"Something terrible, it seems to me, was happening to the press," said Garland, whose father was a political cartoonist and grew up chatting with journalists at the dinner table. "He wanted to put the press as the heroes," he added.
"The heroes, in this case, are the hardened war photographer Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst). "I think the civil war is just an extension of a situation," Garland said. "That situation is polarization and the lack of forces that limit polarization." "I want to make a movie about the American Civil War," he said. The film features old-fashioned reporters, as opposed to extremely biased journalists who essentially produce propaganda. One of the reporters is very young, but she uses a 35 millimeter camera, which is the medium of photojournalism from a time when the social function of the media was better understood and accepted. The film also portrays some of the adverse effects of war journalism on the journalists themselves. I would say that the journalist in the film managed to get an image that summarized a moment. It's not about whether you like journalists or not, you need them because they are the government's counterweight. Saying you hate journalists is like saying you hate doctors. You need doctors. They are the counterweight to the power of the state. It is not supposed to be, it is. That is its function. But what interested me, and this has been happening for a long time, is how little traction they had. If this is a movie about checks and balances, one of the biggest checks and balances the government has is the press.