Spielberg defends his 'Munich'

Sun Times ^ | 12/25/05 | ROGER EBERT

[Captain Peter Blood]

I watched that film a couple of weeks ago and found it lacking in every way.
The story was lame as was the acting with Tom Cruise. Dakota Fanning was over the top and I wonder what will happen when she is no longer a child star.
Could have been a much better movie.
Munich as written by Kushner is probably a terrible movie and I will pass on it even on DVD.
Other than Harry Potter and Narnia, there aren't any good films out there this XMAS season and I will also probably pass on most them even on DVD.
Hollywood has really crashed and burn this season.

[dennisw]

Why else did you like about the film? Beyond the razzle dazzle high production values of Spielberg? You saw no grasping for moral equivalency there? That the Palestinians and Jews are caught in an unfortunate "cycle of violence". That both sides are to blame. That one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter?

[usmcobra]

There ought to be a law against trying to Top George Pal and Orson Wells.

Suitable punishments including castrations and exile.

[Petronski]

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, if this movie bothers you, frightens you, upsets you, maybe it's not a good idea to ignore that. Maybe you need to think about why you're having that reaction. Maybe you should take that opportunity to abandon your long-held moral convictions at the altar of my bloody-good palie propaganda. Oh, and I'm not a guilt-ridden self-hating Jew either. Remember that."

[dennisw]

Jihad is eternal. Even when Jihad seems inactive the termites are silently chomping away at structure

[Soul Seeker]

"This film is no more anti-Israel than a similar film which offered criticism of America is anti-America," he said. "Criticism is a form of love. I love America, and I'm critical of this administration.

If we follow this to conclusion, he loves this administration then?

[wtc911]

I don't really give a crap what people in here think.

-------------------------------------------------

Then why bother to post?

[Petronski]

Just look at this, just look at it:

"But there is a constituency that nothing you can say or do will ever satisfy. The prism through which they see things is so profound and deeply rooted and so much a part of their own belief system that if you challenge that, you challenge everything they believe in. They say the film is too critical of Israel. The film has been shown to Palestinians who think it is too pro-Israel and doesn't give the them enough room to air their grievances."

He could repeat the blood libel from the Protocols, and as long as he could find one muslim palie creep who said he was not sufficiently thorough in his telling it, he could say "well, I'm in the middle, and those who don't like my telling should step back and examine the prism through which they view the conflict..."

What an absolute tool.

[montag813]

I saw Munich, and was disgusted by it. Spielberg managed to take an instance of terrorist mass murder, and turn it into a desperate act by Arab freedom fighters who just want a homeland. The moral equivalance is depressing. These weren't troops guarding a border, or in a battle. These were innocent athletes, butchered only for being Jewish. It is a intellectual crime that Spielberg has committed by equivocating like this. Why the hell did he have to choose this subject to do so? It just makes me angry, and undermines Israel and by extension the United States in our resolve in the war on Islamic terror.

There are also numerous plot lines and dialogue that just never happened--totally invented or uncorroborated. Lines which cast the Arabs in a better light and the Israelis as wracked with self-doubt. The actual participants said these lines and actions never existed, but Spielberg doesn't seem to care about this foray into Oliver Stone-style fictionalization. The problem is, like the ignorant youths who gawked at "JFK", most people will just take this movie as fact, which is a deep shame.

[Cinnamon Girl]

Spielberg reasserts his foolishness in this article. And makes very clear that he REALLY DOESN'T GET IT. Starting with the fact that Tony Kushner is his go-to guy for a Jewish perspective.

[Recovering Hermit]

Hope this helps:

"Sword of Gideon", directed by Michael Anderson and written by Chris Bryant, about a five-man commando unit unofficially sent out by the Israeli government to assassinate the 11 Palestinian terrorists identified as ringleaders in the murders of 11 Israeli Olympic team members.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6302027810/103-1783595-5996614?v=glance

[Neville72]

"Not me. Revisionist history and moral equivalency 101. It's the Rodney King school of diplomacy in action: "Can't we all just get along" as seen through Spielberg's pre-adolescent lens."

BULLSEYE!

Saw the damn thing Friday evening and wish I hadn't wasted my money. Paid for a forgetable movie and overpriced popcorn and all the movie did was make my blood boil.

Speilberg, like most liberals, has lost his moral compass.

[eeevil conservative]

They had a segment on Fox and Friends about this movie the other day...

It was actually an interview with a guy that wrote a book about this massacre.

He said his book had the TRUTH about what REALLY happened after the terrorists slaughtered these innocent people. I cannot remember the name of the author or the book.... did anyone else see this piece on FOX?

I really would like to get that book...

[ncphinsfan]

"After watching this movie I have no clue why someone would call Spielberg a Hollywood idiot. Sure he's done stupid stuff but it's just a movie and take it for what it's worth."


For those too young or unfamiliar with the Munich Olympics in 1972 this will be much more than a movie. It will become, for them, their version of "history". The way Spielberg portrays it is not the way it happened.

I was twenty-five in 1972 and as an avid sports fan I followed the Olympic games with great interest. When the Palestinian terrorists kidnapped the Israeli athletes I was shocked. When the German and Oympic games officials totally botched the rescue attempt and the Palestinian terrorists executed those eleven men I was appalled as was most of the world who watched the events unfold on television. Most of us had never seen anyting like this and couldn't even imagine humans slaughtering other humans. It was a transformative experience for many. It was for me. To depict the terrorists as somehow morally equivalent to either the atheletes or their countrymen exacting revenge for their slaughter, is morally reprehesible.

Spielberg is a cowared not heroic. He, like most of Hollywood, will take on the Nazis because they're not around to threaten him. The Islamofacists however, are, and neither Spielberg nor Hollywood in general wants any part of them. As a case in point; where is the definitive movie on 9/11, huh? I hear we're going to get Oliver Stone's take on that. I wonder if it will portray utter moral equivalence as Spielberg did or if we'll be relegated to being the bad guys in that future epic.

Ridiculous. Masterpiece, my ass.

[Mr Rogers]

"The movie says I don't have an answer. I don't know anyone else who does. But I do know that the dialogue needs to be louder than the weapons."

Wonder if he would say the same about Nazis.

Sometimes the weapons need to be louder than the dialogue - because there can be no moral compromise with pure evil.

[Neville72]

Here you go.





Vengeance : The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by George Jonas

[Paulus Invictus]

It would be interesting for Spielberg to explain how he is "critical of this administration" when it is notably pro-Israel. Clinton gave his all to the Palis (as did his evil wife). How does Spielberg get around that fact? Does he criticize the Clintons for their foreign relations idiocies?

[eeevil conservative]

YAY! YOU ROCK! THANKS!!!

[Hildy]

But what about the issue of "moral equivalence," the charge that he equates the Israeli and Palestinian causes, when the rightness of one (or the other) is seen as not debatable? "Frankly, I think that's a stupid charge. The people who attack the movie based on 'moral equivalence' are some of the same people who say diplomacy itself is an exercise in moral equivalence, and that war is the only answer. That the only way to fight terrorism is to dehumanize the terrorists by asking no questions about who they are and where they come from.

No, you ASSHOLE..it's about not giving more fodder to the majority of people in this world who want to CUT YOUR HEAD OFF....Oh my God.