"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
Spielberg defends his 'Munich'
December 25, 2005
BY ROGER EBERT Film Critic
'I knew the minefield was there," says Steven Spielberg, describing the storm of controversy over his new film "Munich." He has been attacked on three fronts, for being anti-Israeli, being anti-Palestinian, and being neither -- which is, those critics say, the sin of "moral equivalency."
"I wasn't naive in accepting this challenge," he says about his film, which begins with the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympiad, and follows a secret Israeli team assigned by prime minister Golda Meir to hunt down those responsible and assassinate them.
"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." The film, which opened on Friday, had already generated fiery discussion from those who've seen it in previews -- or not seen it, but objected to the very idea of it.
In his film, a character named Avner, played by Eric Bana, heads the assassination squad, and begins to question the morality and utility of his actions. Others in the film articulate a defense of the strategy of revenge. Spielberg says that his film deliberately supplies no simple answers.
"It would make people more comfortable if I made a film that said all targeted assassination is bad, or good, but the movie doesn't take either of those positions. It refuses to. Many of those pundits on the left and right would love the film to land somewhere definite. It puts a real burden on the audience to figure out for themselves how they feel about these issues. There are no easy answers to the most complex story of the last 50 years."
Spielberg said he has been particularly struck by charges that his film makes him "no friend of Israel."
"I am as truly pro-Israeli as you can possibly imagine. From the day I became morally and politically conscious of the importance of the state of Israel and its necessity to exist, I have believed that not just Israel, but the rest of the world, needs Israel to exist.
"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.
"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."
Spielberg, who is the most popular filmmaker in modern history, has regularly chosen to make serious and thoughtful films, some of limited appeal, along with his box-office blockbusters. It is striking that the director of "Jurassic Park" (1993) and the Indiana Jones movies is also the director of "Schindler's List" (1993), "The Color Purple" (1985), "Amistad" (1997) and now "Munich."
"Some of my critics are asking how Spielberg, this Hollywood liberal who makes dinosaur movies, can say anything serious about this subject that baffles so many smart people. What they're basically saying is, 'You disagree with us in a big public way, and we want you to shut up, and we want this movie to go back in the can.' That's a nefarious attempt to make people plug up their ears. That's not Jewish, it's not democratic, and it's bad for everyone -- especially in a democratic society."
Yet what is he saying that has people so disturbed? Careful attention to the film itself suggests that it's not so much what he says as that he dares even to open up the Middle East for discussion.
"My film refuses to be a pamphlet," Spielberg said. "My screenwriter Tony Kushner and I were hoping to make it a visceral, emotional and intellectual experience, combined in such a way that it will help you get in touch with what you feel are the questions the film poses. He said he was taught by his parents, his rabbi and his faith that discussion "is the highest good -- it's Talmudic."
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.
"What I believe is, every act of terrorism requires a strong response, but we must also pay attention to the causes. That's why we have brains and the power to think passionately. Understanding does not require approval. Understanding is not the same as inaction. Understanding is a very muscular act. If I'm endorsing understanding and being attacked for that, then I am almost flattered."
In "Munich," there is a scene where Ali, a member of the Black September group that carried out the 1972 attacks, talks about his idea of a Palestinian homeland. Also a scene where Avner's mother, an original settler in Israel, defends their homeland. And a scene where an Israeli spymaster, played by Geoffrey Rush, provides a strong response to Avner's doubts.
"The whole Israeli-Palestinian idea of home suggests that there are two enormously powerful desires in competition," Spielberg said. "Two rights that are in a sense competing. You can't bring that to a simplicity. The film is asking you to surrender your simplicity on both sides and just look at it again. There was an article in USA Today by a Los Angeles rabbi, accusing me of 'blind pacifism.' That's interesting, because there is not any kind of blind pacifism within me anywhere, or in 'Munich.' I feel there was a justified need to respond to the terrorism in Munich, which is why I keep replaying images of the Munich massacre throughout the movie.
"In 1972, when Black September used the Olympics to announce themselves to the world, they broke all the rules and broke the boundaries of that conflict. Israel had to respond, or it would have been perceived as weak. I agree with Golda Meir's response. The thing you have to understand is, Munich is in Germany. And these were Jews dying all over again in Germany. For Israel, it was a national trauma. The Avner character, in the end, simply questions whether the response was right.
"Sometimes a response can provoke unintended consequences. The Rush character and Avner's mother reply. But people feel my voice is represented in Avner. 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."
Spielberg, a onetime boy wonder who directed his first commercial project at the age of 22, is now 59.
"I guess as I grow older," he said, "I just feel more responsibility for telling the stories that have some kind of larger meaning. Most of my movies sum everything up. I try to make movies to give audiences the least amount of homework and the most amount of pleasure. The majority of my movies have done that. But as I get older, I feel the burden of responsibility that comes along with such a powerful tool. I certainly have made movies by popular demand. There is a distinction between moviemaking and filmmaking. I want to do both."
He repeated that he was wounded by the charge that he is "no friend of Israel" because his film asks questions about Israeli policies. "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. I love Israel, and I ask questions. Those who ask no questions may not be a country's best friends."
Is the Middle East without a solution? I asked. Will there be an endless cycle of terror and reprisal? What about the startling fact that Israel's entrenched political enemies, Ariel Sharon from the right, and Shimon Peres from the left, have resigned from their parties and joined in a new party that says it is seeking a path to peace?
"What I believe," Spielberg said, "is that there will be peace between Israelis and Palestinians in our lifetimes."
'Everybody is sort of saying they wish I would be silent' The telephone rang, and it was Steven Spielberg once again. After our previous conversation, I sent him a defense of "Munich" written by Jim Emerson, editor of rogerebert.com (his article appears on the Web site). It includes quotes from many Jews highly critical of Spielberg.
I heard an urgency in Spielberg's voice.
"[Emerson's article] brought together some sources and some criticisms I hadn't seen," Spielberg said, "and it made me want to be more specific about the responsibility of a Jewish artist.
"Everybody is sort of saying they wish I would be silent. What inspired me by what I read in Emerson's article is that silence is never good for anybody. When artists fall silent, it's scary. And when Jewish artists fall silent about Israel, it's maybe not so much because we think asking questions will do damage to Israel, but because we're intimidated by the shrillness and hysteria with which these questions are received sometimes.
"And I guess, because I'm a Jewish-American artist, that means that I'm not willing to shut up because somebody who claims to speak for the Jewish community tells me to. I guess I have a very deep faith in the intelligence and in the fairness and in the intellectual courage of the Jewish community, and I know that the questions I'm posing with 'Munich' are also questions that many Jews here and in Europe and Israel are asking.
"I think that Jews have always understood that the combination of art and advocacy are not the work for the shy or the timid, and that's why Jews down through history have produced so many important advocates -- because the Jewish community traditionally celebrates a variety of thought. I do not believe that 'Munich' will polarize and was not intended to polarize that community which I love."
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.
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.