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

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.

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

I'm never going to get this out of my head.

I'll take that over three over-indulgent hours of Spielberg just based on which will damage me less, but it still wasn't better than 'kinda good.'

Give me the risk of ridiculousness over competent, unadventurous "McCarthy was evil" pandering with a jazz-sampler soundtrack anytime.

The John Williams score was way above average as I scarcely noticed it.

btw, Munich was gratuitously pilloried in the NY Times Book Review this week (the film criticism anthology) for being "written by people who don't know half enough about politics." (Was it Clive James, or Tombot ghosting?) I don't think Tony Kushner is always right, but he's more than half-on.

That was one of the best parts of the movie, that entire mini-arc. It was the bit that I thought most did something interesting with how violence develops and where it can lead, so to speak.

I still kind of feel like a lot of the final act belonged to a different film. The music becomes more intrusive, the pacing completely changes, there's a lot more "O RLY?" moments in the visuals...I dunno.

The problem for me with it is that, you know, I accept a lot of ridiculousness (I mean this film would've definitely been improved by Magneto's presence), but it just depends on the kind of ridiculous I guess, and when a filmmaker I dislike starts doing the kind of thing I totally, totally expect them to do after 2 hours+ of actually doing something I think is well above-par for him...it makes it easier to pick apart flaws in the superior first acts, leaves a bad taste. Everyone's got that director so I'm not saying anything particularly world-shattering here.

awful sex scene vs. unnecessary jazz interludes

The music was totally unnecessary and got annoying after a while. It was cute the first time, like watching old tv, here's the little interlude but after 6 times it was kind of like PLZ stop.

I don't understand propping or knocking either GNGL or Munich on the basis of making daring or fresh political statements, because neither does.

i dont really want to watch it again. but it struck me as a viscerally disturbing tour through the moral wasteland of the 20th century. use that as your pull quote!

The thing about Munich's lathering up of the Likud/neocon crowd is that it really doesn't take MUCH to lather them up--just suggesting that any of Israel's actions were anything other than completely justified and right.

A bold suggestion! Never before has it been made! You realize that right-wing pundits have gone all foamy at the mouth over GNGL daring to suggest the controversial idea that witch-hunts are bad, right?

So, I say it again:
I don't understand propping or knocking either GNGL or Munich on the basis of making daring or fresh political statements, because neither does.

Getting someone's panties in a wad does not equal making a daring or fresh political statement that is unusual in film (even other fairly well-known films). Neither film should be judged on its merits as a political statement. Ryan is OTM regarding human condition; Munich is a film about the nature of violence and revenge.

"I've heard this forest is full of dragons"
*woosh of flame, flap of wings sound*
"Do you think that might have been a dragon?" - in other movies, this is called comic relief, but Spielberg thinks it is necessary, because he thinks that all of us are in the 2nd grade.

The reason I thought the film was middling was because I didn't feel it was as successful as several other thematically similar films I've seen on expressing the human consequence of violence escalation and revenge in a public setting. If I was judging the film as a geopolitical thriller, I'd give it higher marks actually!

in other words, yeah it's about violence and revenge, but it's not trying to be Aeschylus.

I was shaking at the end of the film, feeling mournful and depressed in a way that wasn't touched by A History of Violence, to name a stylistically dissimilar film that trivialized the Cycle of Slaughter theme.

Interesting comparison in terms of themes, that one didn't occur to me at all (insert joke about immemorability here). Even down to the contrasting semi-bookend sex scenes being used to illustrate the downward spiral!

Haha this doesn't explain anything to me! ;)

Ed Harris and William Hurt were definitely the best parts of the movie; I think part of the reason the film ultimately left me cold was that I just didn't like Viggo and wifey at all. AHOV does a fantastic job atmosphere building, Harris esp. is totally creepy and tense-creating.

The relationship (esp the sexual) b/w Viggo and Maria Bello was the most compelling part of the movie.

No, I don't want to see a 90-minute "earth not flat" film either.

It is thoroughly possible that my dislike for Viggo (and Eric Bana, for that matter, they kind of are similar in my mind) colors perceptions here!

otm on score.

Munich shows that the international death industry, presumably motivated by nationalism and securing the primal hearth, is actually just a big unstoppable economy (feeding families like "Papa" Michel Lonsdale's).

I liked that angle and the interactions with the family but I was half expecting Papa to come down with a heart attack during the idyllic countryside dinner sequence. Some of the shots were soooo similar, I am half curious if it was purposeful because of the inevitable comparison that would be made there regardless.

What a film -- my first viewing since 2006.

Spielberg had a pretty interesting run in the oughts: AI/Minority Report/Catch Me If You Can/War of the Worlds/Munich. (Didn’t see The Terminal)