"I knew I was going to be losing friends when I took on the subject," he told me during a phone conversation Thursday afternoon. "I am also making new friends."
Yup Stephen, and here they are:
Posted on 12/25/2005 6:19:46 AM PST by Pikamax
Ummmm. No. Diplomacy is the realisation that different entities have different priorities and that those priorities don't always match up with our own and that you don't just start war with every entity you have a disagreement with. We have diplomatic relations with Great Britain for example. Sometimes the US and the UK disagree on things though. What do we do? Bomb London? Well, in the past we did fight with the Brits over territorial disputes (War of 1812 and they did burn the White House). But this is not how we carry on with each other today and I think only a fool wants war when there is another way to resolve a dispute. War should be a last resort.
Diplomacy is not a policy- it is a way of treating with each other. The Golden Rule, for example, is diplomacy carried on at the individual level. At the end of the day, getting along is almost always preferable to not getting along.
People are panning the philosophy that Spielberg elaborates upon openly, blatantly and lamely in this very article.
And I don't think anyone who hasn't seen it is commenting ont he cinematography. We know the philosophy. It's been elaborated upon by none other than Spielberg himself and to suggest that one cannot comment upon it without having given money to Spielberg's propaganda effort is nothing short of a cop out.
Hmmmm. This is what made it a great movie for you. I liked it a lot better while the shark was alive and there was no way of knowing who he was going to eat next.
I can't wait till he does the same thing to Saving Private Ryan. Or did "South Park did it"?
A contribution to this movie is a contribution to Hitlery 2008.
I would have been interested to see a factual account of the terror attack and its response by Israel's hit teams.
It seems as if this is not that account, he had unfortunately another agenda beyond simply telling us what happened. I'm really not up for being preached to that terrorists are people too. Sorry. Sell it to someone else.
But that means that this story can still be told by someone else, maybe Bruce Willis would like a go at it.
Has Spielberg ever made a good movie without a rubber shark?
"I knew I was going to be losing friends when I took on the subject," he told me during a phone conversation Thursday afternoon. "I am also making new friends."
Yup Stephen, and here they are:
You cheered for the shark, didn't you?
Speilburg made no attempt to rationalize with the shark either, or try to figure out the shark's motives.
The shark killed therefore it had to be killed before it killed again.
Treating terrorists by the same standard makes them more afraid of us and more willing to stop, as per The Golda Meir Standard, which says Terrorists will stop when they fear more for the lives of their families then they do for their own.
"Terrorists will stop when they fear more for the lives of their families then they do for their own."
I think that saying, and I'm paraphrasing, goes "The Palestinians will stop the violence when they care more about the lives of their own children than they do about the deaths of Israelis."
"You cheered for the shark, didn't you?"
Be careful, PETA may be watching.
"What I believe is, every act of terrorism requires a strong response, but we must also pay attention to the causes."
No we don't. Terrorism for whatever reason is unacceptable. This is nothing more than another way to say we must look to the root causes. This is a lot of bulloney.
Uhh, no. I was a kid when I saw the film. The shark scared the bejesus outta me. I was scared to go swimming even in a pool for a long time afterwards. But the film was definitely more entertaining while the shark was alive.
Same with Alien.
You don't want to watch this or that film- that's your business. I want to watch this one. You make me want to watch it that much more ;-)
Ditto
My husband and I watched it yesterday and my reaction was similar to yours.
THANKS so much! I would REALLY appreciate that!
I believe that art and drama don't do a very good job in answering unless the spy chief mentioned as counseling the central character does a better job than those that have seen it indicate.
Burke spoke of the nature, purpose and nobility of revenge.
If it should still be asked why we show sufficient acrimony to exact a suspicion of being in any manner influenced by malice or a desire of revenge, to this, my Lords, I answer, because we should be thought to know our duty, and to have all the world know how resolutely we are resolved to perform it.So, I guess I will have to say that the reading of history gives me a better perspective on this than exercises in drama.[We}...are not disposed to quarrel with the Divine Wisdom and Goodness, which has moulded up revenge into the frame and constitution of man. He that has made us what we are has made us at once resentful and reasonable. Instinct tells a man that he ought to revenge an injury; reason tells him that he ought not be a judge in his own cause. From that moment revenge passes from the public to the private hand; but in being transferred it is far from being extinguished. My Lords, it is transferred as a sacred trust to be exercised for the injured, in measure and proportion, by persons, who feeling as he feels, are in a temper to reason better than he can reason. Revenge is taken out of the hands of the original injured proprietor, lest it should be carried beyond the bounds of moderation and justice. But, my Lords, it is in its transfer exposed to a danger of an opposite description. The delegate of vengeance may not feel the wrong sufficiently: He may be cold and languid in the performance of his sacred duty. It is for these reasons that good men are taught to tremble even at the first emotions of anger and resentment for their own particular wrongs; but they are likewise taught, if they are well taught, to give the loosest possible rein to their resentment and indignation, whenever their parents, their friends, their country, or their brethren of the common family of mankind are injured. Those who have not such feelings, under such circumstances, are base and degenerate.
Lord Bacon has very well said, that "revenge is a kind of wild justice." It is so, and without this wild austere stock there would be no justice in the world. But when, by the skilful hand of morality and wise jurisprudence, a foreign scion, but of the very same species, is grafted upon it, its harsh quality becomes changed, it submits to culture, and, laying aside its savage nature, it bears fruits and flowers, sweet to the world, and not ungrateful even to heaven itself, to which it elevates its exalted head. The fruit of this wild stock is revenge regulated, but not extinguished, -- revenge transferred from the suffering party to the communion and sympathy of mankind. This is the revenge by which we are actuated, and which we should be sorry, if the false, idle, girlish, novel-like morality of the world should extinguish in the breast of us who have a great public duty to perform.
This sympathetic revenge, which is condemned by clamorous imbecility, is so far from being a vice, that it is the greatest of all possible virtues, -- a virtue which the uncorrupted judgement of mankind has in all ages exalted to the rank of heroism. To give up all the repose and pleasures of life, to pass sleepless nights and laborious days, and, what is ten times more irksome to an ingenuous mind, to offer oneself to calumny and all its herd of hissing tongues and poison fangs, in order to free the world from fraudulent prevaricators, from cruel oppressors, from robbers and tyrants, has, I say, the test of heroic virtue, and well deserves such a distinction.
Could they have done this, if they had not been actuated by some strong, some vehement, some perennial passion, which, burning like the Vestal fire chaste and eternal, never suffers generous sympathy to grow cold in maintaining the rights of the injured or in denouncing the crimes of the oppressor?
I noted that the movie critic in the people's Detroit Free Press, Terry Lawson, gave this movie four stars out of a possible (4). Lawson is a distinguished alumni of the Josef Goebbels School of Journalism. If Lawson rates it that high, its not worth seeing. I was surprised to note that he gave Syrupian....er, uh Siriana two stars. He must not have gotten the proper payoff for that one.
Oh, I get it. Spielberg is against targeted assassination. Would he have been against assassinating Hitler, despite the fact that it would have saved countless lives? Maybe that could be his next film.
Try "Vengeance" by George Jonas. Pretty good read about the Mossad. I wish we had a Mossad so Karl Lenin and John memememeCain had no terrorists to whine about.
The problem with saying that it's just a movie, so what...is that Spielberg has a huge international following and reputation. He's promoting moral relativism in this film. Nobody has clean hands, there's no right or wrong, etc.. This is foolish and dangerous.
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