Munich..
I'll have to see it for myself, but I am expecting the worse.
Written by Zionism-hating screenwriter Tony Kushner, the film concerns a hit squad sent to assassinate 11 Arab terrorists in retaliation for the 1972 massacre.
One by one, the terrorists fall. And one by one, hit squad members suffer crises of conscience, culminating in one Israeli assassin crying out in agony, "All this blood cries back to us! Jews don't do wrong because our enemies do wrong. We're supposed to be righteous!"
Mercifully, he soon blows himself up.
Here lies the film's biggest flaw — and its greatest danger. "Munich" reeks of moral relativism. It puts the terrorists and those who respond to terror on even moral footing. It suggests that Israel must pay, one way or another, for vengeance.
In Time magazine, Spielberg reveals how Hollywood he's sunk. About the Israelis, he said, tellingly, "A response to a response doesn't really solve anything."
Wait! The unprovoked atrocity carried out by Arabs in Munich is a "response?" To what, exactly? To the existence of Israel
posted by GayandRight @ 9:29 AM
5 Comments:
Kushner. Oy.
See now, I'm looking forward to this. It's based on the novel (actually, novel is the wrong word, since it's not fiction.... but it reads like a thriller!) "Vengeance" by George Jonas, which is a great read that I highly recommend, and is certainly very pro-Israel (as is Mr. Jonas of course).
Now, perhaps the film version will be significantly different from Jonas' work, but I'll reserve judgement until I see the film. I don't think it's shocking that some of the characters will have some moral dilemnas. Certainly the members of the actual hit team did. Even if you're assasinating terrorists, it must be pretty emotionally draining to spend your days posing as terrorists (the Israeli hit teams were DEEP undercover, posing as terrorist cells, buying their weapons and explosives from terrorists... even using other terrorist organizations for additional manpower!) and assasinating people for a living, can't be an easy thing to do, even if they've got it coming.
Anyway, I doubt that Spielberg's film will be at all anti-Israel, but I'm sure it won't sugar coat the complexities of setting up assasination squads designed to pretend to be terrorist cells and go out and assasinate terrorist leaders. It's draining work, and takes a toll. These guys were really good at what they did, and when you do what they do, that takes a lot out of you.
I can't read the Post article (subscriber only) so I wanted to ask something. Is it clear from the reviewer that the review realizes this is a true story? Because he refers to the Israeli agent "mercifully blowing himself up" almost as though he doesn't realize that this is a real life Israeli agent, who really did blow himself up by accident.
Anyway, I just wonder if the reviewer is slamming Speilberg for something he assumes came from Kushner's imagination, when in fact this is a true story.
Of course, one can always quibble with a writer's interpretation of events, that's fair game. I'm just wondering if it's clear from the review that the reviewer is aware of the true story, or if it's possible that he thinks Speilberg and Kushner are just making this stuff up, and that's what's got him upset.
Also, I'd like to point out that the "response" quote from the review is taken COMPLETELY out of context. Speilberg was not referring specifically to Munich at all, but to Israeli responses to attacks generally.
A fuller quote gives a better impression of what he was saying:
"I'm always in favor of Israel responding strongly when it's threatened. At the same time, a response to a response doesn't really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual-motion machine," he says. "There's been a quagmire of blood for blood for many decades in that region. Where does it end? How can it end?"
Here's an interesting quote from the Time article on the movie:
"Indeed, since June, when filming began, the movie has been surrounded by rumors, criticism and suggestions that Spielberg was too pro-Israel to make a fair movie on the subject".
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home