Munich
Spielberg's MunichTwo strikingly different reviews/articles about the film Munich have appeared at NRO and the Weekly Standard - both tackling the ever present question of "moral equivalence" - a sub-topic at every single conversation about Israeli and Palestinian conflict.
I just saw the film last night and found the film problematic as a film - apart from its infidelity to history and its politics.
Spielberg can't help himself as a filmmaker. The opening scenes of Black September are terrifying and creepy. When the camera glides from them to one of their victims - we have seen enough to know what happened, to be horrified. Yet Spielberg again and again returns to these scenes. Why? Perhaps vaguely we are supposed to learn about the massacre in Munich throughout the film which portrays a ficitonalized Israeli response. But it is not clear. The final scenes where scenes of Avner and his wife in bed are intercut with the scene at Munich's airport where the Israeli athletes are slaughtered is disturbing, and difficult to watch - but the meaning is lost on me.
As for moral equivalence, I side with the Weekly Standard in saying that this film is miles from moral equivalence. It takes great pains to portray the consciences of its Israeli characters. It shows them rather heroically trying to avoid "collateral damage" in their mission. As a film-watcher I was thrilled by the tempo and skill of the film-making and storytelling of this scene - but I felt myself vaguely suppressing the observation: "Quite scrupulous, for a hit squad. No?
Michael Brendan Dougherty
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Source: Spielberg’s Moral ConfusionWith all due respect to Spielberg’s artistic muse, it is all too predictable that a film portraying Israelis in a sympathetic light is just not in the cards right now. Righteous anger and robust self-defense are out (at least among Hollywood liberals). Today, we must have nothing but shades of gray. As Spielberg acknowledged to Time, he believes that “a response to a response doesn’t really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual motion machine.” Terrorists kill, but so do Israelis (and Amer -
Source: Munich SyndromeSteven Spielberg's Munich and George Jonas's Vengeance, the book on which it is based, are purportedly accounts of the Israeli hit team that set out to conduct these executions. The story of those two works is also countered by a new book, Striking Back by Aaron Klein, a correspondent for Time magazine and a captain in the Israeli Defense Force's intelligence unit. And although the two sides of the story seem to conflict, they are, at a deeper level, of a piece.
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