I think Hideo Kojima probably saw Thirteen Days, the political thriller from Roger Donaldson about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Aside from the obvious stylistic touches it shares with his games, the theme had to have been extremely appealing to Kojima, whose Metal Gear Solid franchise has always been a Japanese take on American political and spy thrillers (horse crank free with purchase.) Likely, his impressions of Thirteen Days informed Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (arguably his best game) and why not? Snake Eater was a love letter to the 1960s, with all its nuclear brinksmanship and counterculture, profoundly informed by the Cold War and all that came with it. Thirteen Days isn't as ambitious as all that, but it's an unflinching look at the White House in one of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War.
A little recap, if you need it: by the end of the 1950s, there was something of an equilibrium between the United States and the Soviet Union; while the United States was technically ahead of the Soviets in terms of nuclear capabilities, neither side really knew that. But in 1959, Cuba overthrew its right-wing dictator and installed Fidel Castro. Castroist Cuba's alliance with the Soviet Union drew the United States' ire, but in 1962, things came to a head when Moscow began installing nuclear launch sites in Cuba; these launch sites now meant that a nuclear first strike could be just five minutes away from hitting Washington and elsewhere on the east coast. President John F. Kennedy, his Cabinet and his Joint Chiefs discussed how to respond; the military pressed for invasion, but they'd been pressing for invasion for some time now, ever since the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, and it wasn't clear whether that was a good idea. Ultimately, they decided on a naval blockade to physically stop Soviet ships from bringing more nukes, troops and supplies to Cuba. Technically an act of war, they called it a "quarantine" (one of those nice little euphemisms the Cold War's participants relied on, like calling the Korean War a "police action" to get around the need for Congressional approval.) For a while it seemed like the Soviets might launch their existing nukes anyway, or something might happen that would trigger a chain of events inevitably leading to a nuclear exchange. Then, almost at the last minute, the Soviets agreed to pull their nukes from Cuba in exchange for the United States pulling their own nukes from Turkey (after a six-month waiting period, so the United States wouldn't be seen as having made a deal.) While there have been a couple close calls since, at no moment in the Cold War has the world ever come so close to destruction via this kind of brinksmanship before or since. The great powers of the world played a game of atomic chicken; in the end, it was the Soviets who blinked.
Thirteen Days is, at its core, a moment-by-moment re-enactment of this crisis, almost entirely situated within the White House. While taking its name from Robert F. Kennedy Senior's 1969 memoir about the situation, it's actually based on another book that was based on the tapes that John F. Kennedy secretly recorded of his meetings with the Joint Chiefs. Most movies (and video games) that seek to retell historical events tend to fall on a spectrum between a straight reenactment to telling a story in a historical setting; Thirteen Days falls pretty squarely on the reenactment end. Its structure is episodic, a string of moments linked together largely by the connective tissue of three characters: John F. Kennedy (played in typically charismatic fashion by veteran president portrayer and Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood), Robert F. Kennedy, and Kenneth O'Donnell, a political consultant to JFK and definitely not as important to the actual proceedings of the crisis as the film makes him out to be, and in the film portrayed by Kevin Costner with the worst Boston accent I ever heard.
The film largely revolves around O'Donnell, as he serves as a moderating factor between John and Robert; the three of them, nevertheless, aren't entirely a united front against the military. If anything, John is the real protagonist of the film, seen through O'Donnell's eyes. John struggles with the decision of how to respond: too light a hand and he'll look weak, too heavy a hand and he could provoke a war that can only end disastrously. Much of the film is about trying to guess about what the Soviets are thinking, and making assumptions on what the Soviets would do. The president makes the obvious point that all assumptions on what the Soviets might do are outdated, just as the tactical decisions of commanders in World War I were based on wars of the 19th century; only this time, if someone makes the wrong move, we all glow in the dark.
While Thirteen Days is structurally pretty straightforward without a lot in terms of characterization, it is nevertheless a taut political thriller with some excellent cinematography. The film tries to throw in some scenes where O'Donnell interacts with his family, as a reminder (to himself and the audience) what all this mess is for; these scenes aren't as interesting as watching the president butt heads with his own generals. If I sound like reenactment films aren't as interesting or compelling as more story-focused films, that's on me: I think there's a place for films like Thirteen Days, and others like it; you can always watch some period drama about people living in a particular time and place, but the nature of those films is often going to be such that the world they live in isn't totally in focus. Reenactments are the other way around: they are snapshots, a moment in time, a particular place in that moment. Thirteen Days is a snapshot of the Cuban Missile Crisis from the perspective of the men who lived it.
Sometimes it feels like we're facing a new global crisis every week; Thirteen Days, though a quarter-century old now, feels like a much-needed reminder that we've been through worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment