It was when synthetic snow started to fall that things got a little Kafkaesque. The man to my immediate right gave me a knowing smile. “Pretty cool stuff, huh?” he whispered, as machine gun fire chattered somewhere overhead. Twenty feet away, an anti-aircraft gun the size of a minivan stood pointing at our faces. A child in front of me got out of his seat and stretched his arms toward the shadowy expanse above, catching man-made snowflakes on his beaming face. I was witnessing firsthand the decline of culture, and it was in 4 dimensions.
This was BEYOND ALL BOUNDARIES, a “4D cinematic experience” created for the National World War II museum, and I was watching it in New Orleans as part of a rigorous spring break regimen that involved doing anything that didn’t involve exposure to the midday heat. The show was billed as a general historical overview of World War II, but its real selling point was an orgy of audio and visual effects, screens, and props whose frank realism at least one viewer found disconcerting (I feel at liberty to state an emergent truth: having large, seemingly-operable guns oriented toward one’s face while watching a movie does little to induce any sort of enjoyable atmosphere). From the online description of the show: “Audiences will feel the tank treads rumbling across North Africa’s deserts, brush snow from their cheeks during the wintery Battle of the Bulge, and flinch as anti-aircraft fire tries to bring down their B-17 on a bombing run over Nazi Germany.”
All of this sounds really cool, and it was pretty compelling. At one point, a Nazi guard tower rises out of the stage and the audience is treated to surround sound German vociferation, a strobe-synched submachine gun barrage, and a 120-foot high diptych of emaciated concentration camp survivors juxtaposed with images of American soldiers looking grimy and victorious and generally heroic.
Regardless of the special effects, there was nothing even remotely historically substantive about the whole endeavor. One time they mentioned something about an atomic bomb, but the explosive sound effects and flashing lights overwhelmed Tom Hanks’ sobering narrative. The entire eastern campaign was summed up in a neat paragraph and some fancy kamikaze graphics.
Don’t get me wrong: turning global struggle and tragedy into high-quality entertainment is, at worst, fiscally justifiable, and, in general, somewhat interesting. I played toy soldiers with the best of them, and historical first-person shooters were a childhood staple. It becomes, however, deceitful and insidious when passed off as an educational venture.
BEYOND ALL BOUNDARIES aims pretty plainly to stimulate very primitive parts of the viewer’s psyche—it shocks, scares, saddens, discourages, and inspires a sort of banal elemental pride.
Its historical value is subordinated to tech-effects, and it is the effects, not the narrative, that are used to make the history accessible. And this is what makes the movie really insidious—it demands that the viewer take it seriously but declines to do the historical work necessary to make a story that imparts anything meaningful.
What we say is as important as how we say it—it is the product that needs selling, not the package. The proliferation of package-selling can be seen on any nightly stroll through LaFortune—“Here, take a button and a candy bar, our movement’s really important and we’re trying to raise awareness and we appreciate your support! Have a good night!” You can sell a political stance with candy and cool t-shirts, but it will be an empty support, devoid of any substantive understanding or commitment. I am reminded of Maximus from Gladiator, who, after slaying another gladiator drops the famous line, “Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?”
Julian Murphy is a fourth year archie. Contact him at jmurph20@nd.edu.
