{"product_id":"mission-unaccomplished","title":"Mission Unaccomplished","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn analysis of how post-9\/11 war movies changed from following soldiers on specific missions to chronicling war as a day-to-day occupation.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e In 2003, the United States began a war in Iraq without a mission. Instead of fighting to restore peace-the traditional objective of warfare-servicemembers faced the grim reality that there was no goal. Lacking even certainty as to who was the enemy, soldiers discovered that their task was simply to survive. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eMission Unaccomplished\u003c\/i\u003e explores how Hollywood grasped the experience of Iraq from the perspective of US soldiers, reinventing the war film in the process. Historically, films such as \u003ci\u003eSaving Private Ryan\u003c\/i\u003e valorized the goals of war by chronicling missions that unambiguously contribute to the defeat of the enemy and the restoration of peace. But in \u003ci\u003eThe Hurt Locker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eAmerican Sniper\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGreen Zone\u003c\/i\u003e, and other recent dramas, soldiers just try to outlast the chaos. Dramatizing the aimlessness of the war, events occur in random order, and soldiers have no sense of how their actions contribute to victory or peace. Looking to recent WWII movies such as \u003ci\u003eDunkirk\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHacksaw Ridge\u003c\/i\u003e, which use this same cinematic vocabulary to position soldiering as merely a deadly job to be endured, Alan Nadel argues that the disillusionment of Iraq has influenced cinema broadly, inspiring a newly critical war film genre. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Texas Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55283425575256,"sku":"9781477332610","price":54.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781477332610.jpg?v=1780031772","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/mission-unaccomplished","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}