Spielberg's immoral equivalence:

Steven Spielberg's latest film, Munich - which opens this week in the US - is, the opening credits tell us, "inspired by real events."

The events center on the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes, and the subsequent campaign by the Jewish state to hunt down those involved in the murder of its citizens.

Carried out in the presence of the international media and televised live, the "Black September" assault on the Olympic Village helped put the Palestinian Arab war against Israel on the international agenda. And the ability of the Palestinian Liberation Organization to literally get away with murder helped set the stage for much of the carnage that followed.

The film prompts us to ask what Israel should have done in response.

In the film, an actress playing prime minister Golda Meir sees the answer clearly: Strike back! If the terrorists respect no limits in their war against the Jewish people, then the killers and those who direct them should not feel safe anywhere either. She orders the Mossad to track them down in their European havens and kill them.

If such an order seems vaguely familiar to American audiences, it should. The comparison between Meir's order and the reaction of President George W. Bush when he told rescue workers at ground zero that those who brought down the towers would soon be hearing from Americans is more than obvious.

That sort of blunt threat wasn't well-received in those quarters where our conflict with fundamentalist Islam is seen as a function of America's alleged sins against the world. Rather than seeking out al-Qaida, some sages told us to look in the mirror if we wanted to see the real bad guys. And that is precisely the message that Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner (who shares a writing credit with Eric Roth) seem to be making about Israel in Munich.

It should be noted that the film has already come in for justified criticism for being primarily based on a book whose primary source was a fraud. Vengeance by George Jonas purported to tell the tale of a disillusioned Mossad agent, but it turned out the man was just a cab driver with an Israeli accent, and not an ex-spy.

But even if we discount this, the film still fails its subject matter. That's because the goal here is not merely to wrongly argue that the battle against Palestinian terror is as criminal as anything the terrorists have done; its purpose is also to humanize the terrorists.

In a Time magazine story on his movie, Spielberg said the insertion of a fictional conversation between the leader of the Israeli team and a PLO operative was essential to his vision of the film. In it, the Arab speaks of his longing to recover his family's dignity and property that he claims they lost to Israel.

Without this and other elements that serve to break down the legitimacy of killing the men behind the attack on the Olympics, he says the film would not have been worth making. What Spielberg seems most proud of is the fact that those who seek to destroy Israel - and either slaughter or scatter its people - are not "demonized." They are, he insists, "individuals. They have families."

TO WHICH we can only reply, "So what?" You could say the same of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as the operatives of Hamas, and Fatah (from whom the members of "Black September" - a front for the PLO - came) who have cut down Jews in pizza parlors, bus stops and at Pessah seders. And even go on and include the German villains of Spielberg's World War II films.

But the problem with this film isn't just an obsessive refusal to be judgmental about terrorism or the tedious speechifying that overwhelms the action. There's something even more insidious at play here.

The main character, the Israeli agent Avner (played by Eric Bana), doesn't just lose his marbles because of a mission whose efficacy might well be debated. Spielberg's Avner rejects not merely a policy but Israel itself, which he abandons for the apparently more humane confines of Brooklyn, New York.

Spielberg even uses an image of a still-standing World Trade Center to punctuate a scene in which Avner rejects Israel to lead us to falsely think 9/11 might have been avoided had America also abandoned the Jewish state.

That Munich would have such an anti-Zionist denouement (in contrast to Schindler's List, which tearfully concluded with the playing of the song "Jerusalem of Gold") is unsurprising due to Kushner's involvement.

Though primarily known for his extravagantly praised plays about the plight of gays suffering from AIDS, Kushner is also a hard-core left-wing Jewish critic of Israel. He has edited a book of anti-Israel essays, and even told Haaretz that Israel's birth was a "mistake" he wished had never happened.

As for the director and prime mover of this project, in the years since the release of Schindler's List and his subsequent contributions to Holocaust remembrance projects, Spielberg has become something of a secular Jewish saint. As such, he's apparently worried enough about his image to employ former Middle East peace envoy Dennis Ross to spin for Munich, in addition to Eyal Arad, a leading Israeli public-relations torpedo who also works for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

They may well succeed, but if there was ever a movie that ought to provoke outrage, it is Munich. The film concludes with a bizarre scene in which the disillusioned Avner daydreams (fantasizes?) about the actual events of the massacre while having sex with his wife. As their coupling reaches its conclusion, we see the bound Israeli athletes slaughtered by their Arab captors.

By this point, a weary audience that has been subjected to many other obvious and heavy-handed clich s so familiar in Kushner's work is forced to wonder whether Avner now sees himself as one of the killers. At the same time, the audience is also being asked to see Israel and the war on terrorism as forces that are literally screwing the world.

Perhaps the fact that Munich is such poor entertainment will do more to limit the damage it does than anything said by its critics. But it would be a mistake to let this film pass without a response from those who care about the survival of both Israel and the West.

You don't have to insist that everything Israel or America does to fight terror is wise to understand that the war they're fighting is just. Judging the murderers and those who fight such madmen as morally equivalent is not wisdom. It is, as Steven Spielberg has now shown us, the ultimate obscenity.

The writer is executive editor of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Well, Kushner is good. I have been studying some plays of his own at the dramaturgy seminar in my university.

By the way the movie doesn't appeal to me very much... I hate when Spielberg goes too pretentious. Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan were good but I think he should have stopped there and going on on the fantasy & similars genre.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

Jordan .

``prayer for peace.' ' 

He voiced outrage at not being consulted for the thriller and accused Spielberg of pandering to the Jewish state.

Zionist  side

``We did not target Israeli civilians,' '

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Good for you, Smeds.  With your $9.50 a second time around, perhaps it will make its way up to the dismal box office of that other Spielberg dog, Amistad.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Ah, the news only gets worse for Munich. Out of the top ten box office already. "Fun with Dick and Jane" and even low-budget horror film "Hostel" still ahead of "Munich." Spielberg miffed over Golden Globe shut-out and now spurned by BAFTA as well. Deservedly so, imo. I'm looking forward to reading his views on WHY in about ten years when he may have some perspective about what went wrong with "Munich." I hope he figures that out in the intervening years.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

we saw Munich today. I enjoyed it. Kelly thought it was too long.

I also felt like Spielberg for the most part was fairly down the middle, even though you do leave with the idea that with each person you kill, another replaces that person. But that's a reality, and I don't think that necessarily is anti-going-after-terrorist, as it is the environment in which the terrorists are coming up out of that create this reality.

But yes, for the most part, I enjoyed it.

FYI - the previews had a trailer for Flight 93 coming this Spring. - http://www.flight93.net/  

Jordan .

Boy do I hate to disagree with Jordan! 

RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE IS THE POINT OF WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE FILM!!!

But that is not the only thing that's wrong with the film.  I'm too disappointed to hear your mini-review, Jordan.

Anyway, I'm going to go have dinner and watch that nuclear holocaust BBC film, Threads, so maybe I'll be more able to cope afterward. 

Violence begets violence, murmur, murmur...

Ohmygawd, and the icing on the cake, a trailer for Oliver Stoned's latest.  

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

No, Mr. Smarty Pants, I did NOT see it. (Pretty sure I mentioned that already. )

Do not expect me to fall into your little liberal trap a second time by actually going to SEE a movie I review! Ohhhhhh, no! Fool me once shame shame...or whatever it is they say in Texassee. Just remember that the last time I paid to see a movie was for F-9/11, a completely redundant experience after all the countless articles that were posted here and elsewhere. At least I got a few loud guffaws out of Michael Moore's transparent attempt to get out the "truth" to "the people," whom, if united, can never be de-yada yada-ed.

I've read Steven Spielberg's OWN words about "Munich" in the Time magazine interview. I'm well aware of Tony Kushner's world view and Israel ("the Mistake") views. (He's prominently featured in our Terrorist-Celebrity-Academic? game) I've seen several of the clips. It looks appealing. It's shot well. But geez, you expect a film to be shot well when your budget is $70 million! Lastly, with the tantalizing true version of the historical events, why would anyone's point of departure be a cockamamie long discredited book of fiction?

Eventually when I do get around to watching it on TV, I fully expect to be spouting off like all three Science Fiction Theater talking heads at once!

If all of that isn't a good enough reason to carp about a SPIELBERG movie as yet unseen, how about....

....JOHN WILLIAMS!!!????

Pant, pant...

Why would you want to get a little old lady all worked up like that, Danwhy??? Now, I'm going to go watch Britain get destroyed by an Iranian nuclear disaster, if you don't mind. Talk among yourselves now!

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

The John Williams music in the trailer was enough in itself to ensure I never see the film!

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

Hate to sound like a liberal, but with every situation there is a variety of opinons and beliefs, and I think that's what Munich captures. I can only view the film as a film. Up until the film I never even heard of Munich murders - I hadn't read anything about it before (that I remember), and I wasn't born yet. I'm personally tiring of films that come down on one side or the other - maybe there's weakness in those movies (inabitliy to form an opinion), but non-opinion movies at least help a person come up with their own rather than the other way around - even though I think the surfacy portion of Munich will leave most people with the feeling of appeasement. But that's only a thin layer, IMO.

There's no doubt that some (maybe all?) of the film is fictional - aren't they always (unless the director's last name is Moore).  

So with that said - Bana's character goes from fairly gung-ho pro-Israel as a nation to feeling that the 6 or so murders he committed were for wrong reasons (except for maybe the woman who killed one of his own - the guy who played Ceasar in Rome on HBO). However, Bana goes completely paranoid too after his mission. In one scene he sleeps on the closet floor but only after ripping up his room to see if he can find explosives. Later on when he returns to his wife, he thinks people are following him (maybe they are), he threatens the Israeli govt office in NY that he'll go to the press, and then talks at the end to the guy who sent him on the mission. Bana's character question here and right after his mission to his mother (sorta) and to everyone else - was it worth it?  In all cases, they tell him yes. His mother tells him they have a "home" now. But the guy has also gone through a bunch of stuff, and frankly, he's not "with it" in order to make an objective decision. That's up the audience. If you view Munich solely through the mind of Bana's character, then yes, the movie may actually lean to appeasement, but if you view the fact that every other character has an opinion too, and look at the movie in its entirety, then you may very well come away with a different feeling. So I think in the end, if you view the movie as only a movie with which was "inspired" by actual events, then your feeling will vary.

At the end of the film you finally get to see the final moments of the Olympic guys' lives. The Arabs stare directly into their faces and in cold blood kill them. One guy threw a grenade under the helicpotor to kill them. This in contrast of what Bana's character and his men did to other men who financed such a thing and I simply view the Israeli response as correct and proper.

Munich is really what you want to make of it. You can come away with a mixture of two feelings, or come away with feeling one way or the other. No matter what you do, Spielberg does leave you with a final thought. After Bana and the Israeli leader talk acrosss the bay in NYC, the camera pans across the city and ends with the final scene of the World Trade Towers standing in the background (CGI of course). People will of course view that final thought differently and I think in the end it all comes down to your overall feeling of 9/11, Bush, War on Terror, Israel, Palestine, and the overall issues that we deal with in how you will feel in the end.

As a Spielberg movie - it's okay. It's amazing he made it in a few months. Acting is good - directing is your normal Spielberg - more in line with Schindler's List than some of his most recent films. And I personally like John Williams   so there's that.

Jordan .

1. 2. 3.

I will respond more fully to you, Mr. Teddy Kennedy-Chambers, but for now I offer you three sources:

1. Vengeance, the make-believe book by George Jonas, whose main character is the one on whom the Eric Bana character is based. All of Munich's screenplay springs from an imposter's descriptions of the invented scenes you described above.

2. Striking Back, the Aaron Klein book from late 2005. It would have been a more nteresting choice for a film, but then there would have been no way Spielberg would have had Israeli-bashing Pulitzer Prize winning Kushner on board as screenwriter.

3. One Day in September, a DVD you can easily rent to see the actual events that took place before you were born and assess German complicity from their own lips and smiles. You will also see an interview with the sole survivor.

I have plenty more to say on the subject and will attempt to do so before the day is done. It would be useful to compare these three sources. My great dread is, that as JFK defined for most of those who "weren't born yet" a ridiculous version of the Kennedy assassination, the pattern will be repeated with this Spielberg-Kushner film and few will bother to discover the real historical facts. Therein lies the shame of popular culture meeting mass media. It's more than a movie but so much less than history. If you want to make a movie based on real events, why not throw some real events into the mix?

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Well, looks like Israel's not lovin' it.

Susan

Munich boring, says Israel
By Dan Williams in Jerusalem
31-01-2006

From: Reuters

AFTER months of fending off pro-Israel pundits who accused his movie Munich of overly sympathising with Palestinians, director Steven Spielberg has found a new foe in the Jewish state: bored critics. The film opened in Israel over the weekend to hostile reviews focusing more on cinematic technique than any assumed political message in the depiction of the Israeli hunt for the masterminds of a Palestinian raid on the 1972 Munich Olympics.

The conservative Jerusalem Post newspaper called the thriller "muddled, inept, offensive – and boring to boot".

"There is something slovenly about the way in which Spielberg constructs the film, a slovenliness that leaks into the directing style itself," the liberal Haaretz said.

Shirit Gal, the Israeli publicist for Munich, said on Monday that around 25,000 tickets had been sold for the film – a turnout she called "good" although Hollywood blockbusters have drawn 35,000 in their opening weekends in Israel.

"I am sure the reviews will have had some effect," Ms Gal said.

US critics have been kinder to Munich. It is on several Top Ten lists, with some predicting it will win Academy Awards. Arrayed against the praise are pundits who accuse Spielberg of using the film to criticise Israel's two-fisted security tactics and, by extension, the US-led "war on terror".

The dispute was triggered last year by disclosures that Spielberg had based Munich on a widely discredited book about Israel's reprisals for the killing of 11 of its Olympians, and had not consulted with those involved in the actual operations.

Haaretz came to the film-maker's defence. "Cinema has no obligation to chronicle history, even if by its very existence the film becomes part of history, often representing it or even replacing it in our memories," it said.

The debate was largely lost on mainstream Israelis who best remember Spielberg for his Holocaust epic Schindler's List.

"The only people likely to see this film as anti-Israel are those on the right-wing fringes, and even then, only those with serious ideological blindness," said the YNetnews Web site.

Another reviewer disliked Spielberg's portrayal of an Israeli hit-team – not because of the nature of the mission, but because its members are occasionally shown as self-doubting bunglers.

"It is not the script's political stance that harms Israel's reputation, but the shoddy way in which the vanguard of the 'Zionist superspies' is depicted," the Maariv daily said.

"What is surprising is Munich's failure as an action film."

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin