My name is Alex Garland and Im the writer director of Civil War. So this particular clip is roughly around the halfway point of the movie and its these four journalists and theyre trying to get, in a very circuitous route, from New York to DC, and encountering various obstacles on the way. And this is one of those obstacles. What they find themselves stuck in is a battle between two snipers. And they are close to one of the snipers and the other sniper is somewhere unseen, but presumably in a large house that sits over a field and a hill. Its a surrealist exchange and its surrounded by some very surrealist imagery, which is theyre, in broad daylight in broad sunshine, theres no indication that were anywhere near winter in the filming. In fact, you can kind of tell its summer. But theyre surrounded by Christmas decorations. And in some ways, the Christmas decorations speak of a country, which is in disrepair, however silly it sounds. If you havent put away your Christmas decorations, clearly something isnt going right. Whats going on? Someone in that house, theyre stuck. Were stuck. And theres a bit of imagery. It felt like it hit the right note. But the interesting thing about that imagery was that it was not production designed. We didnt create it. We actually literally found it. We were driving along and we saw all of these Christmas decorations, basically exactly as they are in the film. They were about 100 yards away, just piled up by the side of the road. And it turned out, it was a guy whod put on a winter wonderland festival. People had not dug his winter wonderland festival, and hed gone bankrupt. And he had decided just to leave everything just strewn around on a farmers field, who was then absolutely furious. So in a way, theres a loose parallel, which is the same implication that exists within the film exists within real life. You dont understand a word I say. Yo. Whats over there in that house? Someone shooting. Its to do with the fact that when things get extreme, the reasons why things got extreme no longer become relevant and the knife edge of the problem is all that really remains relevant. So it doesnt actually matter, as it were, in this context, what side theyre fighting for or what the other persons fighting for. Its just reduced to a survival.

Read the original here:
Civil War | Anatomy of a Scene - The New York Times