"The only lesson to extract from any civil war is that it's pointless and futile and ugly, and that there is nothing glamorous or heroic about it. There are heroes, but the causes are never heroic"
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Minghella’s line is an assault on the aesthetic of noble conflict, especially the kind cinema has helped mint. As a director known for lush, romantic storytelling, he’s almost implicating his own medium: civil war is precisely the sort of subject that can be framed as tragic grandeur, a sweep of uniforms and destiny. He refuses that frame. The triple hit of “pointless and futile and ugly” is deliberately unpoetic, a sandpaper cadence meant to strip away the seduction of narrative.
The key turn is his split between people and projects: “There are heroes, but the causes are never heroic.” That’s less a contradiction than a warning about how heroism gets weaponized. Civil wars manufacture saints because they require intimate betrayal: neighbors, siblings, the familiar made target. In that setting, bravery can be real while the banner it serves becomes a convenient laundering mechanism for revenge, power grabs, and mythmaking. Minghella is steering the listener away from the comforting idea that suffering can be redeemed by a righteous storyline.
Contextually, this reads like a late-20th-century European skepticism toward grand causes, sharpened by the televised aftermath of internal conflicts (Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Rwanda’s civil dimension): not abstract battlefields, but fractured societies that must keep living together after the guns stop. His intent isn’t pacifist sentimentality; it’s an anti-romance manifesto. He’s arguing that the “lesson” of civil war is the damage it does to the very fabric that makes heroism legible in the first place.
The key turn is his split between people and projects: “There are heroes, but the causes are never heroic.” That’s less a contradiction than a warning about how heroism gets weaponized. Civil wars manufacture saints because they require intimate betrayal: neighbors, siblings, the familiar made target. In that setting, bravery can be real while the banner it serves becomes a convenient laundering mechanism for revenge, power grabs, and mythmaking. Minghella is steering the listener away from the comforting idea that suffering can be redeemed by a righteous storyline.
Contextually, this reads like a late-20th-century European skepticism toward grand causes, sharpened by the televised aftermath of internal conflicts (Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Rwanda’s civil dimension): not abstract battlefields, but fractured societies that must keep living together after the guns stop. His intent isn’t pacifist sentimentality; it’s an anti-romance manifesto. He’s arguing that the “lesson” of civil war is the damage it does to the very fabric that makes heroism legible in the first place.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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