Soundtrack to War (still)
2004
film
courtesy of the artist
GEORGE GITTOES
Australia
Academy Cinemas
Soundtrack to War showcases spontaneous music performances by a striking cast of the battle weary - performances made without rehearsal, under the blaring Iraqi sun, with the backdrop of a destroyed city, grit and dust, and the distraction of gunfire and bursting mortar shells.
American culture came into Iraq, wired into its tanks and helicopters - a live soundtrack to war, with lyrics such as "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor", "Round Out the Tank" and "Bombs Over Baghdad" being memorised by every soldier and forever linked to the violent events they accompanied. As the war extended into its second year, many started writing and performing their own songs. It was rock, rap and roll.
War is Heavy Metal - lyrics in Metal n' Gore, tell us what it's like on this hellfire ride; rap battles in the bullring say it like it is - it's a Baghdad thing!
R&B for lovers and longing, Country letters home, ballads to flags and fallen friends, Gospel calling on the Almighty, and Baghdad's Bee Gee's digging underground...
This film takes us on the whole emotional roller coaster ride of the young and talented who have found themselves in the hell of war, and who want to stay alive.
- George Gittoes, www.soundtracktowar.com
Background
George Gittoes was born in Sydney, Australia in 1949. His career takes him around the globe, but he bases himself in studios in New York and Sydney. An exhibiting artist since the 1960s, his early practice was as a painter, including works using holography and stereograms. For the last decade and a half, he has also worked as a film and documentary maker. This has taken him to Cambodia, Somalia, Southern Lebanon, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Afghanistan, Bougainville, East Timor, Rwanda, Yemen and Congo, among others places. He travelled to Iraq four times, spending 15 months in the country, from Saddam Hussein's last days in power through to the Coalition occupation, and the violent reprisals that followed in April and May 2004. During this time, he filmed Soundtrack to War, 2004. While in Iraq, he met the serviceman, Elliott Lovett, the subject of his most recent film Rampage, 2006. A monograph on the artist by Gavin Fry was published in 1998. His more recent practice is discussed by Russell Storer in The Unquiet World, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2006.
