A New Hollywood: It is Possible

Steve Frank's California Political News and Views ^ | February 14, 2006 | Steve Finefrock (intro by Steve Frank)

[jamesm51]

Bruce Willis seems to be doing a lot for the cause.

[Richard Kimball]

Thanks. The thing that started me thinking about it was how movies such as Pleasantville (which I liked), The World According to Garp (hated), Edward Scissorhands (never could get through), The Last Picture Show (ultra-nihilistic), etc., had such a negative view of middle America. Then it hit me. If the actors and directors had liked middle America, they wouldn't have left.

[Borges]

I don't think LPS scribe Larry Mcmurtry hates Middle America. He wrote Lonesome Dove. It's an elegy to the Death of the myth of the West. I wouldn't call it nihilistic.

[Richard Kimball]

I think he was painting with a little bit of a broad brush. Saving Private Ryan doesn't trash the military, and I can't think of any Spielberg movies offhand, that do. I haven't seen Munich, but if Spielberg is so convinced that the Mossad and the terrorists in Munich are morally equivalent, maybe he should go spend some time with each. Oh, that's right. Hamas would kill him simply for being Jewish. Guess he should schedule the meeting with the Mossad first. In Schindler's List, he played fast and loose with the facts. Schindler sneaked weapons into the Jews, and they were better armed and outnumbered the guards that were supposed to kill them. He also left out a significant fact about the "Night of Broken Glass." While it's true that this marked the beginning of the actual rounding up of the Jews, it was also a test run. The Nazis thought the Jews had to know what was planned for them, and that they had planned an armed resistance. The Nazis expected the Jews to have stockpiles of weapons, and for rounding them up to be a difficult military operation, involving door to door fighting and significant losses. When, on the "Night of Broken Glass", they found nothing but a couple of rusty revolvers and rifles, none of which were used, they began the sweep in earnest. Spielberg left these points out because they didn't fit in with his personal vision of an unarmed citizenry is a safe citizenry. Why do Jews in Israel carry weapons? After the Holocaust, their mantra was, "Never again." What they meant was that they would never again be led like lambs to slaughter because they couldn't defend themselves.

Also, though, even movies that don't trash the military are a little hard to watch, sometimes. Blackhawk Down is very difficult for me to watch, although I think it's a brilliant movie. The concept of Hollywood trashing our military, I think, really goes back to the eighties and MASH. MASH was kind of the template. Everyone who was patriotic was a moron or a flake. Hawkeye made his famous speech about how we were fighting for the Koreans right to have a heart attack while planning to stab their boss in the back. Fop painted with a broad brush, but his overall criticism is valid.

[Borges]

All dramatizations of historical events play fast and loose with the facts. From Shakespeare on down. In any case Munich doesn't make the case that the Mossad are equivalent to the terrorists. Nothing of the sort. But I was referring specifically to the assertion that one of the American filmmakers most respectful of the Military, he had them flown in to see the premier of War of the Worlds (a film which shows them as the primary force for order and stability) makes films that 'trash the military'.

[Borges]

Also Schindler's List doesn't dramatize the 'Night of Broken Glass' at all. Maybe the book does but I have yet to read it. You're thinking of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto scene which took place a few years later.

[The Fop]

I admit I didn't see it, but I've read mixed things about it. Some said that it didn't trash the soldiers, but it trashed the military leaders.

Either way, Spielberg's a wet noodle.

[Borges]

It's been recognized by many as one of the most pro Military films of the modern filmmaking Era (post mid 1960s). If someone who has seen it agrees with the assesment you've heard about it I'd love to hear it.

[Clemenza]

There were tons of patriotic WWII movies

Most of which s-cked and WERE laughable! The same can be said of many more recent war films however (Born on the Fourth of July comes to mind).

The best war films are either not directly about war (ie Apocalypse Now) or those that don't hide the grittier aspects of war while not making knee jerk statements either way (We Were Soldiers comes to mind). Those WWII movies with the Andrews Sisters or John Wayne had laughable scripts and were as believable as the Wizard of Oz.

[Richard Kimball]

I've heard a lot of good things about Lonesome Dove, but haven't seen it. McMurtry won a Golden Globe for writing the screenplay to Brokeback Mountain, so I tend to be a little skeptical of him. I haven't read the book, but here was my take on the movie: Peter Bogdanovich was the director, and in an interview stated that the reason he filmed the movie in black and white was because the landscape in west Texas where he was filming was too beautiful and colorful. He wanted a depressing, lost look to the movie. Everyone in the movie was miserable, until one of the high school boys has an affair with the coaches wife. During the affair, they are blissfully happy. When he ends the affair, the joy leaves. The only grounded character in the movie, Ben Johnson as Sam, dies of a heart attack while the lead characters are out of town for a week and is buried before they get back. A retarded kid who spends his days sweeping the dirt street gets hit by a car and killed, and the only entertainment in the entire town, the picture show, shuts down. It seemed pretty nihilistic to me, and painted small town Texas as a place you wanted to escape from. Nobody went hunting, learned to run cattle, enjoyed playing on the high school sports team, or saw any kind of future for themselves. It, along with the movie Carnal Knowledge, was also one of the early movies to turn sexual morality on it's head. The girl who wouldn't have sex with one of the high school boys is portrayed negatively. The thirty-something wife who has an extramarital affair with one of her husband's students is portrayed positively. It was kind of the changeover from "nice girls don't" to "girls who don't are vindictive, angry b*ll busters."

[Borges]

John Ford's 'They Were Expendeable' with Wayne was quite good though.

[Clemenza]

Wayne was always at his best when he worked with John Ford. Preferred the Duke out on the range rather than on the battlefields or Asia and Europe.

[Richard Kimball]

Like I said, I haven't seen Munich, and don't intend to, but I have read some of Spielberg's comments on it, and it seemed to me that he made very much a moral equivalence. Since you've seen it, I'll certainly yield to your take on it. I agree with you that Spielberg has never been negative about the US military that I've noticed, and would also point out that although Tom Hanks is a lefty, he has never, to my knowledge, said anything negative about the US, and has been a big booster of the space program, and spent quite a bit of time helping to raise funds for a WWII memorial.

[Borges]

Well as I said it was an exercise in delfating the old Hollywood myths (The myth of the West, of idyllic small town life). It was made in the first flush of freedom from the Production Code that had been in place from the mid 30s to the mid 60s. Filmmakers were reveling in their lack of restraints. It got old fast of course. The person metaphor for the loss of those old verities in the film was that downbeat old theater showing Red River (possibly the best Western ever made). Carnal Knowledge however is nihlistic. Or at least misanthropic. Then again the characters' actions and lifestyles don't lead to very satisfying lives in the end.

[Borges]

I didn't like Munich that much but for different reasons (pacing, acting, narrative construction). It's a muddled and dreary film.

[Richard Kimball]

The opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan, the storming of the beaches, is probably one of the most realistic and nail-biting action sequences ever filmed. Absolutely brilliant. I thought the plot dragged a little in places, but his essential point of the movie, as at the end, he panned over the graves of the US soldiers, was that those are real men under there. Men who had lives back home, and plans for after the war, but never went back home. If you haven't seen the movie, I won't spoil it by revealing the way he gets this point across, but it's IMHO, his best movie, and one of the best war movies ever made. It's a brilliant movie, and well worth watching.

[Richard Kimball]

I think that's a very fair assessment. You can tell from watching the movie that it is something special, but I don't think it's held up particularly well. FWIW, it's apparent to me that you know your movies. I'm going to start looking for your posts on the movie threads.

[BJClinton]

Fight back: file sharing!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!