If we may presume that most adults prefer to be taken seriously in their workplaces, it must follow that reviewers of motion pictures need to pretend the screenplays they assess influence the ways we calibrate our lives.
Truth or Consequences?
Such logic leads me to conclude it is a moral pity that many gullible American moviegoers will take literally the storytelling Mr. Spielberg.
Theatrically speaking, the director may be impersonating an honorable filmmaker. With his latest historical interpretation , "Munich," the most influential, most lauded director of his generation in Hollywood has, shall we say, rerouted history.
Ostensibly, he is relating the story of Israel¹s response to hunting down the eleven Palestinian terrorists who assassinated eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.
But, based on Mr. Spielberg’s own brazen admissions, we should be hesitant in swallowing that line. He has, he says, significantly doctored the tale to more comfortable fit his world-view as a peacenik.
If he were committed to replaying the events of that dreadful summer, I probably would have been early in line to see the film.
But I have not even thought about joining the queue because Mr. Spielberg inserted a disclaimer at the outset of the film that, so far, has
discouraged me.
The movie you are about to see, it is announced, was "inspired by actual events."
You may call that honesty. I call it deceitfulness. What does "inspired by actual events" mean? Do you think a farmer in Omaha or a businessman in
Iowa City persons who never have studied the nuances of the Palestinians’ terrorist war on Israel ‹ realize this is largely a Mother Goose fable?
I believe Mr. Spielberg¹s objective was to deceive vulnerable moviegoers. Walking into a darkened auditorium with an open heart and their
guard down, fans would be prepared to enjoy rather than to analyze. Perfect foils, I suggest, for Mr. Spielberg¹s clever game of Gotcha.
To assuage his own squishy moral views of the Palestinians’ war against Israel, Mr. Spielberg hired a screenwriter whose resume reflects no capacity
for truthful storytelling.
The very dovish Mr. Spielberg says the writer Tony Kushner gave him what he asked for, a play that portrays the Palestinian terrorists and their dead
Israeli victims as moral equals. Sadly, Mr. Spielberg¹s impulses as a peacenik appear to have overtaken his impulses as a Jew and as a truthteller.
Honesty: Where Is It?
If the director had made a film where a band of thugs assassinated a team of world-class athletes, why couldn¹t he have called the film "Chicago" or
"Pittsburgh"? This, I believe, would have been ethically tolerable. Because of his vast and favorable reputation, I have no doubt Mr. Spielberg¹s film will draw huge audiences. Munich has been reviewed by everyone except the late Yassir Arafat, who would have drooled his beard damp had he seen it.
If my little coterie of Jewish friends and I never see Munich, Mr. Spielberg will not lose money. But doesn¹t the man have any pride left?
In yet another shrewd piece of strategizing, Mr. Spielberg weaves into his illusional movie film clips from the events of the day. Reviewers have said this gives Munich the feel of being a documentary.
This seems to play into Mr. Spielberg¹s marketing strategy: Pit smart, sophisticated, uniformly supportive movie reviewers against moviegoers who,
it is anticipated, will emerge confused or dazed over whether that was the way Munich really happened.
Confusion is the end game of all propaganda, isn¹t it?
Strategy
Across America, the reaction this month has been just the way the publicity-starved director planned it. Enthusiastically in sync with the political philosophy of Mr. Spielberg, reviewers have loved his moral blurriness. Reaction of movie fans still is being tabulated.
Surrendering to his peace-at-any-cost philosophy, may I guess that Mr. Spielberg¹s next film will portray Neville Chamberlain as a misunderstood hero. By the time moviegoers deduce that the insipid Mr. Chamberlain was the dupe of the last century, Mr. Spielberg will be out celebrating another artistic triumph.
If the director¹s game in life is to fool the heck out of the public while winning win the adulation of professional and amateur hangers-on, he has
scaled the mountain. Atta boy, Stevie.
At five-foot-seven, Mr. Spielberg, who dreams of grandiosity, must suffer from a Napoleonic complex. As a filmmaker, he operates without the annoying accoutrements of integrity and ethical behavior that govern the rest of us.
From a Holocaust-denier, I would expect this kind of story. Munich is a deliberate, not accidental, distortion of precious Israeli history that should be beneath the moral level to which an icon of the (secular) Jewish community would stoop. However, Mr. Spielberg performs in one of the few professional enclaves left in the modern world where education is regarded as incidental, if not an impediment, to success.
Freshly turned fifty-nine years old, Mr. Spielberg may not marry Jewish women, but, incongruously, he seems to desire to grow as a Jew. His record, like everyone’s, is complex. He gives generously to Holocaust-related projects. He consults and learns periodically with a respected Orthodox rabbi on the Westside.
Professionally, though, his visits with the rabbi seemed to prove worthless in essaying Munich. Mr. Spielberg blatantly ignored the wisdom he acquired
from his rabbi. For a fellow Jew, for shame.
