Eliminated takes-making pieces from this run-down. Just context.
Drums of War
“All the Songs in A24’s ‘Civil War’”: Rundown of all six (only six!) songs used in the film with discussion of the scenes they accompany (minor spoilers). [The Wrap]
“Cross-Country Drive (with Stephen McKinley Henderson)”: Roadtrip playlist curated by the actor portraying Sammy. Some low-hanging fruit but also a lot of out-of-the-box selections. [Spotify]
“‘Civil War’ Cranks Up the Sound for Its Climactic DC Sequence”: The meticulousness of Civil War’s sound design is obvious to anyone who’s sat through it1, but this is for anyone interested in exactly what went into the terrifyingly accurate acoustics. [IndieWire]
“‘Civil War’ Sound Editor on Balancing “Oppressive” Battle Noise With Abrupt Silence”: Supervising sound editor on “the longest silence I think I’ve ever used in a film in that one moment.” [THR]
Filming War Is Hell
“How 'Civil War' Staged an Attack on Washington, D.C.”: Includes further discussion of the sound design but expands into the creation of the Atlanta sets. Garland’s first act in making the movie was the creation of the DC set design and planning how to choreograph the battle, but he shot the movie in chronological order. [The Ringer]
“How ‘Civil War’ brought its combat to life”: Interview with Garland’s military advisor, Ray Mendoza. He reveals a bit of intentionality to add to our discussion of what Garland was trying to say vs. what the movie winds up saying: The Hawaiian shirt folks were written as “normal people who picked up guns,” but choices made on-set blurred the line: “It’s up to the viewer [but] I’d say they have some kind of training.” [Task & Purpose]
“Making the ‘Civil War’ White House Battle: Dentist Drills, Tyler Perry’s Three-Story Replica Building and More”: The trick with getting multiple outlets to do “how they did it” stories is to give each outlet a different “fun fact” or two. Here, the dentist drill got the headline (the sound design is fascinating, I get it!) but I was delighted by something else entirely: Lee’s jacket is made from Target placemats. Scarlett O’Hara would be proud. [Variety]
Oh, well, never mind then…
“I personally do not believe we will descend into a formal armed civil war.” — Maya Wiley, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.2
My usually quite brilliant TNR colleague Osita Nwanevu does not agree (“the battle in Washington feels more like a final Call of Duty level than epic film”) but his home gaming set-up may be better than mine.
We are not going to have a civil war and the Times is on it. Actually, this article is infuriating and I may have to write about it some more, because this is how you “both-sides” a civil war. You run a reported piece on whether a civil war is possible, some yes, some say no!
I was hoping someone did the Ron Swanson mash-up... and they did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfHRBxg4paY