P.S. Hank Azaria played a similiar character to Newman's in the 2001 t.v. movie "Uprising" about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
P.S. Hank Azaria played a similiar character to Newman's in the 2001 t.v. movie "Uprising" about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
Have you seen it?
Spielberg prefers his Jews as victims, not as fighters.
The theme song was my eighth-grade choir's contest piece, and I still can sing it.
If you REALLY want to look at how favorably the Jews used to be treated, go watch "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben-Hur" again. When you watch those movies, you would think that the American Revolution was run by Israelites. Very pro-Jewish movies, unlike today.
I likes the old Hollywood much better.
I saw it when it came out. It's been quite a while, but I certainly enjoyed it, and as you say, it painted the Israelis as real heroes of--shall we say--biblical proportions. Their backs were pushed to the wall, they were close to extermination, but they prevailed.
I haven’t seen or read it in years, but I’ve often recommended the film/book for that reason. We see the Palestinians, they’re spoken of throughout the film. And the Palestinians are Jews.
As I recall there are also several scenes depicting the friendly relationship between some of the local Arab population and the Jews, excuse me, the Palestinians. And a scene I remember where I presume the Sal Mineo character is warned of the Mufti’s followers.
No, they wouldn’t make the film today.
I've not seen Exodus in many years, but it was a good movie. I'll have to see it again.
1964 was the year it all fell apart.
Leon Urius wrote the book "Exedous". It goes into far more detail and is very well written. The kind of book you just can't put down. For example the character Sal Mineo plays is a "Sondercommando" in a concetration camp. He removes bodies from the ovens. It delves into the past of the principals to explain their beliefs they carry with them now.
I'd prefer that people read the book. A movie of such a book is the same as only reading the introduction and not the content.
There's another excellent movie about the Munich subject. A made for cable movie from back in the 80s.
SWORD OF GIDEON I recommend it.
After reading your post, I found the following review of Munich, which I don't plan on seeing.
http://www.fandango.com/ReviewPage.aspx?mid=92524&review_source=LosAngelesTimes
You'll enjoy this "professional" (sort of) review of Exodus:
http://www.unionsverlag.com/info/link.asp?link_id=4465&pers_id=1717&pic=../portrait/LaorYitzhak.jpg&tit=Yitzhak%20Laor
"....Leon Uris himself would not have written the book had he not been endowed with a considerable amount of the "new" type of Zionism. When "Exodus" was first published, Uris was interviewed and said: "There is a whole school of Jewish American writers who spend their time damning their fathers, hating their mothers, wringing their hands and wondering why they were born." In the background, of course, are Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, Saul Bellow and others. "This isn't art or literature," wrote Uris. "It's psychiatry. These writers are professional apologists. Every year you find one of their works on the best-seller lists. Their work is obnoxious and makes me sick to my stomach."
"Exodus," of course, is the antithesis to what he calls "obnoxious" literature: "I wrote `Exodus' because I was sick of apologizing - or feeling it was necessary to apologize. The Jewish community of this country has contributed far more greatly than its numbers - in art, in medicine and especially literature."
The character Azaria played in the Warsaw ghetto, were he to survive, would have joined the Irgun or LEHI, not Ari's Hagganah.
Today the Presbyterian character would be organizing a boycott of Israel.
People may be surprised at the Arab Sheik character in the movie, that would side with Israel, is based in fact on some Arabs, most prominently on those from a small village outside Jerusalem called Abu Gosh, who sided with the Jews against their fellow Arabs for the creation of Israel.
Dalton Trumbo, one of the infamous "Hollywood Ten", wrote the screenplay for this film.
"Exodus" is an excellent movie depicting the struggle by the Jews to establish the nation of Israel. A must see film, IMO.
You have to understand that in 1960, Israel was considered to be "good" by the American left for two reasons.
1. The original Zionists (Ben Gurian, et. al.) were economic socialists who were creating "cooperative" farms the Kabotizes (sp?) etc. that fit well with Marxist and Hollywood ideology.
2. In 1948, the Soviet Union supported the creation of the state of Israel at the UN because they saw them a.) fighting the British and b.) as fellow socialists.
The Soviet support did not begin to change until the mid 60s when they saw the opportunity to disrupt the growing flow of Mideast oil to the west by sponsoring terrorists like Arafat and corrupt totalitarian secular regimes in Egypt, Syria and Iraq, turning all three into client states. Additionally, the Israelis began to move away from overt socialism and embrace a more mixed economy, disappointing Hollywood socialists.
Once the Soviets finally changed their tune totally on Israel by the mid 1970s, Hollywood began to change their "scripts" too.
I worked as an usher in a theater in Pittsburgh (a reserve seat theater which of course no longer exists) when Exodus was showing. I saw it probably 20 times. It has left a deep feeling in me that has never left. Anytime I hear the Exodus theme all of the memories come back. Of course hollywood would never make a movie like this today.
hard to believe but the old moguls treated Christians favorably too.
i miss them...nearly all of em were Jews...and not exactly religious Jews either....imagine
