Steven Spielberg's unforgivable 'sin'

[bloom]

Jan. 3, 2006 23:27 | Updated Jan. 4, 2006 16:35
Steven Spielberg's unforgivable 'sin'
By ELI VALLEY

...

Fast forward 45 years, to the current clamor over Munich, Steven Spielberg's most complex and conflicted film to date, and the battle over Jewish representations is as fierce as ever. One of the more vociferous criticisms of the film is that Spielberg and his co-screenwriter, Tony Kushner, allowed the film's protagonist, Mossad agent Avner, to be plagued by doubts about his mission. Months before the movie's release, Michael B. Oren, author of Six Days of War, launched a preemptive strike against Munich when he told The New York Times: "I don't know how many of them actually had 'troubling doubts' about what they were doing... I don't see Dirty Harry feeling guilt-ridden."

...

But what makes Munich a complex film - and a bane to its right-wing critics - is not that Spielberg has feminized the Mossad. The problem is that he has humanized it.

Charges of "humanization" have dogged Munich from the start. The irony is that in this film Spielberg has gone to the greatest lengths in his career to create human beings as opposed to cardboard cutouts as characters. For this he has earned the wrath of those who refuse to concede ambiguities in Israel's history. The criticism of "humanization" is most often leveled at the film's portrayal of Palestinian terrorists who, the critics claim, are given moral equivalency with the Mossad agents.

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But even the literal definition of "humanize" is insufficient for the film's politically-minded opponents. To those who see the Middle East as an absolute struggle of Good versus Evil, it is inconceivable that terrorists might be rational, sentient beings. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any portrayal of terrorists, short of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park or the aliens in War of the Worlds, that would placate Spielberg's most ardent critics.

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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1136102665051&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[saltpoint]

1. This post is provocative and interesting. Bravo. -- n/t

[sweetm2475]

2. read a similar article in my local sunday paper

why can't people even try to be objective about this issue?

[Hardrada]

3. I want to know that too. Does one side here

have a monopoly on righteousness? It seems too complicated and lengthy an issue for that.

[Violet_Crumble]

4. I'm going to put Munich on my Must Watch list...

I liked this bit of the article, which is so true:

"To those who see the Middle East as an absolute struggle of Good versus Evil, it is inconceivable that terrorists might be rational, sentient beings. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any portrayal of terrorists, short of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park or the aliens in War of the Worlds, that would placate Spielberg's most ardent critics."

[bloom]

5. Image control

It's interesting the importance of macho-ness in Israel (which I don't usually think about) - and how it intersects with Bush*s cowboy effect.


One critic sniffed, "Real Mossad agents who hunted the terrorists... were not metrosexual sensitive guys."

Sounds like the Republicans attacking Dean.

[Djinn]

6. Me too

but only because Bana is a big spunk, why do people always get their knickers in a twist about movies? it's ENTERTAINMENT not an academic treatise sheesh.