider one soldier's words: "For y'all this is just a show, but we live in this movie."

Posted by dwhudson at June 7, 2004 12:32 PM