Rambo in the dead lands: on cinema, war and climate

Abstract

In war-weary Israel, where military checkpoints dot the country and gun-toting soldiers are everywhere, visitors cannot help but be apprehensive. The soaring temperatures and isolation of the country’s rugged landscape fit the mood of lonely, dispirited Vietnam vet John Rambo.1 This extract from a 1987 Los Angeles Times article implies that war and climate in Israel combine to create a perfect film set for Rambo III (Peter MacDonald, 1988). Produced by TriStar on the eve of the Soviet Union’s collapse, Rambo III delivered an action-packed Cold War story about US military aid being provided to the Afghan mujahideen by the CIA. Israel was perceived to be a suitable stand-in for Afghanistan, where John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) fought alongside local guerrillas against Soviet troops. ‘Israel’, Stallone explained to a local reporter, ‘is a perfect replacement for Afghanistan. Not only is it bone-dry, but it’s also in war.’2 Rambo III is a by-product of the deepening relations between Hollywood and Israel during the 1980s, and just one of a handful of Hollywood films that were produced in the deserts of Israel at the time. With a third of its territory consisting of arid or semi-arid terrain, Israel’s climate could conveniently simulate the orientalized war zone,3 but the country held another advantage that made it a ‘natural’ substitute. Dozens of declassified documents found in the IDF (Israeli Military) Archive in Israel reveal lengthy bureaucratic exchanges between Hollywood executives and military officers, containing snappy pitches, character descriptions, artistic statements and, most importantly, evaluations of long lists of weapons and military facilities to be used as props in the manufacturing of cinematic spectacle. These include guns, tanks, jeeps, built structures, soldiers, aeroplanes, helicopters and, above all, swathes of desert land, regularly deployed by the IDF for training purposes, that were to be re-appropriated as lucrative film locations. With the Nevada and Mojave deserts becoming increasingly costly as locations, the documents show Hollywood entrepreneurs venturing further to identify suitable replacements for the numerous film productions that dramatized the US intervention into Middle Eastern territories.4 Titles such as Delta Force (Mehamen Golan, 1986), Riding the Edge (James Fargo, 1989), Iron Eagle (Sidney J. Furie, 1986), Sahara (Andrew McLaglen, 1983) and Rambo III all feature combat scenarios, with the desert often standing in for enemy terrain. The documents reveal how the Israeli military was a particularly valuable co-producer of cinema, and attest to the material basis that enabled such collaborations to prosper. Expansive territories in the Negev held by the IDF facilitated the most desirable of commodities: the desert itself.