ifilm – warzone
August 06, 2005
ifilm.com, one of the surviving dotcom / web entertaiment / web tv sites has a channel dedicated to warfare. Riddled with Army advertisements, warzone capitalizes on people’s voyeuristic desires to view war and death at a safe virtual distance. At the time of the Civil War people would set up picnics and enjoy battles on the outer bounds of the battle field, though there were plenty of civilian casualties due to these leasurely afternoon picnics.
Now one may experience the war, all be it not in realtime or physical space, but also without a worry of being hit by a stray bullet by loading http://www.ifilm.com/warzone and then downloading from the selection of clips, some sent by U.S. soldiers. One may even rate a clip and it seems that amongst the most popular are the violent, fire heavy clips shot and edited by soldiers.
If you dig around you can also find documentaries that are critical of the war in Iraq such as Robert Greewald’s Uncovered: The War on Iraq – War and Failure
The web doesn’t cease to amaze me as aspiring film makers caught in the middle of warfare can document, edit and share their lives.