"Munich" as Political Football
I saw Munich last night. Like any 3 hour movie, it was a mixed bag. But what I don't understand is the campaign to demonize -- spearheaded, alas, by what Norman Finkelstein has called the "usual suspects" -- Spielberg for his excessive "ambivalence." Is there such a thing as great art without ambivalence? Wasn't that the problem with socialist realism and all the proteges and mimics of the fundamentally inimitable Arthur Miller (including, alas, August Wilson)?
Leon Wieseltier, who should know better, as spokesman for this anti-intellectual and aesthetically nonsensical smear campaign:
It is soaked in the sweat of its idea of evenhandedness. Palestinians murder, Israelis murder. Palestinians show evidence of a conscience, Israelis show evidence of a conscience. Palestinians suppress their scruples, Israelis suppress their scruples. Palestinians make little speeches about home and blood and soil, Israelis make little speeches about home and blood and soil. Palestinians kill innocents, Israelis kill innocents. All these analogies begin to look ominously like the sin of equivalence, and so it is worth pointing out that the death of innocents was an Israeli mistake but a Palestinian objective.
The last clause says it all: "Munich" is too soft on so-and-so, and by the way (in case you didn't catch the hint), so-and-so is an asshole (is that really "worth pointing out" IN A FILM REVIEW?). "Munich" was destined to become just another political football, fodder for political comment; and so it has become. Cynical talk of "ambivalence" is just a coded jibe at any kind of political heterodoxy, for any attempt to tell a story and not a "story-within-a-story," for any uncoercive presentation of ideas... why can't we let the viewer decide?
Cf. For more of this kind of criticism, see Terry Teachout on Arthur Miller or "Good Night and Good Luck."
Leon Wieseltier, who should know better, as spokesman for this anti-intellectual and aesthetically nonsensical smear campaign:
It is soaked in the sweat of its idea of evenhandedness. Palestinians murder, Israelis murder. Palestinians show evidence of a conscience, Israelis show evidence of a conscience. Palestinians suppress their scruples, Israelis suppress their scruples. Palestinians make little speeches about home and blood and soil, Israelis make little speeches about home and blood and soil. Palestinians kill innocents, Israelis kill innocents. All these analogies begin to look ominously like the sin of equivalence, and so it is worth pointing out that the death of innocents was an Israeli mistake but a Palestinian objective.
The last clause says it all: "Munich" is too soft on so-and-so, and by the way (in case you didn't catch the hint), so-and-so is an asshole (is that really "worth pointing out" IN A FILM REVIEW?). "Munich" was destined to become just another political football, fodder for political comment; and so it has become. Cynical talk of "ambivalence" is just a coded jibe at any kind of political heterodoxy, for any attempt to tell a story and not a "story-within-a-story," for any uncoercive presentation of ideas... why can't we let the viewer decide?
Cf. For more of this kind of criticism, see Terry Teachout on Arthur Miller or "Good Night and Good Luck."
posted by hellisotherpeople at 2:41 PM
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