Mendes: 'Americans Don't Get Jarhead'

Oscar-winning film director Sam Mendes claims American viewers don't understand his new movie Jarhead as well as Europeans - because they expect war films to be one-sided.

The movie based on the novel JARHEAD: A MARINE'S CHRONICLE OF THE GULF WAR AND OTHER BATTLES by ANTHONY SWOFFORD, and focuses on the frivolousness of war, rather than the glory - something Mendes feels Americans don't grasp.

Mendes says, "I feel they've understood in Europe. In America, it's like talking about a different movie.

"Fundamentally, Jarhead disobeys all the laws of American movies, and not just the political laws of American movies right now which demand on some level to tell us which side they're on.

"In Europe, there's a sense this film comes from the tradition of absurdist war movies about the futility of conflict.

"It has more in common with BECKETT, SARTRE and BANUEL than it does with Oliver Stone.

"In America, they assumed I was trying to make an Oliver Stone movie and that I'd failed."