Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005)

[flyonthewall2983]

Just finished watching it on HBO, and was suitably impressed. I'm a bit ambigious about Spielberg's work, some of it I like some I don't. The things he was able to bring out in Tom Cruise in Minority Report that made him a fairly sympathetic character were nowhere to be seen in War of the Worlds.

The strong bond Avner and his men share really felt palpable and believable. It's something Steven used in Saving Private Ryan as well. I'm sure it's considered a cliche in film by now, the male bonding experience among men who are sent to do a dangerous and/or unthinkable job. But it's only in a film like this where it doesn't feel like a cliche. And the other actors who made up the team (especially Craig and Hinds), do a wonderful job.

[Binker]

Just rewatched this. I guess I have to give Spielberg credit for moving the discussion one step beyond most films in the covert action genre, which are almost uniformly uninterested in posing any questions re: the legitimacy of state violence. Rather, we're typically given a team (the CIA) and asked to marvel at the unparalleled brilliance of these men. After all, they went to Harvard.

In Munich, we're still firmly on the team, but Spielberg allows us to briefly consider some basic moral questions, such as, "Is my government always right?" and "Is international state terrorism any more legitimate than nonstate terrorism?" Of course, it's all portrayed as very ambiguous, we're entering tough moral ground, etc, etc... The problem is, none of these questions are even remotely complex or ambiguous, at least not for a moral person. I can't imagine anything more telling of the moral climate within the US than this movie causing a controversy because it bothered to passingly ask if a covert kill squad moving freely across international borders, setting off bombs in occupied hotels in order to eliminate nonmilitary targets who have not been given a trial nor had any evidence produced against them might maybe be somewhat questionable. Spielberg's response to the "US Jewish commentators'" charges that he was equating the Israeli assassins with the Palestinian terrorists should have been, "Yes, I was, because the actions are entirely equivalent."

I also find all the "letting the Palestinians give their side of the story" stuff that is lauded in every review interesting. The scene consists of Bana spouting ad nauseam arguments (can't take back a country you never had, plenty of countries for Arabs) that Spielberg should be embarrassed to even reproduce. At least, he should be embarrassed to reproduce them without demonstrating the racism and ignorance of the historical record which lies at their heart. Instead, Spielberg's Palestinian smokes his cigarette and smiles, coolly accepting the premises but simply rejecting the conclusion. The scene ends with an Israeli asking a Palestinian if he really wants to "get back all that nothing." I can't imagine anything more preposterous. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so disgusting.

[Grand Illusion]

The problem is, none of these questions are even remotely complex or ambiguous, at least not for a moral person.

That statement could be used as justification or denial of any number of ethical/moral issues. It's a ridiculous proclamation holding some sort of moral absolute.

Spielberg's film was not one with moral absolutes. The answers weren't clear and up front. Your blanket statement that none of the questions raised are complex is a juvenile way of looking at the complex situation.

Spielberg's response to the "US Jewish commentators'" charges that he was equating the Israeli assassins with the Palestinian terrorists should have been, "Yes, I was, because the actions are entirely equivalent."

Obviously in your absolutist world, they are. And maybe they are to Spielberg as well. I don't know. But I personally, don't view people who killed those Israeli athletes as the same equivalent as the people sent to kill the original perpetrators. And I really don't care to hear your arguments, I'm making a case that the issue is indeed "complex," unless you are just going to say I'm not a "moral person" and leave it at that.

Is a murderer the same as the executioner on death row? To some. To me, no. Although I support neither murder nor capital punishment. Further down that path and to the credit of the issues Spielberg raises, the Munich assassins get even more muddied because their targets moved beyond just members of Black September.

Regardless, one of the most interesting parts of Spielberg's film is not the political and moral tit-for-tat, but rather the psychological effect of such policies, moving from anger to despair to paranoia as well as among the grey areas. We could argue right/wrong until we're blue in the face, but Bana and Spielberg and the writers went to lengths to portray the psychological.

[Binker]

Spielberg's film was not one with moral absolutes. The answers weren't clear and up front. Your blanket statement that none of the questions raised are complex is a juvenile way of looking at the complex situation.

The situation is complex. The morality of assassination and violence against innocent civilians is not complex. The international community has agreed on these issues, and the only dissent comes from the ultranationalist margins.

Obviously in your absolutist world, they are. And maybe they are to Spielberg as well. I don't know. But I personally, don't view people who killed those Israeli athletes as the same equivalent as the people sent to kill the original perpetrators. And I really don't care to hear your arguments, I'm making a case that the issue is indeed "complex," unless you are just going to say I'm not a "moral person" and leave it at that.

In a conceptual discussion, where were assuming that the people being targeted did in fact plan the attack and that the collateral damage is zero, we can simply play the response-counter response game. In other words, what makes the Palestinians the "original perpetrators"? That starting point is completely arbitrary. There are more rational starting points, but I have no interest in going through the historical record here. Rather, I'll just say that, by 1972, thousands of Palestinian homes were destroyed, thousands of Palestinian children were dead, and thousands of Palestinians were starving and dying of thirst due to forced relocation and minuscule food and water rations. Whose moral here? Because Israel is committing massive atrocities against them, does that give Palestinians the right to fight back by killing Israeli civilians? If we buy into this game, the question does become muddled. But there isn't any need to. We can just say that all violence which targets innocent civilians is immoral. That is an absolutist stand I am absolutely willing to take. Who says these are the men that planned Black September? The Israeli government? How can the debate over the morality of these actions not end right here? Perhaps there are some who would dissent. But I wouldn't want to know them.

[MoonlitKnight]

Mawkish sentimentality sells, as the continuing careers of Steven Spielberg and Richard Curtis demonstrate only too well.

Now, now -- "Munich" was completely devoid of sentimentality...a claim to which not even his sacred cows "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan" can lay.

[Cold Bishop]

Now, now -- "Munich" was completely devoid of sentimentality...a claim to which not even his sacred cows "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan" can lay.

And with the public, it was easily his least popular film of the decade

[Nothing]

Munich is devoid of sentimentality? I might actually have to see that then...

[knives]

It has other problems though, such as being completely ridiculous.

[Cold Bishop]

It has other problems though, such as being completely ridiculous.

I don't know, other than the embarrassing-but-meant-to-be-profound sex scene, I thought its the best thing Spielberg's done since A.I. (In fact, its probably the best thing he's done behind A.I. and Duel, period).

[knives]

It has other problems though, such as being completely ridiculous.

I don't know, other than the embarrassing-but-meant-to-be-profound sex scene, I thought its the best thing Spielberg's done since A.I. (In fact, its probably the best thing he's done behind A.I. and Duel, period).

Without a doubt it is his best thing since AI, but that doesn't forgive the second half, which if memory serves, becomes an over the top action fiasco. In addition to Duel and AI I'd say Jaws and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I have a Poltergeist theory on that one, manages to go beyond film school 101.

[oldsheperd]

Without a doubt it is his best thing since AI, but that doesn't forgive the second half, which if memory serves, becomes an over the top action fiasco. In addition to Duel and AI I'd say Jaws and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I have a Poltergeist theory on that one, manages to go beyond film school 101.

Hey I think Empire of the Sun should be squeezed onto that list along with A.I., Jaws, etc.

[Cold Bishop]

I think the Spielberg general thread (if it exists) would be more appropriate home for most of this discussion,especially if its going to turn to his other films...

Hey I think Empire of the Sun should be squeezed onto that list along with A.I., Jaws, etc.

I dislike Empire of the Sun for many of the reasons Rosenbaum highlights in his review. Specifically...

How, for example, could Spielberg grapple with these two characteristic sentences from Empire? “As Basie sucked at the chocolate cup with his sharp teeth, he resembled a white-faced rat teasing the brains from a mouse”; and, “A drop of blood fell from his nose into the water and was instantly attacked by myriads of small fish no larger than a match head.” And what about the thoughts of Ballard’s hero Jim, after he’s herded with others out of a Japanese prison camp and into an Olympic stadium crowded with cars, appliances, and furniture, just before he witnesses a flash of light from the atomic blast in Nagasaki? “Jim looked at the hundreds of prisoners on the grass. He wanted them all to die, surrounded by their rotting carpets and cocktail cabinets. Many of them, he was glad to see, had already obliged him, and Jim felt angry at those prisoners still able to walk who were now forming a second march party. He guessed that they were being marched to death around the countryside, but he wanted them to stay in the stadium and die within sight of the white Cadillacs.”. ... A friend once remarked that in The Color Purple the central house became at different times a mansion or a shack, depending upon the dramatic needs of separate scenes. In Spielberg’s Empire, World War II is blessed with the same magical elasticity–sometimes it’s fun (Jim loves airplanes), sometimes it’s horrible (people die), sometimes it’s picturesque (over 15,000 extras), but almost never, as in Ballard, is it all of these things at once.

The perverse mix of attraction/repulsion from his horrific subject matter is one of the more interesting characteristics of Ballard's work, and in Empire especially, it keeps it from becoming just another war memoir. Spielberg makes it just that.

[John Cope]

First of all, let's not give Nothing the wrong idea here in respect to Munich's sentimentality quotient. What about the scenes with Eric Bana and his family? What about Eric Bana period? His character is a sentimentalist; that's where his own nationalist allegiance emanates from (Nothing is right about that connection). As is known, I have absolutely no problem with sentimentality, whether considered mawkish or not. I do have a problem with poor or shallow application of it. Spielberg generally gets this right because there is usually some indication of or sense of irony which allows the sentiment to be experienced multi-dimensionally. In Munich there's the seriousness of the political discussions themselves. That kind of thing off sets or deepens the sentiment Spielberg chooses to use as a dramatic device to engage us emotionally. When he gets it wrong (as in Catch Me If You Can) the obviously contrived nature of the sentiment is risible because his ironic device is itself glib or flip (the 60's kitsch pastiche/ the rote father-son stuff); his particular perspective on the material comes across as weak under those circumstances because it's too self-restricted, narrow and trite. I remember being genuinely angry watching CMIYC in the theater as it kept feeling designed to prevent me from ever getting any other perspective on the material than the most obvious one. His films rarely if ever feel that confined and suffocating. The sentiment there did not work for me since the overall presentation seemed misjudged and ill considered. Overall though it should be remembered that the current aversion to the sentimental and its concurrent derision is simply a product of fashion; times will change.

As to Empire of the Sun, it has always been a personal favorite and the idea that Spielberg has made "just another war memoir" is impossible for me to accept. I get Rosenbaum's point that it doesn't pursue Ballard's more conceptually radical and unique take but that in and of itself doesn't bother me. God knows most adaptations are considered a "betrayal" of the source material by someone. So yes Cronenberg would have probably made a more faithful version of Ballard's book (at least one more acceptable to the Ballard fan base) and yes Spielberg's film is far more representative of his own fixations than anything else. But so what? It's a divergent reading but it's hardly unenlightening. Besides, I can't believe that anyone seriously thinks the push/pull of the horrific is not given just due in the film. The rhythm of the scenes accommodates just such a movement or interplay of tonalities. The issue seems to be more one of not wanting to see those tonalities divided up in this way. Well, if that's a problem for you I guess it will remain a problem. JR's absurd dismissal/diminishment of the whole "Mrs. Victor's soul going to heaven" scene just informs us of his own prejudices; though I have always appreciated the fact that he was an early supporter of AI, understanding well Spielberg's near perfect collision of sensibilities with Kubrick.

The other remark in that piece about the house in Color Purple also seems ludicrous to me for similar reasons. Of course its got an elastic quality to it; as far as I'm concerned that functions to make the same ultimate point JR is arguing for. If in Spielberg's world one emotion predominates from scene to scene rather than presenting us with a finely tuned balance of precariously integrated, subtle shades of gray sensibilities (though I don't think somebody like Cronenberg necessarily does that either), that's fine by me. Because that's what it's all about--the particularity of certain sensibilities; the way we process our experiences. This may surprise JR but we don't all do it the same way.

[MoonlitKnight]

I kind of see what you're getting at...but I still don't feel "Munich" lays on what little sentimentality it has nearly as thick as Spielberg's other films. There's no real 'I could've saved so many more...' or 'Am I a good man?' or 'There's so much love in this house...' moment.

[flyonthewall2983]

The thing that I am remembering most about the end is quite the opposite of those moments. You get the feeling that Avner feels almost as if his work was done for nothing, as there will be someone else in each place of each man his team conspired to eliminate.

The most Spielberg-ian element of the film is actually what I liked the most about it.

The strong bond Avner and his men share really felt palpable and believable. It's something Steven used in Saving Private Ryan as well. I'm sure it's considered a cliche in film by now, the male bonding experience among men who are sent to do a dangerous and/or unthinkable job. But it's only in a film like this where it doesn't feel like a cliche. And the other actors who made up the team (especially Craig and Hinds), do a wonderful job.

That was my immediate reaction I had after seeing the film, and it's still what strikes me the most about how well-done it was outside of all the suspenseful moments that permeate in it.

[colinr0380]

I think the Spielberg general thread (if it exists) would be more appropriate home for most of this discussion,especially if its going to turn to his other films...

Here

[Antoine Doinel]

I've always preferred this review of Munich.