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Former IRP Fellow’s Award-Winning Documentary “Baghdad ER” Takes a Hard Look at the Grim Realities of War
| Matt O'Neill |
WASHINGTON, September 27, 2006 � Filmmaker and former IRP Fellow Matt O’Neill said he hopes his documentary “Baghdad ER” shows viewers the “heroism and high-stakes horror” of war. He spoke in a question-and-answer session following a special screening of his award-winning HBO documentary to the fall 2006 IRP Fellows and members of the public.
“Baghdad ER” explores daily life inside the emergency room of the 86th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad Iraq. For two months in 2005, O’Neill and his co-producer and co-director Jon Alpert of the Downtown Community Television Center in New York lived alongside the 86th Combat Support hospital team. The film focuses on the medical treatment of U.S. soldiers inside the hospital, interweaving gruesome surgical scenes with those of a soldier breaking news of his injuries to his mother, a priest praying over dead or dying soldiers, and doctors and nurses describing their daily travails and rewards.
The film won four 2006 Primetime Emmy awards for Best Directing, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, and Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction Filmmaking.
When it was released in May 2006 the Army’s surgeon general warned that viewing the film could trigger post-traumatic stress disorder to those who have served in combat. O’Neill said he received positive feedback from soldiers and doctors in the field, but several high-ranking Army officials declined to attend screenings of “Baghdad ER” because of concerns that the most horrifying scenes could harm morale and public opinion of the war.
When asked about the film’s most graphic moments, O’Neill said deciding what to include “was an ongoing issue throughout the editorial process. We had lay-down-screaming fights. In some ways, we felt people should know that the reality of getting a limb amputated is a lot harder to watch than to say or read about it. But at the same time we had to have a program people can watch, and I’ve had people walk out of screenings.”
“You hear doctors say this is a terrifying experience and also the most gratifying” of their lives, O’Neill said after the screening. He noted that as a filmmaker, he was allowed to “see everything and do everything” inside the hospital, and that his goal was not to push a particular agenda about the war.
He said the US Army cooperated extensively with the filming project. “Making a personal documentary like this is about first gaining the trust--and then honoring that trust throughout the process.” The film’s crew only came into conflict with hospital personnel when doctors were worried about having an extra person or two in the operating theatre during surgery, O’Neill said. But overall he felt that most of them wanted the story to be told in all of its poignancy and horror. “I hope (this film) makes people more informed about the realities of war,” he explained.
Copyright © 2005 International Reporting Project. All Rights Reserved.