{"podcast":{"title":"Bang-Bang Podcast","slug":"bang-bang-podcast-7028254","podcast_index_feed_id":7028254,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/2865860/s/148013.rss","website_url":"https://www.bangbangpod.com/s/bang-bang-podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/2865860/s/148013/e27cbae2755ad3789de1ec54aacf98ba.jpg","author":"Van and Lyle are Bang-Bang","episode_count":71,"summary":"A show about war movies, with an anti-imperialist twist. Hosted by Van Jackson and Lyle Jeremy Rubin--military veterans, war critics, and wannabe film critics.","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/bang-bang-podcast-7028254"},"episode":{"title":"Under Fire (1983) w/ Paul Adlerstein | Ep. 51","slug":"under-fire-1983-w-paul-adlerstein-ep-51","published_at":"2025-11-18T05:51:18+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/bang-bang-podcast-7028254/under-fire-1983-w-paul-adlerstein-ep-51","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/bang-bang-podcast-7028254","url":"https://www.bangbangpod.com/p/under-fire-1983-w-paul-adlerstein","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/179114678/61281f191431db4ffd666cb38648f138.mp3","summary":"This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bangbangpod.com Van and Lyle are joined once again by historian Paul Adlerstein to revisit Under Fire , Roger Spottiswoode’s gripping and often overlooked drama about the final days of the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. The film follows three American journalists (Nick Nolte, Joanna Cassidy, and Gene Hackman) as they navigate the moral terrain of reporting on a revolution in real time. What looks at first like a conventional political thriller unfolds into something more complicated: A story about solidarity and betrayal, the ethics of witnessing, and the impossible pressures revolutionaries face when the entire world is watching. We trace the film’s ambivalent but unmistakably anti-imperialist edge—the way Under Fire indicts U.S. policy without turning the Sandinistas into caricatures—and talk through the moments where its politics strain against its Hollywood framing. Paul walks us through the historical context of Somoza’s downfall and the Sandinista movement, while we dig into the film’s extraordinary craft: Jerry Goldsmith’s score (one of his best), the whistling motif in the church-tower firefight, the almost Carpenter-like chase sequence with the TV news van, and the unnerving tonal shifts as journalists move from observers to participants in the struggle. The conversation also turns to Under Fire ’s prescience. How its critique of Cold War binaries (“the world isn’t East and West anymore… it’s North and South”) feels even sharper today, and how its depiction of journalists wrestling with complicity, responsibility, and power resonates in an era where war reporting, propaganda, and revolutionary movements remain entangled. Further Reading Paul’s website No Globalization Without Representation ,…","meta_description":"This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bangbangpod.com Van and Lyle are joined once again by historian Paul Adlerstein to revis…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":826,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/bang-bang-podcast-7028254/episodes/under-fire-1983-w-paul-adlerstein-ep-51/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/bang-bang-podcast-7028254/under-fire-1983-w-paul-adlerstein-ep-51.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}