Spielberg & Kushner's Munich '72 / Israeli vengeance film

You mean, a great filmmaker? ;)

Ah, sorry, didn't skim down that far.

No, that's not what I meant.

(I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a Spielberg movie, he just has terrible ideas.)

I mean if ever a subject was made NOT to be handled by a Spielberg-type filmmaker, I would think this one would be it.

Alex OTM

Since SS made the best Hollywood treatment to date of slavery... (I realize "Amistad" wasn't inventive cinema like "SpiderMan 2.")

this sounds like a really interesting project to me.

They were asleep by the end! Give 'em a break!

Actually that's really the only danger here.

actually the two projects have merged, along with nora ephron's "you've got anthrax!"

xp

I think Alex is confusing Steve S with Ridley "In space no one can hear you snore" Scott!

That's probably true. Still: if it's a mess, then that's just incentive for someone else to tackle the subject a few years down the line and make a better one. This is neither the first nor the last film that will be made about Munich.

There's nothing wrong with it per se, particularly when its in the service to a larger vision - but here the controversy IS the vision. I don't see any reason for this film to exist apart from its value to Spielberg as an attention-getter. Where is the story in this film, why does it need to be told? where is the conflict, where are the characters?

"who would be a better director for this project and why?"

well I offered a different tack upthread (which I would personally be more interested in seeing but hey, I like allegories). To make this subject interesting and able to stand on its own apart from its historical sources, the story would have to be re-contextualized beyond its already well-established global political framework of Israeli violence vs. Palestinian suffering. I can't think of a better director off-hand - someone deft enough to keep the politics in the background and a compelling story/plot/characters up front... I'm sure there's someone but I'm drawing blanks...

One might presume, from Kushner's hiring -- to remove the pure-white hat the Israeli government wears in the eyes of a large chunk of the US population?

To say certain events don't have a film story in them is awfully sweeping. The approach is everything.

Where is the story in this film, why does it need to be told? where is the conflict, where are the characters?

I don't understand this question at all, but Dr. Morbius' answer is a good start.

I can't get with that as a good reason to make a movie. Not because I'm sympathetic to Israel (I definitely am NOT), but because such a narrow scope is inherently limiting and boring. There have to be bigger themes involved beyond the immediate politics.

"To say certain events don't have a film story in them is awfully sweeping. The approach is everything."

okay, fair enough - a good story can be made out of any subject, true. But given Spielberg's hamfisted approach, I bet he won't even TRY to fashion a decent story. Instead he will go for the obvious, politically literal jugular - he has no impetus to do otherwise. To forego the politics in favor of a more interesting plot is antithetical to his whole schtick.

xpost

(the Jodorowsky stuff at Lost Weekend is all VHS and/or PAL transfers, for some reason they don't have the DVDs. Le Video might, I don't know)

(Holy Mountain looks amazing, El Topo a little less so. It's tricky for me to make DVD copies, but I might be able to do it this weekend...?)

Politically and cinematically, both of em are infinitely subtler than the inexplicably unmentioned-as-yet Oliver Stone.

I think he has become a bit more nuanced in recent years than you make him out to be. See: AI, Minority Report, War of the Worlds. Not the height of subtlety, no, but I think lately he's more willing to raise compelling human issues than you give him credit for. And I am willing to give him a little slack since he's so huge (I'll try to clarify if that makes no sense).

xpost thanks for the info/link!

The answer for the question should be obvious (it's a remarkable spy story), but the second question is more difficult. How did they handle it in that movie about the rescue at Entebbe? It's been so long since I've seen that film, I can longer comment on its quality.

I think there's something to be said for that.

OTM completely. you gotta watch spielberg movies as, you know, movies. you will see some amazing shit in a spielberg movie. (so many great shots in Minority Report, for instance)

in this particular instance I'm having a hard time figuring out what those themes would even be (revenge is bad? violence hurts people?) - I haven't seen Amistad but I thought Saving Private Ryan (what I saw of it anyway, I got bored two-thirds of the way in) and Schindler's List were totally hamstrung by the weight of their source material. Spielberg stuck awful hard to the "this really happened and that's why you should care" tack, and I find that pedestrian and tiresome in the extreme. I can't tell you what the "bigger theme" of Schindler's List is. I hated that movie because it removed all moral ambiguity very early on - it trampled all over any real, potentially interesting subtexts - and the plot reads like a laundry list of "nice things Mr. Schindler did for those poor Jews".

yeah, I agree with this wholeheartedly. and the reason I'm bored by Spielberg movies is that extraordinary cinematography, editing, sound design ARE NOT ENOUGH. First and foremost, I have to care about what's going on on-screen, about the characters, about the themes of the story. If that isn't there, the rest is all just lipstick on a pig.

xpost

Yeah, I LOVE John Waters too.

I don't think ANYBODY wants this.

Oddly, I think the infamous "I could've saved one more person" scene is the major counter to this, and the biggest error in the film.

this is going back a few posts (ok, lots), but it really sticks in my craw. Do you have any other set response to someone criticizing a film or director you like aside from "OMG U MUST HAVE AWFUL POPCORN TASTE!!!"? I've seen it in numerous threads - the one that sticks out is when I said something negative about Guy Maddin and your first response was basically "Yeah, well what does a Coen Bros. fan like you know huh?"
This despite the fact that I'd given no indication of fandom for the Coens (and in fact, basically dislike every film of theirs I've seen save The Hudsucker Proxy).

I would love to see the Day the Clown Cried though.

Real-Life Story: Glamour, Danger, Drugs and Death

Domino Harvey's exploits working for one of L.A.'s most famous bail bondsmen, Celes King III, inspired a big-budget movie to be released in August starring Keira Knightley.

By Chris Lee and Richard Winton
Times Staff Writers

July 1, 2005

Domino Harvey was a British beauty born to wealth and privilege.

The daughter of British actor Laurence Harvey and a frequent subject of British tabloid stories, she modeled on the runways of Europe before leaving the limelight to become a bounty hunter in South Los Angeles in the mid-1990s, carrying around her shotgun, Betsy.

In the shadow of Hollywood, Harvey's life made for perfect cinema. So much so that her exploits working for one of L.A.'s most famous bail bondsmen, Celes King III, inspired a big-budget movie to be released in August starring Keira Knightley.

But this week, just after director Tony Scott completed work on the picture, Harvey was found unconscious in the bathtub of her West Hollywood home. She later died. The Los Angeles County coroner's office had not determined a cause of death, though officials said they doubted foul play was involved.

Her death stunned Scott, Knightley and others who worked on the movie and made the 35-year-old once again fodder for the British tabloids.

The last few months of her life, however, were far from a happy Hollywood ending. She faced up to 10 years in federal prison on a federal grand jury indictment in Mississippi accusing her of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, distribution of methamphetamine and Oxycodone, and racketeering. She also pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance and was ordered into a treatment program.

A veteran of long periods in rehab, including two years at a top-dollar Hawaiian facility, Harvey was with "minders" from a 12-step program when she died, said British author Peter Evans, who described himself as her godfather.

"One of her favorite quotes was 'Heads you live and tails you die.' That to me encapsulates how she lived her life," Scott said. "There was nothing as intoxicating, not even drugs, as actually kicking down a door and wondering what was on the other side."

Harvey's mother was British Vogue model Paulene Stone, one of the faces of the '60s. Her father died when she was 4.

Her mother met and married Peter Morton, the Hard Rock Cafe impresario. The couple moved to United States while Harvey attended a series of exclusive British boarding schools.

"I think it was fear of the unknown and being alone that made me so aggressive," she once told the British paper Mail on Sunday.

She claimed in news reports to have been a model with the prestigious Ford agency, but no one there remembers her.

She came to the States and turned up first as a ranch hand near San Diego, then as a firefighter.

About 1993, the girl from Mayfair took to the streets of South Los Angeles, working as a bail recovery agent for the Celes King Bail Bond Agency.

"She was a real-life bounty hunter. She did her share of recoveries: drug pushers, beaters and some tough guys accused of murder," said Teri King, daughter of the founder and now president of King Bail Bond Agency.

"In those days, like most bounty hunters, she packed a gun. I remember her talking war stories with my father," a renowned civil rights activist as well as a bail bondsman, King said.

A British tabloid reporter once described the tall blond pointing a shotgun at a bail jumper's stomach as he lay at her feet.

Harvey, one of few women in the recovery business, worked with another bounty hunter, Ed Martinez, a Vietnam veteran. They were an odd couple. "Her English accent was kind of disarming. People would never think she was there for them," King said.

"She did it for at least a couple of years in the early 1990s. The last time I saw her was 1998, when she came to visit my dad about a high-profile fugitive," King said. Scott said he picked up Harvey's story in the 1990s from a British tabloid and tracked her down.

She remained part of his life for the next dozen years, he said.

"She's an extraordinary character. On one hand, she was an adrenaline junkie by nature of what she did. On the other, she's a bit of a wounded bird. A fascinating little thing," Scott said.

"I helped her through some hard times, whether it was money or advice," he said. "She was like a surrogate daughter to me."

The director said he was aware of Harvey's drug use, although he never saw it, and knew she had been to drug rehabilitation centers more than once. "She always liked conducting life wide open and maximum-throttle," he said.

Scott recalled another of her mottoes: "It's a great day to die. Now I gotta go to work."

The film is only loosely based on her life, he said. "The story is manufactured, but it's a story about that world. It's an outrageous piece of rock 'n' roll." Scott said Harvey was happy that the movie, a dozen years in the making, was finally off the ground. He said it made her feel "classy."

She was around for the last two or three weeks of filming and "in great shape," he added.

But in May, federal authorities accused Harvey and Eric Pae of possession with intent to distribute a large amount of methamphetamine in Harrison County, Miss. They were also charged with distributing 11 doses of Oxycodone.

"These are very serious charges," said Jose Martinez of the Drug Enforcement Administration. The West Hollywood home Harvey owned with her sister, Sophie Harvey, was used to secure her $1-million bond. She was due in a Mississippi court this month.

According to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, she recently was charged with possession for sale of methamphetamine and pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance.

Mike Mayock, one of her attorneys, said she was adamant about her innocence in the trafficking case, insisting that someone else gave up her name to save himself.

"This case involved quite a lot of methamphetamine," Mayock said. "She was an interesting person who led an interesting life. She wasn't really, however, interested in money."

Mayock also said Harvey was not despondent enough to take her own life. Even in a federal jail cell, she remained upbeat, complaining only about having to share facilities with a woman accused of carving up her husband, the lawyer said.

After her release, she retreated to her home, an elaborately landscaped two-story cottage in the shadow of the Pacific Design Center, with a back house over the garage. Sheriff's deputies and paramedics were called to the back house Monday night about 10:30 p.m.

Harvey was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she was declared dead shortly after 11 p.m. An autopsy was conducted Wednesday, but a cause of death won't be determined until toxicological tests are completed, authorities said.

Evans said he thought Harvey had been clean since her release from the clinic in Hawaii in 2001. But he also said she remained a lost person.

"At the heart of this woman, this woman was lost," Evans said. "She was looking for a role to play in her life that she'd be comfortable with. I think she was on the track. But she never got there. And she's more famous dead than alive."

The general level of dismissal Spielberg gets on ILX is appropriate to George Lucas (who's not beloved, but given more credit for less reason).

Spielberg is both heavily overrated (mainstream critics, middle Americans, many of whom seem to have him confused with the BEST DIRECTOR EVER) and underrated (people who think everything he ever did is worthless).

xp

http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2002-05-02/movie_reviews3-1.jpg

The real director who should make this film is plainly Michael Winner, with Charles Bronson in the starring role. "You T-heads picked on the wrong country to mess with... now it's payback time"

Lamest of accusations. Film is manipulative by def, and HOW DARE any artist engage the emotions.

-- Shakey Mo Collier (audiobo...), July 1st, 2005.

yeah but the cinematography, editing, sound, etc -- ie the things specific to cinema -- these are how characters, stories, etc are made. otherwise you're looking for a novel.

Politically it could explode nastily, but then only someone with the kind of studio clout Spielberg has could even GET a film like this made.

My real problem with this film is aesthetic... I fear that it will basically be syrupy sentimental version of Kill Bill. In fact I fear this so much that I will now stop reading about it and make sure to stay away from the cinema if it eventually gets made.

It's begun shooting:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0408306/fullcredits

read one first post:

LOS ANGELES, June 30 - On Wednesday, Steven Spielberg's apocalyptic thriller "War of the Worlds" invaded movie theaters worldwide. But the director had already moved on. That night in Malta, Mr. Spielberg quietly began filming the most politically charged project he has yet attempted: the tale of a secret Mossad hit squad ordered to assassinate Palestinian terrorists after the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

OK. well how about mawkishly sentimental? I mean, does a film ostensibly about alien communists coming for our women really have to be about a father bonding with his stupid children? I bet this film will feature a scene in which the executioner guy has marital difficulties and a wife who says "Why are you always off killing t-heads when the kids need a father in their life?".

http://www.filmz.ru/pub/8/5250_1.htm

http://www.filmz.ru/mshot/5250/6.jpg

Could be Eric Bana's first good film since "Chopper"?

Amistad was garbage. Fuck movies where Matthew McCannaughy plays the conquering white hero.

Dream on.

I was really affected by the movie, particularly the retelling of the voyage over to America, but Matthew McNakedbongo was rather blatantly the hero; saying otherwise is madness.

I cannot sing "Anything Goes" in Mandarin.

milo, I haven't seen In America yet, do you recommend?

Hounsou, by turns, is scary/saintly black man in In America. Fortunately, even sanctifying "E.T." in that film wouldn't earn Jim Sheridan the ravenous hatred Spielberg inspires.

McConaughey gave a creditable perf in Amistad, and no big-budget studio film was going to have most of its dialogue in African dialect.

Does it ever occur to you when multiple people are all disagreeing with you on the same exact point, it's not because they're morons or idiots or uncultured or enjoy only popcorn cinema (WHICH IS REALLY REALLY AN ODD INSULT COMING FROM A SPIELBERG FAN) or that they are Spike Lee (??? is there some massive feud between Lee and Spielberg that makes this comment anything less than nonsense, btw?), but it's because, like, what you're saying doesn't make very good sense?

It is very clear that Djimon Honsou is not the hero of Amistad, he really isn't the protagonist, unless by hero you "heroic figure of some type who triumphed over severe adversity," ie like the way someone might say something like "Firemen are all heroes," in which case, yes, he was a hero in Amistad. But if that is the usage you are using, maybe you should consider the fact that the rest of us are using the traditional hero-as-protagonist/main-character sort of way. The way most people do, when they discuss films.

The ravenous hatred of Spielberg is your usual hyperbolic strawman. Nobody hates Spielberg, we just wish he made better movies. Indiana Jones IV? I'm there. The Terminal 2? Fuck you.

am slightly mystified by this comment. do you mean the platoon in 'SPR' was too white? cos that's kind of how it went down, segregation-wise.

>will this be another SPR? The appearance of being a hard-hitting, morally-complicated adult movie that turns into a jingoistic afternoon serial? <

SPR ain't perfect -- I'd heave this Williams score, among others -- but how the fuck is it jingoistic, when it raises morality-on-the-battlefield questions in the middle of The Good War? Cuz it opens and closes with shots of the Stars and Stripes, looking rather washed out with the sun behind it?

How does the latter contradict the former (at ALL)? I'd heave the entirity of SPR. Bad music, poor editing, poorer acting, hamfisted plot, tons of NATIONALIST RAH RAH stuff (and a handy-dandy LOOK DAS GERMANS ARE EVIL scenes to boot.) There are Spielberg films I can tolerate, but his "serious" films are without fail predominantly garbage. They aren't even fun.

as for 'i need more moral ambiguity with my nazis' -- why?

(wait, Alex doesn't like John Ford either, right?)

Ed Burns is rather evil as well.

xpost

xpost give me a fuckin break

The setup is very SPR-like - 'we must do our duty, even when it is stupid and even morally compromised, because it is our DUTY.'

But I'm not going to pretend that his track record doesn't give me room for concern.

(xp)

especially with kushner writing

So get the fuck off it ethan, either you're arguing me about SPR (which I just said I don't remember and neither like nor dislike) or you're arguing with me about a film I've passed no judgement on that hasn't been released yet. If you're arguing with me that, like, I don't like Spielberg's treatment of serious subjects in previous films, well bully for fucking you dude. Direct your idiotic momus-baiting (???) at Alex, I guess.

I think this movie stands a chance! If I like it I will just make sure to keep track of the total running time and leave 15 minutes prior to the credits, so that I don't have the experience ruined by five and a half pounds of lukewarm velveeta shot down my esophagus.

anyway--SPR is pretty good. not anywhere near the league of something like The Thin Red Line. too many people fetishize ambiguity for the sake of ambiguity. what i liked about it though was the anxiety about paying debts to those who have made sacrifices on your behalf. the injunction to "earn it" is such a huge mind fuck!! (yes i know i he veers away from that abyss to some bland conclusion, but still it's there)

both these movies are shit.

That said, I still agree with those who said he'll probably fuck the whole movie up with the last 15 minutes. Every time I see one of his movies, I'm almost yelling at the screen: "Okay! OKAY! I get the fucking POINT already! Turn the strings down, dude."

Catch Me If You Can and the Terminal were just awful, though.

If you mean by that "the last 25 minutes."

The ending of "AI" is perfect, creepy, and the same one Kubrick and his writers devised.

Fidel Castro thinks "Jaws" is a great critique of capitalism (ie, let's keep those beaches open).

For all his unevenness, Spielberg, among directors working in the classical Hollywood style, has one of the greatest image-making talents in the history of the medium. If you don't happen to like the classical Hollywood style, fine. That's why Tarantino's fetish for remixing '70s drive-in movies has a market (and probably why they do better in DVD sales than at the b.o.).

well, ok, if it is then sign me up. was it a Bad War, or more bad than good? the germans were evil SOBs, and they did get what was coming to them.

The setup is very SPR-like - 'we must do our duty, even when it is stupid and even morally compromised, because it is our DUTY.'

again, how was liberating france 'stupid and morally compromised'?

-- gear (speed.to.roa...), November 8th, 2005.

gear otm, as usual

I'm not gonna like your movie either.

POSITIVE NINE BILLION STYLE POINTS

-- TOMBOT (stick...), November 9th, 2005.

hahah otm

Mayor Murray Hamilton, ladies and gents.

I don't think The Big Red One is as great as Fullerites claim either, but he and Spielberg are no more alike than either of them resemble Malick.

The post-Normandy SPR narrative harkens back to '40s WW2 movies like "A Walk in the Sun," and improves on most of them.

No I wouldn't say either is much alike either, although there are some obvious similarities between TBR1 and SPR (and not just the Normandy sequences.)

You know, if you would stick to this argument there wouldn't be an argument here. YES, Spielberg is great at imagery. Virtually everything else about his "serious" films, I've found ultimately distasteful. Not because I am not a fan of "classic style" or whatever you wish to call him today, but because I. Cannot. Stand. The. Types. Of. Scripts. And. Actors. He. Usually. Works. With.

Capiche? This has virtually nothing to do with any other movie maker or director or style of script that I might or might not enjoy or some preference for, what was it, '70s pastiche over classic Hollywood style. It has to do with NOT wanting to watch Spielberg indulging his more maudlin side, and preferring to watch Spielberg indulging his '30s action serials side or, uh, his dinosaur side, or something. Because I think that, in non-cinemtagraphoricalesquey terms, he goes way OTT (and yes, I know it is not "him" necessarily going way OTT but I mean ultimately a dude like Spielberg has a lotta say in the scripts and actors he chooses to work with and how they turn out. We're not discussing, like, Brett Ratner here).

and I think Donnie Wahlberg, John Livingston, Neal McDonough, and the rest trounced Hanks and co. in their acting.

again, how was liberating france 'stupid and morally compromised'?
Which part of SPR was about 'liberating France'? The part I saw was about doing your duty, rescuing one guy at the cost of numerous lives, the evilness of the average German, etc..

I hated the fact that they bring up the pointlessness of the mission but then throw it aside for more rousing rah-rah imagery. I think I could almost forgive the middle section of the film (which had some great war-movie performances from Vin Diesel and the like) if not for that last 30 minutes - Tom Hanks superhero, EARN THIS, I'M A GOOD MAN RIGHT?

The Big Red One wasn't a complete success, but its flaws were more honest and interesting than what I saw of SPR. Lee Marvin and the camp survivor, the kid firing into the furnace stall long after the German is dead.

Spielberg is great at imagery = Spielberg is great at the most important part of moviemaking.

>they bring up the pointlessness of the mission but then throw it aside for more rousing rah-rah imagery.<

Here again we come back to the Fuller/Truffaut/whoever maxim that there are no antiwar films. Are any scenes where weapons are fired 'rah-rah'?

A great war film not yet mentioned in this thread is Empire of the Sun.

Maybe to YOU. I prefer my movies to be exciting and well-paced whether they have a bunch of amazing shots in them or not.
Therefore: Thin Red Line & SPR = shit.

I don't want to see your movie either.

Again, I think it's highly precious that a Spielberg fanatic is actually throwing around terms like that in a fairly dismissive and insulting way.

The whole imagery is the most important part of the whole of moviemaking comment is approaching Geirism.

Not many Bela Tarr fans here, then.

That Tarantino is great at PACE! He musta written Kill Bill with one hand on the remote and the other on his dick.

>great empty visualists like tarkovsky<

I don't want to see your movie either. BANG! the Comedy Rule of Three!

The part where, if the squad hadn't shown up where they did when they did, the Germans would have controlled the bridge and thus prevented a major part of the Allied offensive from Normandy into the rest of France. A development that is positively Kubrickian in the way that chance and contingency interfere in human planning, if not pulled off with quite the same depth or panache.

I don't consider "dumb escapism" insulting. Comparing an ambitious war film to one featuring a character named DANNY THE TUNNEL KING could be, tho.

Seeya when "Munich" opens. I'm off to tell Tom Stoppard and Tony Kushner they are CRAP.

but this maybe applies to my own reasons for liking spielberg's films. i really genuinely connect to a lot of the anxiety and fear and guilt and awe that pervades his work. his serious films are almost always about guilt rather than anxiety or fear or awe. SPR is ALL about guilt to me, it's in some ways a reflection of white american midwesterners being the ones to liberate the concentration camps--saving people they neither knew nor maybe even cared about. the investigation of THAT pretty amazing event is what the movie seems to be about to me.

but my point i guess is that i am willing to look past all his considerable flaws, just like i am willing ot look past Malick's considerable flaws in TTRL, or ANY ARTIST EVER because none are perfect, is because i find some emotional, intellectual, or even spiritual reward in their work. i find all 3 in spielberg.

whoops.

That's mighty white of you, Thurston. Go get yer ass blown off.

"everyone but Matt Damon and Ed Burns and that cowardly one gets killed" = "joyous happenstance of the heroic few"

jorelly, I would like to discuss this further with you. Why do you think that? I am not sure I understand what some members of the audience are referring to when they are referring to "pacing"--a slowly paced movie can be just as rewarding as a quickly paced movie, so I don't think any of the people here are discussing some kind of pow-bam-boom-action-only type of idea. Pacing is pretty relevant to storytelling, which the majority of films claim to do--like I said, we're not talking fast versus slow, we're talking inconsistent and clumsy versus smooth and compelling (at any speed of pace).

So, I would like for you to defend your statement.

but really, all people mean when they talk about good pacing in film is that there are no long boring parts between the cool parts.

http://www.imdb.com/Name?Bay,+Michael

Uh, yeah. What Dan said. Unless you're trying to claim Spielberg as some kind of avant garde, this doesn't make much sense on this thread. Spielberg is clearly doing both--if you asked him, he'd say the same.

Regardless, if filmmaking somehow doesn't include the story, whatever it is, a person is trying to tell with their film, does it include the actors or the music or etc etc etc? Or are you really trying to split it right down to the idea that filmmaking is nothing more than moving photographs, and as such arguments about a filmmaker that criticize his choice in things besides pure cinematography are irrelevant???

Stenc, "pacing" is very relevant to shit-throwing monkeys whose visual experience has been hardwired by bad TV.

This is utterly batshit insane. 'Pacing' is a function of editing and narrative - you want to tell me no critics in history, Agee to Kael to Rosenbaum to Farber etc. - have ever considered that in valuing a film?

hahah! spielberg is like the original shit-throwing monkey whose visual experience has been hardwired by bad TV!!

-- monkeybutler (pdenniso...), November 9th, 2005.

this is an excellent point.

I don't give a damn how ambitious Spielberg might have thought SPR was - in the end it was just a soothing version of standard war movie heroism lined with morally questionable choices to give it a veneer of 'adult' respectability.
-- Are You Nomar? (wooderso...), November 9th, 2005.

ah i see. how do you know when the morally questionable choices are applique or integral to the film? intuition?

the pacing/storytelling/imagery thing... in practice it's hard to tell these apart. even slow, non-narrative films have some kind of pace but then i can think of a fair number of films which have multiple rhythms and moods. 'last crusade' is all pace, all the way: it's almost a continuous chase. but sometimes an incredible shot has rhythm and drives the narrative: eg the amazing single take travelling shot in 'war of the worlds' (haha or 'touch of evil') which follows cruise's car down the motorway.

When they appear once per castmember and are never discussed again, and the whole movie is bookended with three and a half pounds of mild orange cheddar, those are pretty good indicators.

Which brings us back to a massive problem people have with Spielberg, minus all the discomforts we've discussed about his execution, he seems like he spends a lot of time stepping out on the cliff edge from which one descends into auteur-space, looking down, putting his hand out to show that he's totally going to do it, then turning around and using his complete control of the project to make sure it doesn't really offend or shock anybody over 7.

You almost get the feeling that after he made Jaws he realized that the super cheesy fake shark was exactly what he wanted all along, and used that as a guideline!

I meant 'PACING' with the quotes ... ie, "oh no, nothing's happening, the camera is static, a dialogue scene went on for more than 3 minutes, etc."

Forget I said anything as well. Ever. Let Frank & Hot Lips be your guides.

Yeah, but nobody you're discussing this with (yes, I am making the assumption I can speak for slocki and Alex on this one, knowing some of their other tastes in film) meant pacing in that fashion. I'm not really sure why you feel the need to be such a condescending prick on these threads so I'm going to take your advice and forget you've ever said anything.

And yeah, I think Tom basically hits it on the head, the potential for true greatness Spielberg has shown is what really creates the violent reaction towards him; it's kind of like no one gets really angry if they go to see a Michael Bay film and he pusses out on some BIG MEANINGFUL THING but with Spielberg it's kind of like, then why did you bother making this film? Why not keep doing what you excelled at, which is big blockbuster entertainment? He doesn't straddle the line very neatly at all. (and yeah, Enrique OTM in that he's not alone)

i dont mean to pick on this post because i think it's a good one. but one reason spielberg is such an interesting figure to debate is that it forces (or should force) the participants to ask themselves just what is so bad about a "happy" ending, or lack of ambiguity, or something that doesn't offend or shock anyone over 7. (all of these issues are pretty up front in the end of AI, i think).

why do we value these things in storytelling or filmmaking? what makes them better? (because they better correspond to "reality"? is that really valid?)

anyway, just some stupid thoughts

SPOILER ALERT

Though I thought the part where Eric Bana turned green and started throwing Palestinian tanks around was a little much.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1137684,00.html

3.2

"Really, much like Match Point and Woody Allen, you would not know this was a Steven Spielberg movie if you didn't see his name on it. He really gives up his style crutches for the cleanest telling of this story. And as a result, it really has the feeling of early 70s film, particularly The Conversation, The Day of the Jackal, and even a bit of The Godfather."

http://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/2005_thb/051206_tue.html

I think the Toms issue is a major factor for me as well. More loathesome actors surely don't exist?

AND THEY'RE NOT IN THIS

However, OTM about Patricia Arquette.

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/001430.html

His second film of the year with not-so-oblique 9/11 associations.

1. King David Hotel: The bombing of the King David Hotel, which served as headquarters of the British administration in Palestine, killed 91 Arabs, Jews, and Brits in 1946. Two future Prime Ministers of Israel, David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin, masterminded the attack. Disguised as Arabs, members of Begin's Irgun placed 350kg of explosives inside the building. In this action-packed thriller, David (Pierce Brosnan) — a British officer ordered to hunt down the killers — falls for Margaret (Uma Thurman), an American journalist working for Life Magazine. But is Margaret really in love or is she a secret Zionist assassin out to stop David in his tracks?

2. Nakba: A story of innocent love in a time of war and tragedy. Layla (Penelope Cruz) & Salam (Orlando Bloom) are a Romeo & Juliet against the backdrop of the 1948 Nakba, the Palestinian national catastrophe. During the Nakba, over 700,000 Palestinians fled — voluntarily & involuntarily — their homes. Can their love survive conflict?

3. USS Liberty: When Israeli boats and fighter jets attack the US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty in the middle of the 1967 Six Day War, 34 US servicemen are killed and 173 are wounded. The official word from Washington and Tel Aviv is that the attack was a mistake. But Brad Pitt & Tom Cruise, who play surviving officers from the Liberty, swear vengeance after discovering that the attack was actually part of a plot to start World War III.

4. Sabra & Shatila: It's 1982 and the war in Lebanon rages on. British war correspondent Robert Fisk (Star Wars star Ewan MacGregor) hides in the camps of Sabra & Shatilla, while a Lebanese militia aided and abetted by Israel slaughters thousands of Palestinian refugees. Sahar (Sandra Bullock) is a Palestinian mother determined to protect her family at any cost.

5. Vanunu: A political thriller set in Israel, Australia, Thailand, England, and Italy. "Syriana" star George Clooney plays Mordechai Vanunu, the nuclear technician who exposes Israel's nuclear weapons program and pays the ultimate price. Nicole Kidman plays Cheryl Bentov, the American Mossad agent who seduces and kidnaps him.

6. Hebron: A story of tragedy and torn loyalties. In 1994, Brooklyn Jewish doctor Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslim worshippers in Hebron, killing 29. Palestinian American Mazen Khalili (Tom Hanks), a State Department official assigned to investigate the massacre, struggles with his job responsibilities and his roots. Leah Rabinowitz (Meg Ryan) is a Jewish American journalist who discovers a dark family secret that will change her life forever.

7. Qana: On April 18, 1996, Israeli shelling of a UN Compound that shelters Lebanese refugees kills more than 100 & injures over 300 men, women, and children. Jessica (Angelina Jolie) is a UN worker determined to let the world know what happened after witnessing the atrocity. Yossi (Robert De Niro) is a Mossad agent assigned to kill Jolie.

8. Gaza: Chris Hedges (Harrison Ford), a New York Times correspondent in Jerusalem, files stories from his hotel room. Hedges reaches a turning point when he witnesses Israeli soldiers killing young Palestinian boys for sport, then defies his editors by writing stories that humanize Palestinians. David Schwimmer & Sarah Jessica Parker make cameo appearances as the parents of Muhammad al-Durra, the 12 year old Palestinian boy killed by Israeli troops in 2000.

9. Rachel: Rachel Corrie (Gwyneth Paltrow) is the idealistic young American activist crushed to death by the Israeli army with a Caterpillar bulldozer. Sally Field, well-known for her role in "Not Without My Daughter", plays Rachel's mother.

10. Refuseniks: When a fellow soldier commits suicide after killing an unarmed pregnant Palestinian woman (played by Natalie Portman) in cold blood, two young Israeli soldiers (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) decide that the occupation and the killing of Palestinians is immoral and unjust.

Out of curiosity, who would that include?

This is not shocking (nothing indicated that this movie was going to be a sop to the Israeli ultra-right.)

http://www.slate.com/id/2133050/?nav=fo

Armond White in this week's New York Press: "But that doesn’t mean Munich peddles lofty bromides. The sun doesn’t rise over a happily united Holy Land. Actually, Munich may be the most down-and-dirty espionage movie ever made—more moving and exacting than any film produced during the Cold War. Call Spielberg “The artist who came in from the cold,” bringing humane standards to a medium that regularly earns profit by the cool exploitation of man’s inhumanity to man. Scenes of killing, and the moments of cunning that lead up to death, are done here with absolute, graphic realism. (Nothing is cheaply ironic like blood splashing on a portrait of Jesus in Capote’s massacre scene.) Spielberg’s almost casual, reportorial observation of murder is intimate, shocking and reverberates long after the movie is over. Watching the savagery in the Israeli athlete’s dormitory feels so much like an existential trap that it has dull, dreadful terror. That refusal to “wow” proves Spielberg’s respect for history; it is shown through his exquisitely subtle technique that calls on our imagination and thus moves one to utter sorrow."

There were a few good moments here and there--the confrontation in the safe house in Athens was pretty hot. Well, till they got to the bit with the radio. Spielberg always fucks it up, doesn't he? I liked all the actors, though.

I saw Pat O'Brien waiting for popcorn at the theatre.

also two: whoever played his wife, fucking hot

The final third was a disaster. A crushing disappointment.

I'm not sure why you thought the ending was such a crushing disappointment. It seemed to me that the film kind of just petered out. A few more members of the team died, he got called back, he retired... maybe not the most satisfying conclusion, but hardly seemed like the stuff of a disaster.

Also: the Papa family's Manchurian Candidate-style omnipotence didn't ring true either. It seemed as if Spielberg and his writers found a pat solution to an immensely complex problem.

I liked the movie, but like others are saying, only the first 60% is darkly fascinating...

That said, I liked this film.

Also: nobody told me that the dude from Kings and Queen was in this (as Louis)!

bana is flashing on munich in this intimate moment (nevermind that he's seeing it as it happened; it'd be too difficult to show us his imagined version without incurring confusion) because spielberg wants to show us two things:

1) for the individual embroiled in it, revenge by terrorism has no logical beginning and no end. although bana has no direct connection to the events at munich, it nonetheless puts a machine in motion that will consume him, just as future terrorists will be consumed in the act of retaliating against his actions. the fact that bana wasn't even at munich is a critical component to him being haunted by it.

2) 'home' is as much about piece of mind and security as physical location (part of a larger statement about the counterintuitiveness of endangering family to fight for land)

on another note, did anybody notice that the middle of the film is a homage to Ronin, right down to Michael Lonsdale playing essentially the same character?!?

"Normally I would agree, but in this situation I think it is important. The Israel-Palestine conflict is one about which most Americans have very little knowledge and a great deal of misunderstandings. In terms of historical accuracy, this film comes off like something straight from Israeli propaganda, whatever Spielberg's intentions. Because of this, as much as I found the film enjoyable to watch, I think its garbage and will have many negative affects on the Palestinian struggle."

I have not yet seen the film but does anyone agree with this?

He's an anarchist *giggles*

The story isn't of the 'real' assassins (about whom almost nothing is known, the book could be a load of BS), so how they felt doesn't much matter.

you don't think the movie isn't aware of that?

Tony Kushner, who wrote the scenario to Steven Spielberg's film "Munich", defends himself in an interview with Peter von Becker against accusations that he was sloppy in his research. "The problem is that there are no accessible documents on the background to the events in Munich in 1972 and their aftermath. Each informant only tells his own side of the story. We know Abu Daoud's version because he wrote a book about it. Now he's gone into hiding, all the while complaining that we didn't talk with him. In truth he's insulted that until now there's been no English translation of his book! (laughs) Even among the Israelis there are differing accounts. And some would like to cover up the fact that the trail of the bloody retaliation for Munich leads to Israel's prime minister at the time, Golda Meir. I have a lot of respect for Meir, and the film doesn't put her down. But without her, Palestinian terror suspects across Europe wouldn't have been hunted down and liquidated, and a lot of innocent lives would have been saved."

hes questioning israel's use of terror, and the response to the munich killings is the specific narrative he's using.

Yes, well, Steven showed us nice well-mannered Palestinians smoking and sharing jokes with cutie Eric Bana, after realizing they'd been given the wrong room. Not even John Ritter had such luck.

-- alma (maltease...), January 18th, 2006.

The fact that atrocities were committed in the founding of Israel does not mean that all Israelis lack "core values" or that none of them have moral dilemas about anything. I could just as easily argue that there's no point in showing the "side of the story" of a group that kidnaps and massacres innocent olympic athletes to make their political point.

We're talking about trained killers who, in real life, had no regrets or moral dilemmas about the entire thing. The adding in of those emotions only serves propaganda purposes. None of the other violent killers in the movie are shown as human beings. Hell, the people who had nothing to do with it but were killed by the Israelis anyway are barely shown as human beings.

"i think speilberg is trying to question the morality/usefulness of political violence.
hes questioning israel's use of terror, and the response to the munich killings is the specific narrative he's using."

Hardly. The film more or less glorifies the killers.

"you don't think the movie isn't aware of that?"

"Yeah, I thought it took pains to emphasize that point."

Not really. The main killer questions it briefly at the end, but he is assured that they do and very little else is said about. The movie also ends by nothing that Salameh was killed, implying he was somewhat guilty.

Hahahaha. Most complaints I've heard try to make EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE point. "Oh, we only ever see the Arabs interacting with their daughters, or reading poetry and befriending shopkeepers, and never see them doing anything terrible!"

The main killer questions it briefly at the end, but he is assured that they do and very little else is said about.

Er, no. The Geoffrey Rush character basically tells him, "Who cares if they were involved in Munich? They did plenty of other bad things." And Avner is none too happy about it. It's not as if he strolls back to his Brooklyn walkup whistling.

I didn't think this while I was watching it. The criticisms listed above aren't convincing enough to me, and I suspect they're at least somewhat rooted in anti-Israeli and/or anti-Spielberg stances.

I thought that this film presented its point quite vividly.

The only thing that bugged me was the ott orgasm/airport carnage scene near the end

Now, I don't doubt that the people they chose weren't prone to feeling bad about killing - but everything about the Munich reaction is shrouded in secrecy and this isn't the 'true story' of what happened.

So, even if the real-life mindset were relevant to a fictional film (which it's not, as slocki said - it never makes any kind of truth-claim about the events), we have little or no evidence to contradict Spielberg's portrayal.

And Mossad people might know cuz uh most of the people in the film are Mossad people and might either through interaction or general experience be able to speak to their mindset.
Except the people involved were not involved with Mossad during the operation, nor has any similar operation been undertaken by Mossad (that we know of).

If you want to say it 'rang patently false,' fine - but the problem comes in pretending that Spielberg 'lied' to make the Israelis more palatable.

http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-op-kushner22jan22,0,7266356.story

Pretty good film but it made me a bit uneasy how we were supposed to sympathize with the Mossad agents(and I did!).

And the goal of the much-maligned sex / airport slaughter crosscutting seems obvious, whether it works or not. Avner continually identifies his wife as "home" (who sez this is atypical Spielberg?) as opposed to Israel, but he's done his killing for his other home (and taken his wedding ring off before he starts his assassination tour). Or as Nathan Lee writes in Film Comment, "Avner begins as an efficient, unfeeling tool. He ends so half-mad with grief that visions of dead Olympians play out while he's banging his wife."

Alex, my adversary on all things Spielberg, art is "lies," especially when you have to boil an eternal conflict down to 164 minutes on celluloid.

the fact that the assasins frantically tried to prevent the little girl from being collateral damage is meant to reinforced their humanity i think--all the better to contrast with the inhumane things they end up doing anyway. compare that moment to women on the boat, etc.

No shit it is obvious and yeah it doesn't work.

"Alex, my adversary on all things Spielberg, art is "lies," especially when you have to boil an eternal conflict down to 164 minutes on celluloid."

He should tell better lies then cuz I've heard these ones before.

Right, and there's no reason to reinforce their humanity. They're more attractive -- more ruthless -- as ciphers. This is one of the few films in which I'd accept a protagonist's realization that he's morally damned without "clues" and "foreshadowing," which Spielberg has never been able to film without getting hamhanded. Eric Bana is a canny actor, and he suggested that he could have played an assassin as cheerfully malevolent as the woman he offs.

I'd forgotten Mich(a)el Lonsdale is in Truffaut's Stolen Kisses, and in Malle, Bunuel and Duras films too. The one I always recall his face from is The Day of the Jackal where's he's the cop trying to thwart deGaulle's assassination.

Alex, do you think you would've been able to ID this as a Spielberg film if his name wasn't on it? cuz I think it's clearly much more mature than his previous 'grownup' films like Color Purple (egad) or Schindler.

I still think this is the most logically defensible interpretation, but it's not the first one I thought of. My first reaction, based on how the scene felt when I first saw it, was that the crosscutting is an expression of self-doubt on the part of the filmmakers. Ie., they worry that they have made a film in which the payoff/"money shot"/release/climax/orgasm is killing. In other words the way the film is structured, tension builds as they attempt to assassinate each terrorist, and it's released each time they succeed. So the crosscutting is intended as a brief wormhole into an alternate film in which the terrorist/Mossad roles are reversed and the emotional payoff occurs when the athletes are killed rather than when the terrorists die. But this is just a passing nightmare - not a statement of equivalence, as the films right-wing critics would have it - a moment of self-doubt.

No I wouldn't have, but I could make that claim about most Spielberg films (this is to his credit--the fact that he's always visual interesting despite not having much of cinematic signature is as well.) That said the feeling of disappointment I get from his projects is very consistent. At the same time, I won't deny that a large reason why I find Spielberg so disappointing is that he consistently takes ideas and projects that I am very interested/invested in and does far far less with them than I would have hoped.

Did you like Angels in America? I forget. I wonder why the moral rhetoric of the movie is being exclusively discussed as Spielberg's, when Kushner's is unmistakeable in many of the dialogue-heavy scenes.

David Edelstein in the Slate roundtable:

I'm ... endlessly fascinated by vigilantism and its discontents... Torturers frequently regard themselves as vigilantes, acting outside the pansified Geneva Conventions—-and they're abetted by movies and TV shows like 24, which this year presented the unintentionally hilarious spectacle of a battery of ACLU types pouncing within 30 minutes on a super-secret government agency holding a terrorist with knowledge of the whereabouts of a nuclear missile en route to a major American city. (Somewhere around his third year of incarceration, Jose Padilla must have regretted he didn't have Kiefer Sutherland zapping his privates—-he'd have been out in an hour.) ...I grew up with movies about throwing away the manual and doing worse to your enemies than they did to you ("the Chicago way," as David Mamet called it memorably in The Untouchables). I welcome its corollary, "the Munich way." I welcome anything that shifts the cultural dialogue away from "axes of evil."

Wait isn't that what I said?

I like Angels in America (liked it a lot more when I saw it fifteen years ago than I did the HBO version though, sadly.) And yeah the heavy-handedness is very clearly at least as much the screenplay as it is Spielberg (Kushner's quote above about "sociopaths" very indicative.) But auteur theory and all that it's not surprising that Spielberg is gonna get the majority of the blame.

I didn't think so... early State of the Union cocktails? ;)

Eric, I knew you had it in you.

http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2006/02/stain-on-mind_113955479003282498.html

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/wireditems/2006/03/seriouslyfuck_y.php

Really, get a load of that guy. "Ooooh, I TOOK DOWN Munich!" That's pathetic even for a showbiz blogger.

Lots of subtlties. The last exchange b/w Bana and Londsdale when the former is leaving the country house: ("You could be my son. But you're not") and its agonzing payoff later, when Papa seems to sell Avner and his gang out.

Welcome to the converts' tent, Alfred! Today's Village Voice digs in its heels: "a paragon of moral and political incoherence."

They wouldn't be me, tho.

Good attention to detail recreating 70s urban Europe I guess. That's about it. Or if making The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion look like the instruction pamphlet included with Candy Land is your thing, I guess it was pretty good at that too.

Filth. Good to know that human beings are all basically savages though, I hadn't ever thought about that before.

Spielberg's not got a tenth of the cynical chops of his idol. And yes I mean ...Capra.

John Williams's score came from an old DAT he found in his basement and then shipped USPS Media Mail. Didn't even bother with the bubble envelope.

Trying to one-up DePalma & Peckinpah (after quoting them endlessly throughout the movie; I'm amazed none of the PLOers got hung from a chopper) by delving into pornographic snuff probably not the best idea our Stevie's ever had.

The Godfather schtick was cute but also just as pointless as 85% of the other things that happen in this movie.

The final scene with the fucking and the machineguns and the slow-motion sweat droplets is one of the worst things I've seen on film in a very long time in terms of painfully, painfully hackneyed nonsense, and I've sat through at least 30 minutes of Bulletproof Monk on cable.

One last thing and I'm out: I amused myself endlessly this weekend imagining Owen Wilson cast in Daniel Craig's inexplicable part, and saying "The only blood I care about is Jewish blood!" in his easygoing texan accent.

?!

Lately I just imagine Ian McKellen playing every part:

"The only blood I care about is mutant – er, JEWISH – blood!"

Daniel Craig is absolutely terrible in this movie, btw, why is he in it? Wasn't there anyone else? Like actual Israelis maybe? Or hell, Ian McKellen or Owen Wilson, I don't care. Made me very much not look forward to the Bond film, though I never really do.

But yeah, what's the consensus? Gets better on second viewing? Not subtle, but not an unholy sin against the art of filmmaking? Everyone I talk to blows trumpets about how Spielberg "humanizes the terrorists" and my reaction is kind of, "yeah, three-dimensional characters, WHAT AN ACCOMPLISHMENT."

i still like it, though! it's pretty tense and extremely well-made. i like daniel craig (i'm guessing it's possible that a south african jewish chap would throw his allegiance in with the israelis?)

and again the last shot of the film is nice.

The discussion well upthread about how the film is overlong and had seemingly 5 potential endings up thru the actual ending is pretty OTM, and the ending sex scene basically ruined the movie for me (I understand the "message" but I also wanna just quote s1ocki upthread: O RLY, Steven? RLY?). And everyone who claims the score to this is "subtle" is either a deaf person OR has such, such low expectations from John Williams at this point that anything seems subtle (the music in the sex scene finale, which hasn't been mentioned up to this point as far as I can tell, is absolutely the worst thing about it).

Eric Bana is surprisingly good in it, and his accent is excellent. The story itself is compelling. It has more in common with a couple of Baader-Meinhof inspired German films than it does with a lot of films referenced throughout this thread, and I guess ultimately I'd rather watch Bruno Ganz than Eric Bana. Overall kind of middling IMO, the last third of the film has a completely different pacing than the rest of it (a change for the worse), and some of the flaws become frustrating because you can see the point being made, but the execution kind of made me want to scream, "Yes, yes, we get it, v. clever, here's a pony ride."

It is, FWIW, much better than SPR or Amistad.

xpost possible but if that's what that accent is supposed to be he's going a bit Patsy Kensit isn't he.

The last third didn't seem rushed anymore. Since we'd followed these men for close to two hours (and several years) it made dramatic sense to see Bana, et al dessicated and embittered. This is signalled in the horrifying murder of the female assassin. Not that shes didn't have it coming, but the coldness with which Bana shoots her suggests that he's becoming the inhuman killer that Golda Meir claimed the Munich abductors were.

The sex scene still blows, but so few films are perfect I've learned to accept a fair amount of ridiculousness.

Like this guy?
http://www.jewishxpress.com/issue28/images/abba.jpg