terror cannot be a solution to terror--just say that and then shut up, Steven

Rating: 8/10 (8 June 2006)

Munich was pretty good. I don't have too much to say about the movie itself. What I will say is that I was happy to see it go beyond a revenge thriller, and I wasn't surprised that it did. Spielberg is a good director--he's very popular, and that can sometimes make movie critics and movie lovers assume that he's a sellout or whatever, but I think Spielberg is something like Hitchcock (I'm not saying that he's as good as Hitchcock, as I'm quite convinced that he's NOT): he's a good director who knows how to make audiences happy while, at the same time, producing some good cinematic art. This movie took its time, which I was thrilled to see, and in so doing it let us feel the discomfort that its protagonist felt--the array of emotions from grief and vengeance to hesitation and regret that go into a human being who's signed on to do some incredible inhuman things to other human beings. I recommend seeing this movie--it raises questions that politicians today have trouble raising without being blasted as unpatriotic or as terrorist sympathizers or whatever.
What I do want to mention, though, is the introduction that Spielberg opted to append to the beginning of the DVD version of this film. It's disappointing at best, and spinelessly cowardly at worst. I suggest that, if you have not yet seen the movie and plan to, you should skip Spielberg's intro and go straight on to the movie. You can always check out the intro afterward. You see, I tend to like artists best when they do their art and then shut up. I don't love when artists offer their own interpretation of their work, and I especially don't like it when artists engage in defenses of their work in response to criticism (either aesthetic or ideological). In the introduction to Munich, Spielberg rushes to defend himself from two charges--one: criticism of Israel, and two: advocacy of non-response to terrorism. His comments really angered me for a number of reasons. First of all, he made the movie, it raises good questions, and no intelligent viewer could possibly think that Steven Spielberg was making a movie that slammed Israel. The movie is too obviously a question, not an answer. As for non-response, I feel sick that Spielberg should make this fairly nuanced film, and then, in this gutless introductory apologetic, contribute to the black or white illogical that has framed the debate about the war on terror, as if violence and nothing are the only alternatives we have when choosing to respond to terrorist tactics. It burns me up to see a filmmaker make a complex movie and then almost take it back by issuing one-dimensional, wheedling commentary on his own fine film It's especially angering because he's so clearly responding to ideological criticism, not aesthetic criticism. I'd be less emotional in my response if he was defending his film-making or choice of cinematographer or editing, or whatever, but he's clearly defending his politics. "No, no, no everybody, I love Israel. And of course we have to fight the war on terror, I mean, duh." Give me a break. This is even worse that Francis Ford Coppola using his audio commentary on GFIII to defend his decision to use his talentless daughter to play Mary Corleone (talentless as an actor, anyway--my jury's still out on her skill as a director).
Munich is right to suggest that violence begets violence, and when both sides (as if there are only two sides, which is another fallacy) of a violent conflict are willing to fight for hundreds of years and countless generations of children, violence is the only tactic guaranteed NOT to solve the problem. He had the courage to make a movie that articulated that message, and I just wish he had the courage to let that message be and not back down in the face of (probably Zionist) criticism.
Bottom line: see the film, disregard the DVD intro by SS.