Hollywood picks Che over Christ

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is nationally headquartered in Manhattan, but has an influence nationwide.

This is due primarily to this organization's president, a marvelously articulate attorney named William Donohue.

I often describe him as "the man who is absolutely incapable of writing a dull press release."

"Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ' was one of 49 films deemed eligible for a foreign-language Golden Globe. But it was not among the nominees voted on today by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

"Mel Gibson releases the most significant blockbuster movie of the year, but it's not good enough to make the cut for a Golden Globe. That's because his film promotes Christianity, and the Hollywood crowd will have none of it. The only movies they like to make about Christianity these days are ones that demean it.

"But one movie that did make the cut in the foreign-language category was 'The Motorcycle Diaries,' a film that shamelessly lies about the notorious Cuban communist Che Guevara. According to the Christian Science Monitor, the movie 'paints Guevara as an amiable guy who doesn't appear to have an aggressive bone in his body.' A.O. Scott of the New York Times concurs, saying the film views Guevara 'as a quasi-holy figure' who turns away 'from the corruptions of the world toward a higher purpose.' This may explain why Jack Mathews of the New York Daily News says that director Walter Salles 'comes close at times to posing Guevara as a Christ figure.'

"In other words, because Mel gives us a faithful rendition of Christ's Passion, he is shunned by the Hollywood elite for doing so. But a movie that whitewashes a ruthless tyrant – making him into a Christ-like figure – gets the nod. The message that is being sent is unmistakable: There is no room for Jesus in Hollywood's inn, but there is plenty of room for communist thugs portrayed in a Christ-like manner."

.

NEVER FORGET

On February 23 & 24, 2004...

..-PASSION- and -WE WERE SOLDIERS-..

...Co-Producer STEVIE McVEETY stated on PAX-TV that:

MEL's -PASSION- was sparked by -WE WERE SOLDIERS-

http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=39081

http://www.ThePassionoftheChrist.com

http://www.WeWereSoldiers.com

Signed:.."ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer
Veteran-"WE WERE SOLDIERS" Battle of IA DRANG-1965, Landing Zone Falcon

http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm

NEVER FORGET

.

Eisenstien was one of the big three formative cinematic giants along with Griffith and Murnau (the first director to move the camera during a shot). Eisenstien's politics have nothing to do with his talent. As for comparisons, Griffith's ideas of cinema were still too rooted in Victorian theater. Eisenstein gave film editing a near mathematical/musical precision that was purely cinema and eons beyond anything Griffith did. Comparing him to a peon like Michael Moore is laughable. 'Potempkin' might be the most influential films ever made in terms of film aesthetics. If you throw out artists based on goverments they served then you have to also throw out other great Soviet film makers like Vertov, Pudovkin and Romm. Not to mention Virgil (who glorified the Tyrant Augustus). Ridiculous.

P.S. Leni is also very influential and cannot be ignored.

D.W. Griffith was the first to shake off the notion that movies were just a way of recording theater, taking the radical step of moving the camera in close and cutting together different angles of the same action to dramatic effect. Eisenstein, like all the early Soviet filmmakers, was greatly influenced by a print of Griffith's film Intolerance that had somehow made it through the blockade of Russia in World War I.

"Eisenstien's politics have nothing to do with his talent."

What a load! The aim of director Sergei Eisenstein was to glorify the Bolshevik victory and the fact that he is remembered as a great filmmaker while Leni is mostly ignored has more to do with the Western guilt (material riches) vs the poor nevermind that Lenin and Stalin murdered many more millions than Hitler did.

"Comparing him to a peon like Michael Moore is laughable"

Oh really. Moore's considerable editing skills would be highly admired by Eisenstein. You honor propagandists too highly.

The last part of your mysteriously supportive post propagandists I can answer briefly: Throw out all propagandists no matter who their masters are. Filmmaking should be about the freedom of artistic expression not political propaganda.

Without Eisenstien the history of movies becomes incoherent. I know what Griffith did. Eisentstien went far beyond his alternation of master shot and close up. Eisesentien didn't make 4th rate documentaries like Moore he made dramatic art. His films are still stirring to watch. 'Ivan the Terrible' (a send up/condemnation of Stalin and his secret police) virtually invents its own genre so original it is. While we're at it, Shakespeare wrote Tudor propaganda. His portrait of Richard III was a hatchet job worthy of Oliver Stone. Throw him out too? Milton wrote Puritan propaganda and supported the near despotic regime of Oliver Cromwell. Dostoevsky wrote Russian Orthodox propaganda and had utter contempt for Catholicism among other faiths. Your overgeneralizing doesn't get you very far.

"Your overgeneralizing doesn't get you very far."

And your blind puppy dog adherence to "propaganda as art" doesn't either.

"Dostoevsky wrote Russian Orthodox propaganda and had utter contempt for Catholicism among other faiths"

What an absurdly decadent statement! Dostoevsky says, "If you believe in Christ, then you believe you will live eternally." How on earth is this contemptuous of any other Christian faith?

Read 'The Brothers Karamazov'. Especially 'The Grand Inquisitor' chapter which is the best known section of the novel. It's a vehement denunication of Catholicism. D believed that Russian Orthodoxy and Pan Slavic culture in general were the salvation of the world and that Catholicism and the Western World was deceptive and morally bankrupt. Trying to draw a demarcation line between art and propaganda is a losing proposition. Even Refenstahl is still hugely influential on filmmaking. Especially Disney films (Disney was the only Hollywood figure to see her when she visited in the mid 30s...Bambi clearly shows the influence of her mountain films like The Blue Light) Her 1936 films on the Belin Olympics virtually invented sports photography. You can't just ignore it. Vertov's 'The Man with a Movie Camera' initially made to demomstrate 'the truth of dialectical materialism' is seen today as a compendium of avant garde techniques that filmamkers have constantly copied but never with as much poetry. You advocate throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I respectfully disagree.

"Read 'The Brothers Karamazov'...vehement denunciation of Catholicsm..."

I have and it's not.

Svidrigaylov in Crime and Punishment, Ippolit in The Idiot, Shatov in The Possessed and the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov are all examples of Dostoyevky's brilliance at critical indictments of godless modernity and secularism and go far beyond any specific attack on a Catholicsm or any other faith. Much as you would like to categorize him along with the masters of deceipt like Riefenstahl and Eisenstein it won't work. These last 2 were not tormented by humanity's struggle for free will and good and evil but with elevating charlatans and their twisted ideologies to gods. How ironic that some still seems to hold Eisenstein in awe while prepared to attack Dostoyevsky!

I have seen most of Eisenstein's offerings and apart from a scattering of cleverly conceived montage sequences, much is as worthless as the the dustbins of Communism. His work will forever be tainted by his Trotskyite visions of madness. His Grand Inquisitor - Stalin - knew better than to eliminate one of his "useful fools".

Well he certainly hated Godless modernity! But in my studies it was brought up that he disliked Catholicism and the GI chapter (along with various letters) was the linchpin of that position.

You're perfectly free to ignore whichever artists you like. One of the privleges artists in the United States enjoy is the ability to create without fear of censure or worse from goverment. Most throughout history did not have that blessing and as a result had to sneak their artistry through goverment sponsored work. Shostakovich wrote lots of great music honoring communism as well.

"Most throughout history did not have that blessing and as a result had to sneak their artistry through goverment sponsored work"

Facinating is it not that in that arguably the world's freest (most liberal) nation Conservative Christian based cinematic themed films are attacked, shunned, ignored, ridiculed, not shown, not distributed by the powers in the film industry.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.