It ’s been two weekssince I see Alex Garland ’s Civil War , and I still ca n’t get its shivery terminal bit out of my pass . Several major things happen in the waning moments of the movie , adding an avalanche of emotion on top of everything you ’ve already been feeling . The moving-picture show is brawny and tense enoughon its own — but then , at the very conclusion , you feel gloominess , jolt , backup , pridefulness , hullabaloo , and more all in a quick flurry before the credits roll . I do n’t know about you , but I had to pose in stunned silence for a few minutes before leaving .
lately , io9 spoke with thefilm ’s writer / director Alex Garlandand ask him about his inspirations for the close and how it all amount together .
To review , in the middle of the struggle in Washington D.C. , Lee ( Kirsten Dunst ) , Joel ( Wagner Moura ) and Jessie ( Cailee Spaeny ) line up themselves in the White House . The soldier they ’re shade move deeper into the construction when Secret Service agents start contend back to defend the President . In an attempt to get the perfect photo , Jessie gets in the line of fire and is about to be shot . Lee jump in front of the bullet and we see her killed as a serial publication of still photos that Jessie is taking from the ground with Lee bear , then fall , over her .
Lee (Kirsten Dunst), Joel (Wagner Moura), and Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) in Civil War.Image: A24
“ It ’s a bit of picture palace grammar of a baton fling , ” Garland said of Lee ’s demise and how he show it . “ The interesting thing of putting still frames within moving frames that are themselves actually still frames , just flickering past us . And in terms of what is happening over the course of the film , it ’s a sort of transferring of a state from one elderly character into a younger character . It just felt like the appropriate way to delineate that moment . ”
Interestingly , Garland admitted he mess around with the here and now in editing and change it . “ It was n’t written as a sequence of shots of someone photographing and winding and photographing and winding , ” Garland said . “ It was write as a individual catch image … one perfect fleck of picture taking . But really , in the edit , the episode contained slightly more power . So , I went with that instead . ”
After Lee expire , Jessie and Joel have no time to mourn and have to cover on to find the President , which they do . He ’s about to be fulfill when Joel asks the soldiers not to yet , so he can get a quote . “ Do n’t let them kill me , ” he allege . Then they do anyway . Jessie is there to capture the image .
Nick Offerman as the PresidentImage: A24
And so the film ’s credit roll , with Jessie ’s photo of the soldier over the consistence of the President slow developing . “ The film is trying to contact realism in ways [ other ] than cinema a bunch of the time , ” Garland said of the decision . “ So it ’s taking its grammar , often , from live experience or news photography or news footage or documentaries . That is its sorting of framework . And actually that trophy shot , with a human being as the trophy , is something that you find again and again . It literally actually occurs exactly in the shape you see it . So there ’s something that felt appropriate to picture taking and appropriate to the protagonists and their journeying , but also actually real . So a strange , disturbing last sorting of hit of reality as the picture ends . ”
Civil War is now in theaters .
chastisement 4/12/24 7:30 p.m. : We had the President ’s quote wrong in the original rendering , it ’s been edited .
Nick Offerman as the PresidentImage: A24
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