Spielberg to Film 1972 Munich Olympics Aftermath
Source: Variety
Steven Spielberg (The Terminal) will focus on the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics for a feature that has come together as a co-production between DreamWorks and Universal, reports Variety.
The director will shoot a script by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, The Insider), and he has begun casting, setting his Schindler's List star Ben Kingsley for a role. DreamWorks will likely distribute internationally while Universal distributes domestically.
The trade adds that the film doesn't have a title and remains shrouded in secrecy even as Spielberg and his production crew lock down European locations for a June start date.
Spielberg will follow this project by directing the Robin Swicord-scripted DreamWorks drama The Rivals and then will reunite with his Minority Report star Tom Cruise in a Paramount/DreamWorks adaptation of the H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, which David Koepp is currently writing.
Hmm, so much for Indy IV (I breathe a sigh of relief).
This is also FAR more exciting than War Of The Worlds, in my opinion. The true story behind this event is absolutely staggering. Has anyone seen the doc about it that came out a few years back, Two Days In September? Amazing. Probably more amazing than any feature version could be, but it's a story that's worth telling.
A director like Michael Mann would knock this one out of the park, but I think Spielberg could do a great job with it. The point his style has evolved to will suit this story. THERE'S NO WAY HE CAN PUT A HAPPY ENDING ON THIS MOVIE, but of course he probably will anyway, somehow.
Of course it'll have a happy ending. Or if not, at least a salute to the athletes that died. The release said it's focused on the AFTERMATH, not the actual games. So does that mean it'll be about the Israelis hunting down and killing the Pallestinians behind it? They made a movie about that for HBO starring Steven Bauer a long time ago. Yeay, 1 Day was a masterpiece.
wow. spielbergs really got a full plate. i like that! i guess that means also secret life of walter mitty is not happening any longer? can someone give me a basic synopsis on what the event was (without any HUGE spoilers) because i have no idea.
The most basic synopsis would be: Terrorists take athletes hostage during 1972 Olympics.
That's REALLY basic. Palestinian terrorists broke into the Israeli athletes' compound and took them hostage. It eventually turned into a bloodbath.
ah thanks guys. sounds interesting.
Quote from: mutinycoThat's REALLY basic.
it's the most basic.
Here's more detail: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=598&ncid=790&e=5&u=/nm/20040421/film_nm/leisure_spielberg_dc
Quote from: picolasQuote from: mutinycoThat's REALLY basic.
it's the most basic.
picolas...........you're avatar is phucking awesome...... 8)
Quote from: NEON MERCURYpicolas...........you're avatar is phucking awesome...... 8)
thanks. it's from the continuing series of pictures my friends drew.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpicolas.jaako.com%2Fpunchthatthematrixstolefromme1.gif&hash=1d1de5473cdec461823e769866b6ca34560c15d7)
(author)
Quote from: GhostboyHmm, so much for Indy IV (I breathe a sigh of relief).
huh? would you care to elaborate? i havent read anything lately ... plus im confused about your "relief" ? :? danke
Well, with three projects lined up, it'll be at the very least about 18 months before Spielberg could begin work on Indy IV, and that's if he really works fast (granted, one of them could go the way of Memoirs Of A Geisha, but still). Reports said that Paramount was still hoping for a release in 2006, but I don't buy it. Once Lucas went off to mess with the script, I felt that sorta put a nail in the project. I could be wrong, of course, but...
...I hope I'm not, because I love the way the trilogy ends now, and would rather not see the character return to the screen ever again than have an inferior capper to a superior trilogy.
Quote from: GhostboyOnce Lucas went off to mess with the script,
:shudder: dont remind me...
i havent felt that sick in a long time...
Quote from: GhostboyMemoirs Of A Geisha...
Oh yeah, I remember that. Could still be a really great film. ... Is anybody attached, etc?
Spike Jonze was actually considering it for a while, but now Rob Marshall (Chicago) is onboard. Last I remember, there was some dispute over studio cofinancing or something like that, holding the whole thing back...
I'm not too anxious about it, since I really didn't care much for the book.
Eric Bana Starring in Spielberg's Olympics Film
Source: Variety
The Terminal director Steven Spielberg is moving forward on his as-yet-untitled DreamWorks and Universal co-production about the 1972 Munich Olympics, says Variety.
The Hulk and Troy actor Eric Bana is the first to come aboard to star in the film, which will begin shooting in European locations beginning in the next six weeks. Ben Kingsley had previously agreed to play one of the leads, but his participation now appears unlikely because Spielberg pushed back the start five weeks so he could lock the score and attach a new ending for "Terminal".
The trade adds that Spielberg, who's producing the Olympics project with Kathleen Kennedy and Barry Mendel, will now begin casting the project in earnest, even though actors are rumored to be committing without getting to read the Eric Roth script.
Spielberg's intends to follow his summer project with a winter start on The Rivals, the Robin Swicord-scripted DreamWorks drama about catfighting 19th Century stage divas. Spielberg then hopes to direct Tom Cruise in a Paramount/DreamWorks adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds, which is being scripted by David Koepp.
All with one arm tied behind his back...
Does it seem to anyone else that Spielberg latches on to rising stars soon after their breakout roles lately?
Examples:
Vince Vaughn in The Lost World after Swingers
Matthew McConnaughey in Amistad after A Time to Kill
Matt Damon in Saving Private Ryan after Good Will Hunting
Jude Law in A.I. after The Talented Mr. Ripley
Colin Farrell in Minority Report after Tigerland
Eric Bana in 1972 Olympics Project after The Hulk?
Quote from: DerekDoes it seem to anyone else that Spielberg latches on to rising stars soon after their breakout roles lately?
Examples:
Vince Vaughn in The Lost World after Swingers
Matthew McConnaughey in Amistad after A Time to Kill
Matt Damon in Saving Private Ryan after Good Will Hunting
Jude Law in A.I. after The Talented Mr. Ripley
Colin Farrell in Minority Report after Tigerland
Eric Bana in 1972 Olympics Project after The Hulk?
Kumar in The Terminal..
I think Spielberg has been doing EVERYTHING at quicksilver speed. He's trying to keep at the edge of everything right now: aesthetics, technology, credit sequences, stars. He's very quickly reappropriating things he's seeing from younger filmmakers and commercials/music videos. He's doing it so fast that nobody can accuse him of ripping anybody off. It seems like he's being super aware and super cunning. Quick examples: using Imaginary Forces, best known for their work on Se7en, to do the imagery for Minority Report, or using Alex MacDowell, of Fight Club, to do the art direction, or using Mary Zophres, who works with the Coens, to do his costumes now, or even the multi-colored look of The Terminal, complete with Kumar, straight from Wes Anderson.
He's very much on top of things. His radar is very finely tuned.
Kushner Rewriting Spielberg's Olympics Drama
Source: Variety Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner will rewrite Steven Spielberg's untitled drama about the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics, where members of the Israeli team were held hostage and slain by Palestinian extremists.
Variety reports that Spielberg has also pushed back his projected start date from late this summer to June, 2005. Eric Bana remains the star of the film, a co-production between Universal and DreamWorks.
Forrest Gump writer Eric Roth wrote the original draft, with some rewriting done by Charles Randolph. But the director wasn't satisfied with the script and was also busy re-editing and fixing the ending for The Terminal, that he had to push back the late 2004 release date.
Spielberg may direct another project first. He's planning on helming Tom Cruise in a David Koepp-scripted adaptation of the H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds for Paramount/DreamWorks and is also attached to The Rivals, a Robin Swicord-scripted DreamWorks drama about cat-fighting 19th century stage divas.
Spielberg's Munich Olympics Film Set for Dec. 23
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Steven Spielberg plans a summer start for his delayed movie about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and a Dec. 23 release in theaters.
The untitled project, a co-production between Universal Pictures and Spielberg's DreamWorks, had been set to go before the cameras last year. Casting was under way when Spielberg decided to have "Angels in America" playwright Tony Kushner do a rewrite on the project, on which writers Eric Roth ("Forrest Gump") and Charles Randolph ("The Interpreter") also had worked.
With the project postponed, Spielberg moved quickly to begin filming his adaptation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds," starring Tom Cruise . Paramount will release it June 29.
Details about the Olympics film have been carefully guarded. Universal will release it domestically
War Of The Worlds = Jurassic Park, Munich Olympics Movie = Schindlers List?
IMDB lists the film name as "Vengeance"
as in, the ultimate vengeance against Mel Gibson?
I bet that this will be the most violent film ever made.
I read that thet title was actually whatever the Arabic word for Vengeance - I don't remember the exact word, though.
Anyway, I'm really glad he's still doing this - I was afraid it would fall through in between all the other projects he's lining up (Abe Lincoln, et al). Also, this'll be the fastest start-to-end production since Million Dollar Baby.
I believe the working title is now "Star of David."
Quote from: StefenWar Of The Worlds = Jurassic Park, Munich Olympics Movie = Schindlers List?
war of the worlds = the lost world, munich olympics movie = amistad?
Quote from: AlexandroQuote from: StefenWar Of The Worlds = Jurassic Park, Munich Olympics Movie = Schindlers List?
war of the worlds = the lost world, munich olympics movie = amistad?
War of the Worlds = Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Munich Olympics Movie = Always?
Quote from: Withnail & LoathingQuote from: AlexandroQuote from: StefenWar Of The Worlds = Jurassic Park, Munich Olympics Movie = Schindlers List?
war of the worlds = the lost world, munich olympics movie = amistad?
War of the Worlds = Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Munich Olympics Movie = Always?
Munich Olympics Movie = Minority Report, War of the Worlds = Catch me if you Can?
:yabbse-wink:
Quote from: AlexandroQuote from: Withnail & LoathingQuote from: AlexandroQuote from: StefenWar Of The Worlds = Jurassic Park, Munich Olympics Movie = Schindlers List?
war of the worlds = the lost world, munich olympics movie = amistad?
War of the Worlds = Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Munich Olympics Movie = Always?
Munich Olympics Movie = Minority Report, War of the Worlds = Catch me if you Can?
:yabbse-wink:
war of the worlds = munich olympics movie, munich olympics movie = garden state?
Spielberg thriller leaves Israeli spies in the cold
Steven Spielberg, famed for Hollywood blockbusters, is keeping mum about his latest project, a dramatization of tit-for-tat killings that followed the 1972 massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes by Palestinian guerrillas.
Such is the secrecy that even the Israeli spymasters who commanded the reprisals after the Munich Games have been left out in the cold.
Five retired Mossad agents, all of whom served in key intelligence posts during the hunt for Palestinian guerrilla chiefs in Europe and the Middle East to avenge the slaying of Israel's 11 sportsmen, voiced surprise at hearing of the film.
"I know nothing at all about this project," a former Mossad director who declined to be named told Reuters.
Entertainment reports say the film, provisionally titled "Vengeance" and due to reach cinemas in December, is based on a book of the same name whose account of one of the most painful chapters in Jewish history has been widely discredited.
Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy said the project had been comprehensively researched.
"This film has been built from many, many sources. One thing I can say is we expect this to be a balanced film," he said.
Best known in Israel for "Schindler's List," a Holocaust epic that ends with a pro-Zionist message, Spielberg was quoted as saying in a USA Today interview last week that the new film was a chance to explore his Jewish faith and fear of terrorism.
In the preface to "Vengeance," author George Jonas declares himself a supporter of Israel. But according to at least one member of Spielberg's cast, Daniel Craig, the screenplay is a less-than-flattering portrayal of Israeli tactics.
"It's about how vengeance doesn't ... work -- blood breeds blood," Craig told entertainment magazine Empire.
THIRTY YEARS OF SILENCE
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, which oversees Mossad and its archives, said it had received no request for assistance from any film production on Munich or its aftermath.
It was not clear if help would have been forthcoming.
Israel has never formally claimed responsibility for the shootings, explosive booby-traps and cross-border commando raids that killed 10 Palestinians linked to Black September, the group that carried out the deadly attack in Munich's Olympic Village.
The campaign included the 1973 slaying in Norway of a Moroccan waiter mistaken for Black September's leader. Six members of the Israeli hit team were prosecuted for murder. Israel eventually paid compensation to the victim's family.
"That whole period is too sensitive, even 30 years on," said an ex-deputy Mossad chief. "No one really wants to discuss it."
But Zvi Zamir, who headed Mossad in the 1970s, broke his silence after "Vengeance," purporting to be an expose based on the confessions of a Mossad ex-assassin, was first published.
According to the book, Israel largely abandoned its agents mid-mission in Europe, where several were hunted down and killed by Palestinian counter-espionage teams -- an account not borne out by news reports nor the protocols of the Norwegian trial.
Zamir told the New York Times in 1984 that the version of events in "Vengeance" was "not true" but did not elaborate. While standing by his source, Jonas admitted that "certain details of the story were incapable of being verified."
Jonas's agent Linda McKnight told the Wall Street Journal last year that Universal Pictures, which is co-producing the film with Spielberg's Dreamworks, had exercised an option to make a movie based on the book.
'War' over, Spielberg moves on
As his blockbuster takes theaters, he's wrapped up in the aftermath of the '72 Munich killings.
Source: Los Angeles Times
In "War of the Worlds," director Steven Spielberg contemplates an alien attack as a metaphor for today's terrorism. In his next film, already in production, the director eschews allegory and focuses on real terrorism and its consequences — specifically the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September and the Israeli response.
Spielberg has been nurturing the project for five years, although it is still going under the unwieldy title of "Untitled 1972 Munich Olympics Project."
Long shrouded in secrecy, the production was pushed back once, in part to accommodate the schedule of "Angels in America" playwright Tony Kushner, who was brought in last summer to rework a script by Oscar-winner Eric Roth ("Forrest Gump" and "The Insider").
As crowds line up to see "War of the Worlds," the 58-year-old director is in Europe filming the movie, which stars Eric Bana and Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush and is slated to come out at Christmas.
According to Spielberg's representative Marvin Levy, the film is "inspired by true events" and based on "multiple sources."
Spielberg is focusing on one of the signature events in the modern history of terrorism, a bloodbath that played out on TV, bringing the Middle Eastern conflict into American living rooms. The attack also dealt a blow to Israel's confidence with the message that there was no place in the world where its citizens could be safe.
After the massacre, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir instructed Israeli intelligence agents to hunt down the terrorist perpetrators and kill them, in a counterterrorist campaign that was called "Wrath of God." Ultimately, 10 terrorists linked to the massacre were killed, although Israel has never formally claimed responsibility.
It remains a very charged topic in Israel. In recent days, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, which manages the Israeli intelligence service and its archives, reacted to the start of the film with a statement that it had received no request for assistance.
Spielberg's back-to-back films are a virtual replay of 1993, when he fed the masses with "Jurassic Park" during the summer and then released his serious and ultimately Oscar-winning film "Schindler's List" at Christmas.
In its opening day of release, "War of the Worlds" looked on track to join the pantheon of blockbusters by Spielberg, the most commercially successful director of all time.
According to distributor Paramount, the film grossed $21.3 million, which is a career best for both Paramount and star Tom Cruise but not, as it turns out, Spielberg, whose opening day best remains "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," which took in $21.6 million on a Friday, May 23, 1997, according to box-office tracking firm Nielsen EDI Inc. (The record for the biggest Wednesday still belongs to "Spider-Man 2," with $40.4 million on June 30, 2004.)
It is unlikely that even the success of "War of the Worlds" will break the 18-week box-office slump, in which total grosses have been down compared with the same period the year before.
Although Spielberg established his reputation with thrillers such as "Jaws" and the alien movies "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," the director has in recent years begun to plumb recent history for more serious fare. He has focused on topics as significant as the Holocaust in "Schindler's List," World War II in "Saving Private Ryan" and slavery in "Amistad."
However, the "Munich Olympics Project" is only his second film to deal with explicitly Jewish subject matter. The director, who is Jewish, donated all his profits from "Schindler's List" to the Righteous Person Foundation and the Shoah Foundation, which collects videotaped testimony from Holocaust survivors and uses the histories for education and to combat bigotry around the world.
A documentary about the Munich Olympics massacre, "One Day in September," won the 1999 Oscar.
Spielberg Braces for Controversy
Director's Munich/Mossad movie now filming.
Just as his new release War of the Worlds was hitting theaters, director Steven Spielberg was already starting principal photography in Malta on his next project, a fact-based terrorism drama sometimes referred to as Vengeance.
The Tony Kushner-scripted project recounts the "Black September" massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and the Israeli squad of Mossad agents sent to avenge the crime. The highly secretive project is already courting controversy, and could prove to be the sort of lightning rod that JFK was for Oliver Stone.
Both Reuters and The New York Times have published reports about the project, which stars Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Geoffrey Rush, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler and Ciaran Hinds. Filming will take place in Malta, Budapest and New York for a December 23rd release by Universal Pictures.
"It's about how vengeance doesn't ... work – blood breeds blood," Craig once revealed to Empire magazine. The Times, however, went further, saying Kushner's script "focuses on the Israeli retaliation: the assassinations, ordered by Prime Minister Golda Meir, of Palestinians identified by Israeli intelligence as terrorists, including some who were not directly implicated in the Olympic massacre. By highlighting such a morally vexing and endlessly debated chapter in Israeli history – one that introduced the still-controversial Israeli tactic now known as targeted killings – Mr. Spielberg could jeopardize his tremendous stature among Jews both in the United States and in Israel. ... Making matters more complicated, an important source for Mr. Spielberg's narrative is a 1984 book by George Jonas, Vengeance, based largely on the account of a purported member of the Mossad's assassination team, whose veracity was later widely called into question."
"This film has been built from many, many sources. One thing I can say is we expect this to be a balanced film," Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy advised Reuters.
The notoriously secretive Spielberg is even more clandestine than usual with this project; he's turned down numerous interviews and has only issued a statement about the project:
"Viewing Israel's response to Munich through the eyes of the men who were sent to avenge that tragedy adds a human dimension to a horrific episode that we usually think about only in political or military terms. ... By experiencing how the implacable resolve of these men to succeed in their mission slowly gave way to troubling doubts about what they were doing, I think we can learn something important about the tragic standoff we find ourselves in today."
Not all experts agree with Spielberg's stated take on the events, according to the Times report. "I don't know how many of them actually had 'troubling doubts' about what they were doing," historian Michael B. Oren told the paper. Reuters inquired with a few ex-Mossad officials, all of whom were unaware of the project and reluctant to speak too much about the events portrayed.
Spielberg seems acutely aware of the potential powder keg he now sits on, and has reportedly sought the advice of various Washington officials and diplomats, including former President Bill Clinton. Reuters says that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office has not been contacted by the filmmakers for assistance.
Very 70's Pics from the set...
http://gallery.di-ve.com/Spielberg_starts_filming_in_Rabat/
Quote from: themodernage02Very 70's Pics from the set...
cool. pic #4 is mislabelled, there is no bana in that photo.
did we already establish who spielberg is copying in this film? obviously he stole bana after his underrated HULK performance (or Chopper, whatever).
Actor says Spielberg spy thriller good for Israel
An Israeli actress cast in Steven Spielberg's controversial new film about her country's counter-terrorism tactics said on Monday the Hollywood director intended to improve the image of the Jewish state.
Gila Almagor, the grande dame of Israeli drama, confirmed reports that the thriller is based on "Vengeance," a book about the Mossad intelligence service's assassination of Palestinian guerrilla chiefs in the 1970s that has been widely discredited.
That mission was mounted to avenge 11 Israeli athletes seized by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Munich Olympics and killed during a botched rescue effort. Several Mossad veterans have come out of the cold to question Spielberg's research.
But Almagor, who has been cast as the mother of a Mossad hit-man, called such quibbles "inappropriate, simply weird."
"It is so important for him (Spielberg) that the film do what it should do for Israel," she said in a radio interview.
Asked if this meant the thriller would help Israel's image, Almagor said: "I believe that is the intention."
At least one of Almagor's fellow cast members has disagreed with her take on the screenplay for Spielberg's film.
"It's about how vengeance doesn't ... work -- blood breeds blood," actor Daniel Craig told entertainment magazine Empire.
Spielberg, who is Jewish, is best known in Israel for his Holocaust epic "Schindler's List," which ends with Nazi death camp survivors starting new lives in the nascent Jewish state.
He has vowed the latest film will be sensitive. "Viewing Israel's response to Munich through the eyes of the men who were sent to avenge that tragedy adds a human dimension to a horrific episode that we usually think about only in political or military terms," Spielberg said in a statement.
Such sentiments raise eyebrows among Israeli security veterans who see the reprisals policy as best left undiscussed.
Israel has never admitted responsibility for the shootings, explosive booby-traps and commando raids that killed 10 Palestinians linked to the attack in Munich's Olympic Village.
The campaign included the 1973 killing in Norway of a Moroccan waiter mistaken for a wanted Palestinian guerrilla. Six members of the Israeli hit-team were prosecuted for murder.
According to "Vengeance," Israel left several of its agents to be hunted down and killed by Palestinians -- an account not borne out by news reports nor the records of the Norway trial.
Author George Jonas said the book was based on recollections of an Israeli purporting to be a former Mossad assassin and that "certain details of the story were incapable of being verified."
Zvi Zamir, who headed Mossad in the 1970s, broke his silence upon hearing that the Spielberg film draws on "Vengeance."
"I am surprised that a director like him has chosen, out of all the sources, to rely on this particular book," retired spymaster Zvi Zamir told Israeli newspaper Haaretz last week.
Israel still has a policy of tracking and killing Islamic militants suspected of planning suicide attacks -- a feature of the Palestinian revolt that erupted in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2000. But it has suspended such operations since a shaky ceasefire with militants took hold in February.
Spielberg Picks a Title
His Munich Olympics thriller has a name.
Universal and DreamWorks have announced that director Steven Spielberg's current project has been officially titled Munich. The film is a dramatization of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of 11 Israeli athletes and the Mossad's subsequent mission to eliminate the Palestinian terrorists behind it.
The project had been unofficially referred to as Vengeance, since it is based in part on the controversial George Jonas book of the same name.
Munich is now filming for a December 23, 2005 release. Pulitzer, Tony and Emmy winner Tony Kushner (Angels in America) penned the script.
The cast includes Eric Bana as the lead Mossad agent, as well as Daniel Craig, Geoffrey Rush, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler and Ciaran Hinds.
Simple, yet I like it... Lets see what he does
Spielberg Enrages Hungarians
Director Steven Spielberg has infuriated the residents of Budapest, Hungary with his disrespect of their daily lives, while filming new movie Munich. PageSix.com reports fuming locals have faced an array of irritations since Hollywood came to town, including having their cars, which were in Spielberg's way, towed with barely any notice, endless traffic jams and severe warnings should they attempt to take pictures of the proceedings. And city-dwellers are particularly amazed by the Americans' arrogant attitude - as they assume Budapest should be honored to be the Oscar-winning director's chosen location. A source tells PageSix.com, "The best part is (Spielberg's people) keep saying, 'This is the biggest thing ever to happen to Budapest,' which is true if you discount the whole Roman and Ottoman Empires, World Wars I and II, the fall of communism and the European Union's accession."
Quote from: rustinglassA source tells PageSix.com, "The best part is (Spielberg's people) keep saying, 'This is the biggest thing ever to happen to Budapest,' which is true if you discount the whole Roman and Ottoman Empires, World Wars I and II, the fall of communism and the European Union's accession."
dude that's still pretty good if spielberg comes next on that list.
Quote from: rustinglassPageSix.com reports fuming locals have faced an array of irritations since Hollywood came to town, including having their cars, which were in Spielberg's way, towed with barely any notice,
NOTICE? dude, do they KNOW the RELEASE DATE?!?
Spielberg's 'Munich' miffs Palestinian mastermind By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinian mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics raid, in which 11 Israeli athletes died, said director Steven Spielberg should have consulted him about a new film on the episode to be sure to get the story right.
In an irony worthy of a John le Carre novel, Mohammad Daoud echoed veterans of Israel's Mossad spy service in questioning the sources used for "Munich," a thriller chronicling the massacre and the Israeli revenge assassinations that followed.
"I know nothing about this film. If someone really wanted to tell the truth about what happened he should talk to the people involved, people who know the truth," Daoud told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location in the Middle East.
"Were I contacted, I would tell the truth," Daoud said.
As planner for Black September, a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) splinter group, Daoud sent gunmen to abduct Israeli athletes at the 1972 Games. Two hostages were killed in the raid, another nine during a botched rescue by German police.
Daoud blames Israel and West German authorities for the deaths.
Reeling from the loss of its countrymen -- particularly on what had been the staging ground for the Nazi Holocaust -- Israel retaliated with shootings, booby-trap bombings and commando operations that killed at least 10 PLO men and drove their comrades into hiding.
SENSITIVITIES
Daoud, who survived a 1981 gun attack in Poland which the PLO blamed on the Mossad, said Israel targeted some innocents and he hoped that would also be portrayed in the film.
"They carried out vengeance against people who had nothing to do with the Munich attack, people who were merely politically active or had ties with the PLO," he said.
"If a film fails to make these points, it will be unjust in terms of truth and history."
Spielberg is best known in Israel for his Holocaust epic "Schindler's List," which ends with a stirring scene of survivors seeking new lives in the nascent Jewish state.
He has vowed that "Munich" will be sensitive to all sides.
"Viewing Israel's response to Munich through the eyes of the men who were sent to avenge that tragedy adds a human dimension to a horrific episode that we usually think about only in political or military terms," Spielberg said in a statement.
An Israeli actress cast in the film confirmed press reports that it is based, at least partly, on "Vengeance," a book on the reprisals campaign that has been widely discredited.
"I am surprised that a director like him has chosen, out of all the sources, to rely on this particular book," retired Mossad chief Zvi Zamir told Israel's Haaretz daily in July.
The ex-spook's view was supported by ex-guerrilla Daoud.
"I read 'Vengeance'. It is full of mistakes," he said.
Munich Poster Online
One-sheet for Spielberg next arrives.
The somber theatrical poster for what is likely to be a somber film, Steven Spielberg's Munich, has emerged online today. The one-sheet features actor Eric Bana, gun in hand, posed contemplatively in front of a window.
The film, which has been shrouded in secrecy, is a dramatization of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of 11 Israeli athletes and the Mossad's subsequent mission to eliminate the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the attack.
Eric Bana stars as the lead Mossad agent. The cast also includes Daniel Craig, Geoffrey Rush, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler and Ciaran Hinds.
The script for Munich was penned by Pulitzer, Tony and Emmy winner Tony Kushner (Angels in America). The story is partially based on the controversial George Jonas book, Vengeance.
Munich goes into limited theatrical release on December 23. It opens in theaters everywhere on January 6, 2006.
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i hope this is great. my instinct is that it will be good and there will be problems, mostly due to how rushed this production must've been. had they just settled on next xmas it probably would've been better. hopefully i'm wrong.
Spielberg is truly a master, I mean he's been putting out some really respectable movies lately, the only thing that could possible fuck this up is...himself, of course...
I think he tends to be his own worst enemy, going all sweety and candyloving at the end of his movies trying to come up with cute moments or sentimental payoffs that are sometimes not needed. If this is truly a film about hate and vengeance, and he doesn't betray that in any stupid way, this film should rule.
I think the collaboration of Tony Kushner and Spielberg is especially interesting. I'm looking forward to that, because this is the only movie I can think of where Spielberg is working with such an accomplished writer, and not just a stock screenwriter-for-hire (David Koepp).
Maybe this will make Kushner a Pulitzer, Tony, Emmy and OSCAR winner?
Quote from: AlexandroSpielberg is truly a master, I mean he's been putting out some really respectable movies lately, the only thing that could possible fuck this up is...himself, of course...
I think he tends to be his own worst enemy, going all sweety and candyloving at the end of his movies trying to come up with cute moments or sentimental payoffs that are sometimes not needed. If this is truly a film about hate and vengeance, and he doesn't betray that in any stupid way, this film should rule.
I agree Speilberg is a master, but is he really his own worst enemy? My main worry will be the script. Yes, Speilberg has been involved in the writing of recent lackluster efforts, but I think if he pairs up with the right writer, he'll do well. He's an excellent director. The canned material of The Terminal could have been worst. Speilberg brought it to a respectable level.
Yeah that's what I said. Basically.
Even Saving Private Ryan had a so-so script, though few argue that it was masterfully directed. THAT'S the main interesting point of this film--Kushner seems to be a radically different choice than Spielberg's previous writing collaborators, as in a much better one.
So could this be a brilliant script + brilliant direction? It's got a much better chance than maybe any other movie coming out this year.
I do think he's his own worst enemy. Spielberg can't blame the screenplay for the crappy ending of War of the Worlds. That's completely his input on it. He has total creative freedom, which is one of the reasons he makes such good movies lately. That's also one of the reasons he gets away with all the hard stuff he puts into his movies either. At the same time he has no one to control him or tell him upfront when something's not working, like that stupid scene with the son at the end in WOTW and The Terminal.
He seems to believe that without some sappy moment at the end of the movie the audience leave the theater dissatisfied or something and he always forces these insane happy endings on us, after a couple of hours of some pretty dark material. He hasn't been able to reconcile his new mature, critical filmmaking view with his initial instincts as a feel good storyteller.
Now with this Munich movie he has another chance to make a true artistic masterpiece. Not a movie that feels stupid or unnecesarily sentimental in the last five minutes, but something genuine and unique. He has the resources, both creative and monetary, and pretty much everything on his side. He's been on a roll since Schindler's List and I always feel he holds back a little with his endings, as if he's afraid of being truly daring (the only movie in which he did that was A.I., but it was a Kubrick ending) and piss off the audience a little. And heas the complete control over every aspect of the movie, so...he can't blame anyone.
SPIELBERG RUSHING TO GET HIS MUNICH FILM OUT ON TIME
Movie-maker STEVEN SPIELBERG is promising film fans and critics his new movie about the 1972 Olympics will hit cinemas on time next month (DEC05), even though composer JOHN WILLIAMS is struggling with the score.
Spielberg is in a real race to complete the film, MUNICH, in time for the all-important Oscars consideration period this side of Christmas (05) - even though the film seems far from finished, according to new movie awards website TheEnvelope.com.
The controversial drama about the hunting down of Palestinian militants who killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games only finished filming in late September (05) and Williams has yet to record a single note for the soundtrack.
But Spielberg insists his film will hit cinemas on time.
The director's spokesman MARVIN LEVY says, "There aren't many movies like this, which start shooting around July 1 and plan to be in theatres on December 23. But it will get done. Munich's production is moving forward exactly as it should."
According to the new Los Angeles Times website, which will monitor all the movie awards leading up to the Oscars, 8 December is the last possible day Munich can be considered for the early press awards. Golden Globe ballots are due on 10 December.
Many critics, who vote on the ballots, have been told they'll see the film in early December.
Trailer: http://www.munichmovie.com/munich_trlr1_300k.mov
Link from AICN.
I'm skepical about this movie.
i saw the trailer before Jarhead last night and I think it looks great. very un-Spielbergian but it really could be great. and the MDB of this year if it turns out right. He should always have two movies that are totally different come out the same year.
It does look like it could be great. A LOT of voice-over in that trailer, though. Almost too much to follow; I had to watch it twice to pick everything up.
Eric Bana as an assasin? Are you serious?
Munish just shot way way up on my radar. I think this could be incredible, and also the perfect movie for people who wanted more of a 'voice' out of Jarhead.
it looks good but my question(s) is/are this:
why the rush? shooting begins on july 1st to release in december? there has to be a better reason than to simply make the oscar drop-deadline.
i always ask this about spike lee too- these guys are always rushing to pump these shits out but u have to wonder whether they'd be better off taking their time and really doing the necessary pre-pro/script work (see lee's she hate me as example).
on the contrary, i can also see how speed-filming can be beneficial. also, it's refreshing to see spielberg with a mad-hungry pulse that doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon, 'specially since his movies are only getting better and better.
rushing john williams, however, might not be the best idea. war of the worlds score was so BLAH and forgettable.
I was about mention, War of the Worlds was filmed so quickly. It's just Spielberg's knack. Shit, didn't he do Jurrasic Park and Schindler's List in the same year, or at least release one in the summer, one before Oscars, like this?
This is pretty much his MO. He'll take a few years off developing projects, then he shoots 2-3 fast in a row. '93 had Schindler's and Jurassic. '97-'98 had Lost World, Amistad & Ryan. '01-'02 had A.I., Minority & Catch Me. Now, '04-'05 has Terminal, Worlds & Munich.
I think he just enjoys fast-paced filmmaking. It's as close to guerrilla as somebody in his position can do. He doesn't do a lot of takes and has been known to get as many as 50 setups in a day -- which is extreme for major features.
The only movie he spent extra time on was Minority Report, and it shows.
From Darkhorizons:
As films ramp up their wild and lavish Oscar campaign strategies, what's already considered one of the favourites to win is taking an entirely different approach.
There will be no press junket, no premiere and, most importantly, no Oscar marketing campaign beyond trailers and posters for Steven Spielberg's movie "Munich" before and after it opens December 23rd reports LA Weekly.
This dicey decision to have no traditional publicity is the directors alone and he will not even be giving press or broadcast interviews (though there's talk he might do a Time cover story). The official strategy is for the movie to speak for itself with plenty of screenings planned starting December 1st.
Studio execs don't see the film til next Wednesday, even Spielberg's long time producing partner Kathleen Kennedy did not view the finished film, complete with John Williams score, until just a few days ago.
Quote from: mutinyco on November 25, 2005, 11:42:31 AM
The only movie he spent extra time on was Minority Report, and it shows.
Then how did he forget to include PTA's cameo?
i like it.
Quote from: modage on November 05, 2005, 10:50:49 AM
very un-Spielbergian but it really could be great.
"Un-Spielbergian" came to my mind also when I saw the trailer.
For Spielberg, mum's the word still on 'Munich'
The director nixes the usual publicity blitz for his new film about the Mossad's trackdown of '72 Olympics terrorists.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Silence — for now.
Avoiding the customary ruckus of pre-release promotions and Academy Awards campaigning, Steven Spielberg's "Munich" will be accompanied by a remarkably quiet publicity campaign before the controversial film's Dec. 23 debut.
Spielberg and the film's cast and crew not only will steer clear of the usual TV talk shows and print interviews but also skip the countless question-and-answer screenings and cocktail parties that typically accompany a movie's Oscar pitch.
"He wants everybody not to have preconceptions, to see the movie and make up their own minds," said Marvin Levy, the director's personal publicist. Levy said that neither Spielberg nor co-screenwriter Tony Kushner ("Angels in America") nor key members of the creative team plan to speak publicly about the project or participate in the usual Oscar season screenings and filmmaker conversations.
Universal Pictures, which is releasing "Munich," will, however, show the film to awards groups and take out "for your consideration" advertisements in Hollywood's trade newspapers.
Star Eric Bana also will turn up in the pages of In Style magazine, and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski will discuss his craft in a cinematography magazine.
And Spielberg is reserving the right to change course as the film enters the public consciousness.
"When people see the film, then it could become a different matter," Levy said about whether Spielberg will eventually grant interviews.
Spielberg had been signaling for months that he intended to sideline the traditional publicity machine, and his exact game plan has become fodder for the blogosphere; news of the stealth campaign was first reported by LA Weekly.
Written by Kushner and Oscar winner Eric Roth, "Munich" tells the tale of the aftermath of the 1972 Olympics, when 11 Israeli athletes were killed after being taken hostage by the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September. Israel subsequently organized a squad of Mossad agents to track down and assassinate the perpetrators.
From the beginning, "Munich," Spielberg's most politically challenging work, has been shrouded in secrecy. No journalists were permitted to visit the set during its production; filming locations included Malta, Hungary, France and New York.
Levy said that Spielberg's decision to remain quiet during this pre-release period was partially shaped by "Munich's" story line, which dives straight into the animosities that have racked the Middle East for decades.
Months before its release, figures as disparate as Abu Daoud, the Palestinian terrorist who masterminded the attack, and a raft of former Mossad agents have publicly complained that their input wasn't solicited for the film.
Levy said extra security precautions were taken during filming, owing to the overseas locations and not, as some close to the production surmised, to the fraught subject matter or Spielberg's status as a prominent American Jew when anti-Semitism is still a factor throughout Europe.
To help guide the film's release strategy, Spielberg hired crisis public relations consultant Allan Mayer, former White House communications guru Mike McCurry and former presidential envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross. They were brought on, in part, to open up communication with the various constituencies who are highly interested in the film, from politicians in Israel to Jewish groups in America.
The film's debut will be preceded by an elaborate schedule of tastemaker screenings, particularly among leaders in the foreign policy establishment. Both the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations and Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine are sponsoring screenings before the film's release.
Until this week, no one, except for the editors and a handful of collaborators — among them, producer Kathleen Kennedy, Kushner and Kaminski — had even seen the movie. Spielberg will begin screening the film for the media next week.
So far, Spielberg, an active Democrat who usually eschews political controversy, has made only one carefully worded public comment about the film.
"Viewing Israel's response to Munich through the eyes of the men who were sent to avenge that tragedy adds a human dimension to a horrific episode that we usually think about only in political or military terms," he said in a statement released on the eve of principal photography earlier this year.
"By experiencing how the implacable resolve of these men to succeed in their mission slowly gave way to troubling doubts about what they were doing, I think we can learn something important about the tragic standoff we find ourselves in today."
Spielberg talks about film 'Munich' in magazine
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Director Steven Spielberg said his new film "Munich," the story of Israel's revenge for the killing of its athletes by Palestinian guerrillas at the 1972 Olympics, is "a prayer for peace," Time magazine reported on Sunday.
Leaders of Jewish and Muslim groups as well as diplomats and foreign policy experts will preview the film before its December 23 U.S. opening but Spielberg has shied away from the media hype and costly promotional campaigns that typically precede a big-studio movie.
The magazine said its interview was the only one the Oscar-winning director planned to do before the release of the film, which focuses on Israel's response after a Palestinian group took members of its Olympic team hostage at the Munich Games. Eleven Israeli athletes, five kidnappers and one German policeman were killed.
"Somewhere inside all this intransigence there has to be a prayer for peace," Spielberg told Time, "because the biggest enemy is not the Palestinians or the Israelis. The biggest enemy in the region is intransigence."
The director also discussed another film project he is initiating in February, in which he is buying 250 video cameras and players and giving them to Israeli and Palestinian children so that they can make movies about their own lives.
"Not dramas," Spielberg said, "just little documentaries about who they are and what they believe in, who their parents are, where they go to school, what they had to eat, what movies they watch, what CDs they listen to."
Spielberg said the children will then exchange the videos with one another.
"That's the kind of thing that can be effective, I think, in simply making people understand that there aren't as many differences that divide Israelis and Palestinians. Not as human beings anyway," he said.
The director told Time he's very proud of the fact that "Munich" doesn't demonize either the Israeli or Palestinian side.
"We don't demonize our targets," Spielberg said. "They're individuals. They have families."
The movie stars Eric Bana, Daniel Craig and Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush.
a new quote from spielberg (about how he has no one to blame if he fails):
"I always say thank goodness for Jaws, because Jaws gave me final cut. I've had it now for 30 years, and because of that I only have myself to blame for anything that goes wrong."
http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2005/12/spielberg_on_mu.html
Spielberg Takes on Terror
Munich adroitly blends high-pressure action and humanity in a historical story that's all about our times
By RICHARD SCHICKEL
The first and most important thing to say about Munich, Steven Spielberg's new film, is that it is a very good movie—good in a particularly Spielbergian way. By which one means that it has all the virtues we've come to expect when he is working at his highest levels. It's narratively clean, clear and perfectly punctuated by suspenseful and expertly staged action sequences. It's full of sympathetic (and in this case, anguished) characters, and it is, morally speaking, infinitely more complex than the action films it superficially resembles—pictures that simply pit terrorists against counterterrorists without an attempt to explore anyone's motives and their tragic implications.
Munich begins and ends with, and frequently reverts to, an account of an especially heinous historical act: the capture and eventual murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games by a Palestinian terrorist group calling itself Black September. Because television was omnipresent at the Games, the entire world was witness to that awful event. Indeed, it's not too much to say that most of us for the first time perceived the face of modern terrorism in the images that abc and the other networks broadcast of those frightful 24 hours. Or, in fact, did not fully perceive it, since the iconic image of the attack was of a ski-masked terrorist standing on the balcony of the Israelis' Olympic Village quarters peering back at the cameras that were peering at him.
But—and this is why munich works so well—the movie is not primarily about that Munich. It is about the aftermath, in which the Israeli government, with Prime Minister Golda Meir's full endorsement, mounted a secret war of revenge against the murderers. In one of the movie's most crucial lines, she says, "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values." That negotiation—also carried out in the increasingly troubled mind of Avner Kauffman, leader of the Israeli hit squad on which the movie concentrates (there were several)—raises Spielberg's film above the thriller level, granting it real, often poignant, distinction. "You are assigned a mission, and you do it because you believe in the mission, but there is something about killing people at close range that is excruciating," says Spielberg. "Perhaps [your victims] are leading double lives. But they are, many of them, reasonable and civilized too." Killing them, he says, has unintended consequences. "It's bound to try a man's soul, so it was very important to me to show Avner struggling to keep his soul intact." (The moviemakers would not reveal the identity of the real Avner, whom they talked to at length during their research. In Spielberg's opinion, though, his soul was tried too much. "I don't think he will ever find peace.") More significantly, Spielberg wonders if the Israelis and the Palestinians will ever find peace. "I'm always in favor of Israel responding strongly when it's threatened. At the same time, a response to a response doesn't really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual-motion machine," he says. "There's been a quagmire of blood for blood for many decades in that region. Where does it end? How can it end?"
A big, expensive movie—reported to have cost around $70 million—that dives headfirst into Middle East conflicts: Does that give, say, a studio head pause? "Yes, to be honest," says Universal chairman Stacey Snider without hesitation. "At the time when we started it, [the story] felt more quaint. But as we went through the development process, the good and bad news was that it became more relevant."
Indeed, since June, when filming began, the movie has been surrounded by rumors, criticism and suggestions that Spiel- berg was too pro-Israel to make a fair movie on the subject. The filmmakers responded by keeping the details of the movie very quiet. Reporters were not allowed to visit the sets in Malta, Budapest, New York and Paris, and only a few actors got the complete script—many didn't even know what the whole movie was about. The shoot took three months, a quick turnaround for a movie to be released Dec. 23. That lessened the chance of leaks, as did the fact that most of the crew members were loyal, tight-lipped veterans of past Spielberg movies. When Time saw the movie, it had just been finished. There had been none of the usual test, press or studio-executive screenings; the movie's star, Eric Bana, had not even seen it. And there has been little advance publicity; Spielberg has done no interviews about the movie with anyone but TIME (see page 70).
"I never like to draw lessons for people," says screenwriter Tony Kushner of how his script deals with the Middle East question. "It's not an essay; it's art. But I think I can safely say the conflict between national security and ethics raised deep questions in terms of working on the film. I was surprised to discover how much the story had to do with nationality vs. family, and questions about home and being in conflict with somebody else over a territory that seems home to both people."
There is an entirely fictional scene in the movie in which Avner and his Palestinian opposite number meet and talk calmly, with the latter getting a chance to make his case for the creation of a homeland for his people. That scene means everything to Kushner and Spielberg. "The only thing that's going to solve this is rational minds, a lot of sitting down and talking until you're blue in the gills," says Spielberg. Without that exchange, "I would have been making a Charles Bronson movie—good guys vs. bad guys and Jews killing Arabs without any context. And I was never going to make that picture." He almost did not make this picture, which he thrice denied. It was Kathleen Kennedy, his longtime friend and frequent producing partner, who acquired the book on which Munich is based, George Jonas' Vengeance, in 1998. But Spielberg shied away from it, in part, he says, because he had learned at his parents' knees that Middle East politics is such a difficult, passionately argued and unresolvable topic. "I'll leave it to somebody else," he recalls saying, "somebody braver than me." Then, in 1999, the persistent Kennedy prevailed on him to at least reconsider the matter. But two years later, 9/11 happened, and Spielberg felt the story would be perceived as exploitative. The fact that Spielberg could not get a script that in any way satisfied him—three were written—stalled him further.
"We all talk in genres," Kennedy says, "and this is clearly a thriller from a movie-making standpoint." On the other hand, it had to be a character-driven and intellectually acute thriller to satisfy her and Spielberg's ambitions for it. So "we knew and took the approach early on that we are not making a documentary." At some point the phrase "historical fiction" entered their conversations. They understood that they would have to compress and conflate some of their material. And, yes, do some inventing as well. "The fiction," says Spielberg, "comes in the interpersonal relationships of the five members of the ex-Mossad team" on which the film focuses. "I was very careful," he says, "to start the movie by saying 'Inspired by real events,' because until the secret files are opened up nobody will really know actually who did what."
But Kushner could make a good, entertaining guess. Spielberg had long wanted to work with the Pulitzer prizewinning author of Angels in America, and once he had solved Kushner's concerns about formatting a screenplay ("I said, 'Well, there's a program called Scriptor—put it on your laptop and you don't have to worry about that again'"), Kushner said he would try a few scenes. They became a 300-page first draft, written largely on spec, after which he and Spielberg happily collaborated for a little more than a year to complete the script. "You speak the words, and I'll provide the pictures," Spielberg remembers saying. "It was a lot of e-mails and arguments on the phone," Kushner says, "and an exciting amount of give and take. I think we really affected one another politically and emotionally." Another challenge was to create a sense of identification with Avner and his team. Avner, in particular, is a man not very in touch with his inner life. "I always felt like the character was trying to convince himself of an ideal without necessarily coming to terms with what the ideal was," says Bana. The whole team, says Kennedy, is five men on a mission who don't want to think of themselves as anything like the men they are pursuing.
Kushner located a dry, allusive, sometimes bleakly comic language for them, and Spielberg often found himself just listening to Kushner's words, momentarily forgetting his picture-making part of their deal. In a situation rare in modern filmmaking, the screenwriter was on the set 90% of the time. "When something was more action driven, Steven would take the lead," says Kennedy, "and when something was more dialogue driven, Tony would take the lead." Says Spielberg: "It was as close as I've ever come to directing a play." That does not mean the picture is sedentary. It ranges the world from Paris to Brooklyn, with stopovers in London, Beirut, Israel, Spain (or their geographical stand-ins), and it is full of derring-do and suspense. (Best such sequence: a child innocently answers a call on an explosive-laden phone meant to blow her father to kingdom come.) At more than 21/2 hours, Munich allows itself time to efficiently develop character, particularly among Avner's team, which is run—mostly from afar—by Geoffrey Rush's hard-assed executive spook.
The assassins include a hot-blooded South African hit man played by Daniel Craig, who is the next James Bond; Ciaran Hinds as his opposite, a meticulous cleanup artist; Mathieu Kassovitz as a toymaker who dabbles in bombmaking; and Hanns Zischler as an expert document forger. None of them have particularly accommodating natures, but the stress of living under constant danger becomes their bonding agent. The cast too came from all over the globe, including Israel and other parts of the Middle East. "It was like going to the U.N. every day," says Bana, an Australian. "There was always plenty of rich social and political discussion, no doubt about it."
Spielberg is at his best in visualizing a world he believes to be more menacing than it has ever been. That is more than a matter of noirish shadows. It is the hint of suspicious movement in the back of the frame, a pan that goes on a few frames longer than necessary, suggesting the possibility of a menace that may be present. Near the movie's end, a casual pan along the Manhattan skyline reveals the World Trade Center buildings. Had to show them, the director says. They existed at a historical moment in the mid-'70s. But there is more than historical veracity at work in that shot. The Twin Towers are the symbols of our new age of high (and endless) anxiety. Maybe there is, as Spielberg insists, no resonance between the fate of the Towers' victims and the fate of a few athletes in long-ago, faraway Munich. But inevitably the destiny of those Towers tinctures our thoughts, however much we wish to deny them. Dutiful men like Avner Kauffman will be sent forth to improvise a response to terrorism, whatever its source. And to live with the unintended consequences of their actions. Any movie that subtly, yet insistently reminds us of this blunt truth about the world we have inherited is worth seeing. And pondering.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20051219&s=diarist121905
WASHINGTON DIARIST
Hits
by Leon Wieseltier
Post date 12.08.05 | Issue date 12.19.05
A few days before I read in Time that Steven Spielberg's new movie is so significant that there would be no advance screenings of it, I went to an advance screening of it. The fakery is everywhere, isn't it, though in this instance it nicely captures the self-importance of this pseudo-controversial film. The makers of Munich seem to think that it is itself an intervention in the historical conflict that it portrays. For this reason, perhaps, they have devised a movie that wishes to be shocking and inoffensive at the same time. It tells the story of the Israeli retaliation for the massacre at the Munich Olympics in 1972--specifically, of the nasty adventures of a team of five Israelis that is dispatched to Europe to destroy eleven Palestinians. The film is powerful, in the hollow way that many of Spielberg's films are powerful. He is a master of vacant intensities, of slick searings. Whatever the theme, he must ravish the viewer. Munich is aesthetically no different from War of the Worlds, and never mind that one treats questions of ethical and historical consequence and the other is stupid. Spielberg knows how to overwhelm. But I am tired of being overwhelmed. Why should I admire somebody for his ability to manipulate me? In other realms of life, this talent is known as demagoguery. There are better reasons to turn to art, better reasons to go to the movies, than to be blown away.
The real surprise of Munich is how tedious it is. For long stretches it feels like The Untouchables with eleven Capones. But its tedium is finally owed to the fact that, for all its vanity about its own courage, the film is afraid of itself. 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. (I am referring only to the war between the terrorists and the counterterrorists. The larger picture is darker. Over the years more civilians were killed in Israeli air strikes than in the Palestinian atrocities that provoked those air strikes. The justice of Israel's defense of itself should not be confused with the rightness of everything that it does in self-defense.) No doubt Munich will be admired for its mechanical symmetries, which will be called complexity. But this is not complexity, it is strategy. I mean of the marketing kind: I note that the filmmakers have nervously retained the distinguished services of Dennis Ross to guide the film through the excitable community of people who know about its subject. Munich is desperate not to be charged with a point of view. It is animated by a sense of tragedy and a dream of peace, which all good people share, but which in Hollywood is regarded as a dissent, and also as a point of view. Its glossy caution almost made me think a kind thought about Oliver Stone. For the only side that Steven Spielberg ever takes is the side of the movies.
The screenplay is substantially the work of Tony Kushner, whose hand is easily recognizable in the crudely schematic quality of the drama, and also in something more. The film has no place in its heart for Israel. I do not mean that it wishes Israel ill; not at all. But it cannot imagine any reason for Israel beyond the harshness of the world to the Jews. "The world has been rough with you," the oracular gourmand godfather of an underground anarchist family, a ludicrous character plummily played by Michael Lonsdale, tells Avner Kauffman, the Israeli team leader. "It is right to respond roughly to such treatment." Avner's mother, whose family was destroyed by the Nazis, preaches this about the Jewish state: "We had to take this, because no one was going to give it to us. Whatever it took, whatever it takes." Zionism, in this film, is just anti-anti-Semitism. The necessity of the Jewish state is acknowledged, but necessity is a very weak form of legitimacy. There are two kinds of Israelis in Munich: cruel Israelis with remorse and cruel Israelis without remorse. One of the Israeli killers recalls a midrash about God's compassion for the Egyptians drowning in the Red Sea, and keeps on killing. Another one of the Israeli killers protests that "Jews don't do wrong because our enemies do wrong. ... We're supposed to be righteous," and keeps on killing.
All this is consistent with Tony Kushner's view that Zionism, as he told Ori Nir of Haaretz last year, was "not the right answer," and that the creation of Israel was "a mistake," and that "establishing a state means fucking people over." (If he really seeks to understand Middle Eastern terrorism, he might ponder the extent to which statelessness, too, can mean fucking people over.) When Avner's reckoning with his deeds takes him to the verge of a breakdown, he joins his wife and child in Brooklyn and refuses to return to Israel, as if decency is impossible there. No, Kushner is not an anti-Semite, nor a self-hating Jew, nor any of those other insults that burnish his notion of himself as an American Jewish dissident (he is one of those people who never speaks, but only speaks out). He is just a perfectly doctrinaire progressive. And the progressive Jewish playwright Tony Kushner's image of Israel oddly brings to mind the reactionary Jewish playwright David Mamet's image of Israel: For both of them, its essence is power.
The Israeli response to Black September marked the birth of contemporary counterterrorism, and it is difficult not to see Munich as a parable of American policy since September 11. "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values," Golda Meir grimly concludes early in the film, and one is immediately grateful for the un-Cheney-like sensation of a dissonance. Yet the film proclaims that terrorists and counterterrorists are alike. "When we learn to act like them, we will defeat them!" declares one of Avner's men, played by Daniel Craig, already with a license to kill. Worse, Munich prefers a discussion of counterterrorism to a discussion of terrorism; or it thinks that they are the same discussion. This is an opinion that only people who are not responsible for the safety of other people can hold.
Leon Wieseltier is the literary editor of TNR.
reads like something godard would write nowadays.
Quote from: cronopio on December 13, 2005, 03:27:02 PM
reads like something godard would write nowadays.
ouch!
apparently i'm not the only one who thinks so :shock:
from the guardian blog:
Spielberg, who has tagged Munich a "prayer for peace", has constantly (and rather optimistically) maintained that his new film should serve a specifically political end of increasing the level of mutual understanding. Jean-Luc Godard, whose remarks about Michael Moore's Cannes victory have not gone unreported, would presumably have something to say about it. What do you think?
more about Munich response here:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/culturevulture/archives/2005/12/13/the_moral_maze.html#more
Into the fray
Violence and empathy, revenge and doubt. For the director Steven Spielberg, there was no escaping "Munich."
Source: Los Angeles Times
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For years the story of "Munich" hung over Steven Spielberg, drawing him inexorably like a black hole. "I never thought I was going to do it, but I couldn't keep my hands off of it. There was a real sort of negative energy that drew me into it when I first began developing it, that frightened me," says the 59-year-old director.
And why wouldn't he be frightened?
The film examines one of the pivotal moments in modern terrorism — the killing of 11 Israeli team members by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics — and then focuses on the secret hit squad assembled by the Israeli government to track down the perpetrators and assassinate them. It's a 30-year-old story that resonates today, and the thought of wading into the virulent Middle East animosities, with all of their moral conundrums, has daunted most American artists — even those who don't come with the pulpit and responsibility, which clearly weighs on him, of being not only Hollywood's most famous director but its most public Jew. He's the one who made the Oscar-winning "Schindler's List," about the Holocaust, and devoted all of his earnings from the film to his Shoah Foundation, which has been collecting the oral histories of Holocaust survivors.
Spielberg is not by nature a provocateur, but an entertainer.
Yet, he says with some urgency, "I couldn't live with myself being silent for the sake of maintaining my popularity. And I'm at an age right now where if I don't take risks, I lose respect for myself. And this was an important risk for me to take."
The director is slumped — almost curled up against a pillow — on a banquette by a window overlooking the Pacific. His hair is gray, his face pale, his manner muted. He seems tired — soul-tired — almost emptied out, as he talks; gone is the excited purposefulness that is the hallmark of his on-set persona. He's just finished both "War of the Worlds" and "Munich" in a blazing 18-month streak, and although he doesn't mention it, just hours earlier sold DreamWorks, the company he founded with David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, to Paramount. It is the end of an era for him; the end of his dream of owning his own studio.
The day is waning in his home office, a spacious, immaculate hacienda, stocked with original Norman Rockwells and Remingtons, beautifully colored parrots and a parakeet in elaborate cages, and guns — at least a dozen polished shotguns in a cabinet, which Spielberg uses for skeet shooting. The rare sits alongside the sentimental. On one table is the only extant copy of Orson Welles' original radio broadcast script of "War of the Worlds" and a book of crayon drawings of farm animals that his father drew for him, with 'Stevie Spielberg' crookedly inked on top. Both books are under plexiglass.
After more than six years and what Spielberg describes as "many, many low points, more low than high points," "Munich" has just begun to screen for journalists and tastemakers, part of the campaign leading to its general release Friday. Based on the book "Vengeance" by Canadian journalist George Jonas, the film, co-written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, uses the conventions of a heart-pounding '70s-style thriller as a framing device for an ethical examination about terrorism and counterterrorism, the origins, the repercussions, the costs it exacts on its practitioners. As the Israelis wreak retribution across Europe and retribution is rained down on them and their country, some squad members — in particular their leader, Avner, played by Eric Bana — begin to succumb to fear and doubts about whom exactly they're killing and whether their mission will ever be successful when one terrorist is simply replaced by another.
It's a hyper-violent work that lodges in the brain like a shard of glass.
Politically, the film is a Rorschach test — almost impossible to view except through the lens each individual audience member brings to the theater. There are those who will see a glamorized Israeli Mossad squad, dispatching villains with ingenuity, fiercely committed to the perpetuation of the Jewish state, while others will be infuriated that any of the Israeli commandos express any qualms about their mission. Some will be troubled that the Palestinian terrorists have been humanized, and others will be sure that they haven't been humanized or validated enough. At the end, it's a visceral, emotional piece of work that doesn't offer any specific solutions — a fact that will anger a whole other set of viewers. Some will complain that it lacks a point of view.
Spielberg and his colleagues are preparing for a gale of controversy. Already the citizen reviews have begun — from the murdered athletes' families who publicly praised the film, to some of the early pundits, as well as the Israeli consul general in Los Angeles, who've suggested that Spielberg was naïve and ill-informed to make a movie that strives for the illusion of balance in a situation that is not.
On this Friday afternoon, an uncharacteristically low-key Spielberg says, "I worked very hard so this film was not in any way, shape or form going to be an attack on Israel." A moderately observant Jew, he unambiguously condemns the actions of the Black September terrorists and supports Israel's response at the time, a reaction he feels was necessary to prove Israel's strength to the rest of the world. Yet, he says, "The simple truth is sometimes we have to choose from bad options. And sometimes there are unintended results." Answering aggression with aggression "creates a vicious cycle of violence with no real end in sight."
The brewing controversy was what always made Spielberg nervous about making "Munich," says Stacey Snider, chairwoman of Universal Pictures, which is releasing the $70-million film in the United States. "If you're on either side in an extremist way on the issue of the source of the Middle East conflict, you're not going to just be upset, you're going to be really upset. Is that the reason not to make it? That was the gist of all of our conversations."
Spielberg's apparent skittishness about entering the political fray has influenced the promotion of the film. He's given one brief interview to Time magazine, and after months of requests, he suddenly agreed to an interview with the Los Angeles Times. Yet he's so far eschewed the usual press junket, a stance that could affect the film's Academy Award nominations. In the early run-up to the Oscars, "Munich" has landed on multiple top 10 lists but did not nab the top kudo with either the New York Film Critics Circle or the L.A. Film Critics Assn. "The whole experience [of making 'Munich'] was incredibly raw. He's still trying to wrap his head around it," says "Munich" producer Kathleen Kennedy, who's produced the vast majority of Spielberg's movies.
Stating over and over again that he didn't want to make a position paper, the director says, "[The film's] a discussion — it's like the Talmud is a series of discussions. It's just like Sodom and Gomorrah, where Abraham bargained with God about 'how can you punish the righteous with the wicked?' The film is a series of structured arguments between the members of the Mossad teams that reflects different points of view and allows you to choose the one that more easily fits how you see the conflict. And maybe even better can maybe change your mind about how you felt about this."
Questions, he points out, are an inherent part of the Jewish faith. "My whole life as a Jew has been a series of arguments; we're always arguing and discussing. The movie is certainly told from the Israeli point of view. But it is told with a great deal of empathy. I just wanted to put empathy in every direction, because the situation is not cut and dried. I was not interested in telling that kind of a tale of vengeance and I didn't want this to be a morality play, the way that 'Private Ryan' is a morality play."
Spielberg's refusal to demonize either side is precisely what seems to be fueling the outrage of early political critics of "Munich." The New Republic's Leon Wieseltier suggested that the film toyed with "the sin of equivalence," a charged term in the fractious debate that suggests both the Palestinians and the Israelis are equally culpable.
That accusation drives Kushner nuts. "That term is offensive," says the playwright, who seems more naturally suited to the role of the politically engaged. Even so, he too declines to clarify the moral of the movie.
On the phone from New York, he says, "What Steven shows with his camera is how frightened people are in moments of violence. The film enlists your empathy even at moments when politically or ethically you don't want your empathy enlisted. If the film had any point at all, I think where Steven and I met most, is you can't approach this situation with a notion of simple right or wrong. This makes a lot of people very upset. Murdering athletes is a horrible thing, and it's wrong, absolutely. But one of the questions is, why did that happen? What kind of horror produced this horror?
"It's the context ... the thing that in a sense makes it a very Jewish movie is that it's searching. The film really reflects where Steven and many people in the cast started out, let's dive into this hell, into this horrible, terrible tragedy and stay there and keep our eyes open. We didn't try to provide answers to things we don't have answers for."
Watching it happen
Spielberg remembers clearly watching the Olympic massacre unfold on TV — the image (which is now seen in the film) "of the Black September Fayadeen with the ski masks on, leaning over the balcony at 31 Connolly Strasse, guarded, but at the same time strangely confident."
For the first time, TV had brought this kind of political violence into living rooms around the world. "I don't think I ever heard the word 'terrorism' before September of '72," says Spielberg. "I couldn't believe it was not a re-creation, it was happening as I was watching it. And I couldn't turn away from it, like a car accident."
Until the moment the athletes were killed, Spielberg thought that Black September was just another leftist revolutionary fringe group, like many sprouting up all over the globe during that era. "I thought, well, maybe this is the Palestinian branch of Baader-Meinhof, the Red Army [Faction]. But when the Israeli team was murdered, then I think it became an attack on Jews everywhere. At least as a young man that's how I felt."
In the late '90s, young producer Barry Mendel, backed by Universal, acquired the rights to the Jonas book. Published in 1984, it had already been made into a miniseries by HBO starring Steven Bauer and Michael York. Mendel, in turn, enlisted Kennedy, with whom he'd produced "The Sixth Sense" and who brought the book to Spielberg in 1999.
They ultimately commissioned three scripts, from Janet and David Peoples, who'd written "Unforgiven"; Charles Randolph ("The Interpreter"); and, most notably, Oscar winner ("Forrest Gump") and top Hollywood writer Eric Roth, who wrote multiple drafts of the script for over a year, and has received credit on the final screenplay. Spielberg put the film down right after Sept. 11 because he was afraid it would be seen as exploiting the national tragedy but started again in 2002. "I just could feel that somehow this story had my name written all over it and I couldn't deny that. It just stirred up all these questions and arguments inside me."
Still, it wasn't until he met Kushner that he began to feel a "rapid kind of conductivity." Spielberg says his work with the 49-year-old Kushner is the most intimate collaboration with a writer of his career.
When first approached by Kennedy and then Spielberg, Kushner says, he was impressed by the nerviness of the project "to go after an aspect of the situation that is the most potentially incendiary, that really confronts the question of violence so directly. It's not something he needed to do."
Still, Kushner initially demurred. He didn't know how to do an action movie. He was busy with plays on Broadway and off. But he took a look at the script and wrote up his thoughts.
Ultimately the playwright tried writing a couple of scenes and then what would eventually become a 300-page script — initially working without a paying contract. "He wouldn't be obligated until he could experience it in his own way," says Spielberg. "Tony probably spent four months writing the project sort of experimentally, if he was leading the story, or the story was taking him. And once he realized that the story was taking him, then he committed 100% on working together."
"I think Eric's script was a wonderful script. I feel I changed it quite a bit, but I'm perfectly proud to be sharing credit with him," adds Kushner.While clearly one of America's leading playwrights, the choice of Kushner is controversial to the ardently pro-Zionist faction in Jewish and Israeli circles, mostly because of his leftist politics and public condemnation about how the state of Israel has conducted itself, most notably in the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Today, Kushner admits his attitude toward Israel "changes a lot. I love going to Israel, but I'm not a Zionist who necessarily believes that the solution to the problem lies in nation states."
Kushner's familiarity with the arena (he co-edited the book "Wrestling With Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict") infused Spielberg with confidence, says producer Kennedy. "That didn't mean that Steven had to agree with Tony, but he could serve as a creative sounding board from a genuine basis of real knowledge. That helped Steven tremendously."
Indeed, all involved point out that Kushner is politically far to the left of Spielberg. They argued frequently but apparently not at high decibels. "We both whine to each other," says Spielberg, laughing. "We're whiners."
Further controversy has swirled around the project because it's based on George Jonas' book, the veracity of which has been questioned ever since it was published in 1984. In truth, other books — such as Simon Reeve's "One Day in September," based on the same research that went into the Academy Award-winning documentary of the same name — document (albeit with little detail) most of the assassinations that appear in the film. Although the Israeli government has never formally claimed responsibility for the operation, largely viewed as the birth of counterterrorism, a number of former high-ranking Israeli officials have acknowledged its existence.
Spielberg and Kushner met and interviewed the model for the Avner character, widely assumed, according to press accounts, to be Israeli security expert Yuval Aviv. (After the publication of "Vengeance," Jonas and Aviv got into a legal dispute over the rights to the book, and in the lawsuit Jonas identified Aviv as a key source in the book.) Since the publication of "Vengeance," Aviv has continued to be trailed by occasionally virulent criticism, especially after he investigated the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland, on behalf of the airline and came to controversial conclusions.
Kushner and Spielberg decline to reveal the real agent's identity, though Kushner says: "I believe him. I know there are conflicting accounts, but there is no account that discredits his. [The 'Vengeance' account] is in dispute as are histories of the French Revolution. The part of the historical record that we had to be sure about was that we could say that there was this program, conducted by Israeli intelligence as a response to Munich, in which people were targeted and assassinated. This is not in dispute. Did it happen in exactly the way we describe? No. That's where our licenses as artists kick in. We're not claiming to make a documentary."
Spielberg also checked the facts with other sources that he declines to name, but it's clear that the director used the real Mossad agent as an important touchstone. "I needed somebody who was there to talk to. I needed the details," says the director. Indeed, much of the team's bumbling humanity — the fact that Avner isn't always proficient with his gun — came directly from the agent's reminiscences.
Although Spielberg showed the script to his rabbi and such close associates as former President Clinton (all in the vain hope that they'd talk him out of doing it, he insists), he appears to have pointedly stayed away from showing the script to Israeli officials. In the run-up to the film, a number of former Mossad agents, including the former Mossad head Zvi Zamir (who appears as a character in the film), have publicly complained that Spielberg did not solicit their input.
"I wanted to finish the movie before anybody saw it," he says. "I just always felt that [the Israelis] had to trust me, and I hope I haven't let anybody down."
Security on the set
Spielberg says the shoot was one of the most painful and difficult of his life. Malta, Hungary and Paris doubled for the various European capitals and the Middle East, and there was elaborate security, with dogs sniffing down all the locations and infrared cameras watching the sets overnight. "There was a threat of terrorism every day. We were in Malta very close to the Arabian coast and very close to Tripoli and Tunis. It was that small hundred-mile divide of water between Tunisia and the beginning of the Arab countries, and we were all concerned." Then they were in Hungary with its own porous border and France with its homegrown militants. It was a logistical nightmare. "My cast and crew, I had to ensure their safety."
Unlike a film like "War of the Worlds," he didn't preplan the shots on the computer or come to the set armed with storyboards. He shot the assassination sequences in continuity — exactly how they appear for the audience. "I wanted the movie to sort of tell me what to do with it," he says. "That's tremendously stimulating, to be able to have a movie talk to me directly and take me by the collar."
"He was really creating in the moment. It's like he's being channeled," recalls Kennedy. "He was not relying on anything that was derivative of himself, which at times he's allowed himself to do."
As a whole, the film feels more herky-jerky, tense and jagged than the usual visually magisterial Spielberg universe.
They spent three weeks re-creating the Munich massacre in Malta and Hungary, with Arab actors from Syria, Iran, Libya, Egypt and France playing the terrorists and Israeli actors playing the Israeli athletes. None of the actors had read the entire script, only their small portion.
"It was just very, very difficult for me to play war with them," says Spielberg. "With real people from the real regions, and then to be staging these scenes of brutality as well as compassion. And it was — it was brutal and cathartic at the same — all in the same breath, to stage a scene where Jews have been killed and then I say, 'Cut.' The Palestinian with the Kalashnikov throws his weapon down and runs over to the Israeli actor who is on the ground and picks the actor up and falls into the Israeli's arms and is sobbing. And then the Israeli actors and the Arab actors all running into this kind of circle and everybody is crying and holding each other."
"It wasn't like we all held hands and sang, 'Let's give peace a chance,' " says Kushner, who was on the set every day. "People were very careful, and really sympathized with one another. Everybody arrived sort of saying, 'I know this is hard for you coming from where you're coming from.' " Kushner has seen this before, working with Israeli and Palestinian actors both in Israel and the territories. "There's a real — sometimes it's clumsy, sometimes it's not — but a real desire to say, 'OK, we're trying to speak to one another across an enormous divide.' "
Spielberg seems to come closest to describing the point of "Munich" as he grapples for the words to describe all the young actors, steeped in the history and suffering of their two tribes, nonetheless trying to communicate with one another. His voice is tremulous, as if the words can't hold the emotion behind them. "It was so positive to see these two sides — actors, professional actors — coming together and being able to discuss what's happening today in their world. Over dinner, between shots. There was always open discussion. No fighting. Just understanding and listening. I wish the world would listen more and be less intransigent. These kids weren't talking on top of each other like trying to win an argument. These kids took time to listen before they spoke."
Salon article: The War on "Munich" (http://letters.salon.com/ent/feature/2005/12/20/munich/view/index2.html)
This was pretty good, but not great. A little reflective of the whole year, I feel.
This is effectively two movies: one an espionage thriller, one a political/human commentary. They don't quite fit together, I feel. So even though the pacing is excellent (it's thriller structure is depends on that, and it is very suspenseful when it wants to be), and is never boring or dragged out, it feels too long in that it contains too much. It also gets repetitive, as many of the missions are quite similar (get the name from the source, plan the assassination out, execute, run). It becomes much more interesting toward the end, when things get more complicated for Bana's character.
As you can probably assume, the recreation of the Munich events were brutal and superbly executed. Hard to watch, but not gratuitous.
One of the reasons it feels like two movies can probably be explained in one of the articles above that state that, essentially, Kushner was in charge of the dialogue-y parts, and Spielberg took over for the action/suspense scenes.
As a 70s filmmaker himself, Spielberg recreates the 70s perfectly (sounds silly when a 20 year old says that, but while watching the movie, it's very clear that it's all very period-accurate). The filmmaking itself is more 70s than modern, as well, and the film certainly doesn't shy away from grain.
This is certainly a positive review, and a strong recommendation, but I think it has some glaring problems. At the end, it feels slighter than it should, after some of what it contains. A lot of times it feels like a serious thriller, the likes of which we've seen before, and the Israeli-Arab hostilities are a somewhat incidental background. It's not really as important a film as it's been hyped up to be, and it's got some glaring problems, but it's a smart and solid film nonetheless. B+
Haven't seen The New World yet, but as of now, Munich is my pick for best of the year.
There's a great self-referential moment when Bana is cleaning up the evidence after a murder, he grabs everything identifying the body, except the guy's hat. The camera just lingers on the hat, waiting for it to be picked up, but Bana leaves the room.
I noticed alot of zoom-ins. More so then any movie released latley.
Quote from: Anarchist Lawyer on December 24, 2005, 05:09:10 PM
I noticed alot of zoom-ins. More so then any movie released latley.
Quote from: matt35mm on December 23, 2005, 11:12:00 PM
As a 70s filmmaker himself, Spielberg recreates the 70s perfectly (sounds silly when a 20 year old says that, but while watching the movie, it's very clear that it's all very period-accurate). The filmmaking itself is more 70s than modern, as well, and the film certainly doesn't shy away from grain.
I also feel like I should speak a little about the content of the movie, beyond just the structure and techniques that were used.
Kushner's contribution is most obvious in the big speeches that do a good job of illustrating some interesting points, but nothing new. It's not that I feel that every movie has to contribute something new, but with this subject matter, it's hard not to be told things that weren't already fairly well known. As good a writer as Kushner is, there is still the sense that he doesn't know how to write a movie, and Spielberg doesn't know how to direct a play. Sometimes that actually results in something interesting, but sometimes not.
I would say that I prefered the more play-like aspects of this movie. When people stopped to talk and make observations about the chaos around them, THAT was interesting. When it slips into plot, though, it's... still good, but not entirely fitting. There's also an odd Godfather element and a bizarre surrogate father relationship that don't quite fit. I think there were certain elements chucked in there (whether or not they were true to history is besides the point) the took away from what the movie most had to offer. This was a movie about a complicated conflict that was ripe for such interesting explorations into morally muddy areas. Given the potential, it really only barely touches on all of that to make way for actually seeing the assassinations.
I'll say more later after more people have watched the movie though. It's better for discussion, not for just one guy talking.
Definetly one of the years best... and one of Spielberg's best... or I dont know about that... but it sure made me remember what a great filmmaker he is and how much attention to detail, in every shot, every closeup, the dialogue... I thought it was perfect.
ALERT - SPOILERS!!!!!
At the end, that scene having sex with the images of the shootings... didnt quite fit for me. That I think was the only part that I really didint like of the whole movie. The rest for me was genius.
I don't feel like critiquing the politics right now, but the filmmaking is great. There are some incredibly tense scenes. I was skeptical of the spy thriller aesthetic for this material, but it mostly felt natural. In the beginning they carry out their mission without any remorse, but the reflection and the regret begin later on. Whether the real assassins felt any remorse, I don't know, but in the film the progression believable. I'm sure Kushner, Roth, and Spielberg took some liberties with the real events, some of which were mentioned in the Salon article.
Some of the dialogue was awkwardly artificial-sounding, particularly Golda Meir's.
Andyk, I felt the scene you talked about fit with the rest of the film. The NY scenes are markedly different in tone because of how Avner changed after having done what he did, and that scene was the zenith of the events of Munich haunting him, at least within the film.
More thoughts later.
http://www.slate.com/id/2133085/nav/tap2/
The History Behind Munich
Separating truth from fiction in Spielberg's movie.
By Aaron J. Klein
Posted Friday, Dec. 23, 2005, at 4:22 PM ET
Co-written by the playwright Tony Kushner and based in part on a book, Vengeance by George Jonas, that has been widely called into question, Steven Spielberg's Munich is not a documentary. Indeed, it is full of distortions and flights of fancy that would make any Israeli intelligence officer blush. Before the opening credits, Spielberg informs us that the movie was "inspired by real events"—which raises the question, where in Munich does fact end and fiction begin?
The dark event at the heart of the movie is presented starkly, accurately for the most part, and well. This is the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympics, when Palestinian terrorists held 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage, which led to a botched rescue attempt and the murder of the surviving athletes (two had already been killed) by the terrorists. (The hostage crisis is inserted sequentially throughout the film.) Much is left out. For instance, it would have been nice to know that it was German incompetence—their "rescue operation" was, operationally, a disaster—that led directly to the massacre. But a film can't show everything, and the meat of Spielberg's narrative is not the massacre itself but Israel's response to it, a counter-terror campaign that has long been shrouded in mystery—and to some extent still is. It is here that artistic license overwhelms, when it doesn't entirely dispense with, the true story of what happened after Munich.
In Munich, a hastily assembled covert assassination team is gathered by Golda Meir and given a list of targets—the men responsible for the attack. There are 11 Palestinians (a convenient match to the 11 dead Israeli athletes) who must pay the price. It didn't happen that way. Israel did authorize and empower a counter-terror assassination campaign in Munich's wake (more on that below), but no list of targets was ever given to an assassination team. Indeed, there was no "one team" charged with carrying out any sort of ongoing revenge operation. Specific targets were identified and then approved for assassination by top Mossad officials, and ultimately by the prime minister, as evidence grew in Israeli eyes that these individuals were likely to plan further attacks. Palestinian operatives, including many who had nothing to do with the Munich Massacre, were sentenced to death on a case-by-case basis. The list of targets was constantly changing. Assassination teams were sent out, mission by mission, as evidence and opportunity warranted.
The assassins in Munich are presented as quintessential everyday guys—patriots who want to defend their country and who gradually grow disillusioned, guilt-ridden, and paranoid. The Mossad teams did draw from the ordinary Israeli population, but they were well-trained professionals intent on their missions. In the movie, a Mossad agent gingerly asks a target if he "knows why we are here?" That's farfetched. In interviewing more than 50 veterans of the Mossad and military intelligence, I found not a single trace of remorse. On the contrary, Mossad combatants thought they were doing holy work.
The assassins in Munich are on their own—the Mossad denies their existence and cuts them off—much as Cold War spies were said to be. In fact, assassination teams were the head of a spear; behind them were analysts and informational gathering units in Israel and in Europe, a whole network that was focused on both supplying the agents with information and properly directing their operations.
As Spielberg's assassination squad begins work in Europe, they come to rely on a kind of freelance intelligence merchant who works for a shadowy organization, "Le Group," that trades the names and locations of targets for big money. Whether or not such an organization existed, or might have, the Mossad never relied on such an entity. Security apparatuses don't function that way. The Mossad gathered its own intelligence, relying mainly on human intelligence from Palestinian informants living in Europe and the Middle East. Operatives recruited and directed these sources all over Europe, while analysts in Israel sifted through mountains of data looking for concrete terror plans—and potential perpetrators. Unfortunately, much of the storyline of Munich concerns this fanciful "Le Group" subplot.
The Munich Massacre triggered a fundamental change in Israel's approach to terrorism—a "Munich Revolution" (the phrase was used by the Mossad) that endures as a mindset and an operational protocol today. Finding and killing the perpetrators of the Munich Massacre was a part of that campaign only insofar as the men involved were deemed likely to act again. Revenge was the atmosphere—but preventing future attacks by networks that Israel saw as threatening its citizens was the goal. Mistakes were made, innocents were killed, and Israel's government and intelligence agencies never publicly questioned their right to carry out assassinations on foreign soil. Indeed, the true story of Israel's response to Munich is if anything more ambiguous than Spielberg's narrative.
But Spielberg has bought into one of the myths of the Mossad—that after Munich they staged a revenge operation to hunt down and assassinate everyone responsible. Israelis, too, bought into this myth (myself included, at one time) which a shocked public demanded—but that doesn't make it true. Spielberg, in inventing a story about violence begetting violence "inspired by real events" is raising questions worth asking. Even so, Israel's response to Munich was not a simple revenge operation carried out by angst-ridden Israelis. Both the larger context, and the facts on the ground, rarely get in Spielberg's way. A rigorous factual accounting may not be the point of Munich, which Spielberg has characterized as a "prayer for peace." But as result, Munich has less to do with history and the grim aftermath of the Munich Massacre than some might wish.
Aaron J. Klein is Time magazine's military and intelligence affairs correspondent in the Jerusalem Bureau and the author of Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response.
SPOILOPOLIS
Just saw this. I liked it a lot, definitely one of my favorites this year. This film just ran on and on so smoothly, I didn't feel there were any problems with it. That sex scene, I can see how it works on an intellectual level, but it made me sit there and think "Is this bad or emotionally fitting?" Knowing that it was showing the final bits of the massacre, I went for the latter. I think it works for the most part. The rest of the film is incredible. Spielberg's doing great things with language. In War of the Worlds, the characters constantly talk on top of and interrupt each other, to great effect. Here, there are multiple languages, weaving in and out, all brilliantly spoken. The female assassin was a great subsubplot. I like the structuring and the display of the assassinations, how each one is crafted and carried out, paced very quickly too, so there are seconds of tension to spare later on. The first is so messy, then the second is almost a travesty, and the third one actually is, then the fourth is just a big wreck. Anyhow, I was talking with a friend, and we both agreed there is absolutely nothing wrong with this film. Like Catch Me If You Can, it's so perfectly executed and is never dull and just moves right along.
Ultrahip, what scene did he leave the hat?
Spoilers
I really, really wanted to love this film. Although it has many moments of greatness, its too long and gets a tad preachy at times.
I feel that Spielberg isn't the best at political filmmaking. Any scenes with violence are top notch and extremely suspenseful. In fact, it felt more like a James Bond film at times. The mixed results are when there are scenes with long speeches. Sometimes they are incredibly insightful; sometimes they are almost corny. Tony Kushner's screenplay is a mixed bag (I had the same feeling with Angels in America, which alternated between brilliance and bizarre ramblings).
And there are times when Spielberg turns the emotional intensity way up without any warning, and the results are somewhat awkward (the phone scene where the kid says dada). Perhaps he was trying to replicate the ending of Schindler's List, in which the emotional "I could have done more" scene has been slowly build up and serves as a payoff.
On a more personal level, I don't really know what to make of the overall message. Its noble for Spielberg to even attempt a film dealing with the middle east, but his "we're all the same deep down" message didn't really resonate with me. Perhaps I just wanted a more concrete stance, be it pro Israel, pro Palestine, whatever. I don't need to agree with a film's message; I just want one that takes a definite stance. Still, I realize that this is more of a personal gripe, and that its hard to relate it to films sometimes.
Overall, ltheres some good stuff here, but it don't think it will be one of the more fondly remembered Spielberg dramas. I wish about half an hour had been left on the cutting room floor. B-
Gamblour, the scene with the hat is not one of the squad assassinations, it's the one in the hotel done by the woman from the bar.
Quote from: Ultrahip on December 26, 2005, 07:47:11 AM
Gamblour, the scene with the hat is not one of the squad assassinations, it's the one in the hotel done by the woman from the bar.
Oh ok. Hm I don't remember that, but this movie is worth seeing twice.
matt35, I don't get what long dialogue parts you're talking about. basically anything with Geoffrey Rush? I can't recall beyond that. I'm just trying to understand what you mean
so i can talk you out of it
Quote from: Gamblour on December 26, 2005, 12:40:08 PM
matt35, I don't get what long dialogue parts you're talking about. basically anything with Geoffrey Rush? I can't recall beyond that. I'm just trying to understand what you mean so i can talk you out of it
I didn't mean overlong. Just long enough to feel play-like. I already said that I preferred the words to the action, even though the action was brilliantly executed. There was just a part of me that felt that this movie about such serious subject matter and with such potential to delve so deeply into it (and the fact that is a Spielberg movie means that it would be in the unique position of actually having people SEE IT), it just struck me as odd that there are moments of drama that depend on whether the little girl picks up the phone, on whether or not an explosion will be contained within one room or if it will spill into other rooms of the building, etc. etc. Not that those aren't fascinating scenes of genuine tension, but the truth is I probably would have preferred to see the play version of this. I felt like there were important things being eschewed for the action sequences.
So don't get me wrong, I feel like every element of the movie was brilliant, but that a couple of elements didn't fit together. For me. I probably prefer the parts that most people would find strange or unnatural (which is just the way plays tend to be), like Golda Mier's scenes. That probably wouldn't have made this movie as entertaining as it needed to be, though. It's just that I've seen violence in movies before, but I've never seen a movie with as much potential to delve into this specific HATRED and the political complications of these missions. Hatred is fascinating, and I wanted more than just "I want to get every one of these pigs." Munich was so much bigger than Munich. "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values..." that was fascinating to me, and I felt that was just sort of skimmed through.
I guess it boils down to I slightly wish this were more the movie I wanted it to be, which almost invalidates my criticisms. I wanted a bolder, messier, more frustrating, complicated movie. It was too simple, given the subject matter. STILL, I'm just going into what I feel to a mild degree. I still feel that it's an excellent movie, because this is a small issue that I have with it, and like I said, they're not very valid criticisms. So my grade is, as it was, B+.
Munich
The revenge of vengeance
Ebert Rating: ****
BY ROGER EBERT / Dec 23, 2005
Steven Spielberg's "Munich" is an act of courage and conscience. The director of "Schindler's List," the founder of the Shoah Foundation, the most successful and visible Jew in the world of film, has placed himself between Israel and the Palestinians, looked at decades of terrorism and reprisal, and had one of his characters conclude, "There is no peace at the end of this." Spielberg's film has been called an attack on the Palestinians and he has been rebuked as "no friend of Israel." By not taking sides, he has taken both sides.
The film has deep love for Israel, and contains a heartfelt moment when a mother reminds her son why the state had to be founded: "We had to take it because no one would ever give it to us. Whatever it took, whatever it takes, we have a place on earth at last." With this statement, I believe, Spielberg agrees to the bottom of his soul. Yet his film questions Israel's policy of swift and full retribution for every attack.
"Munich" opens with a heart-stopping re-enactment of the kidnapping and deaths of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. It then shows Prime Minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) with her cabinet, stating firmly, "Forget peace for now." It shows the formation of a secret Israeli revenge squad to kill those responsible. It concludes that although nine of the 11 were eventually eliminated, they were replaced and replaced again by men even more dangerous, while the terrorists responded with even more deaths. What was accomplished?
The movie is based upon a book by George Jonas, a 1956 Hungarian freedom fighter, now a conservative Toronto political writer, who has been an acquaintance for 25 years. I thought to ask him what he thought of Spielberg's view of his material, but I didn't. I wanted to review the movie as an interested but not expert outsider, sharing (with most of the film's audience) not a great deal more knowledge than the film supplies. Those who know more, who know everything, are often the wrong ones to consult about a film based on fact. The task of the director is to transmute fact into emotions and beliefs -- and beliefs, we need to be reminded, are beliefs precisely because they are not facts.
"Munich" takes the form of a thriller matched with a procedural. Eric Bana stars as Avner, a former bodyguard to Meir, who is made leader of the secret revenge squadron. He and his men are paid off the books, have no official existence, and are handled by a go-between named Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush). Why it is necessary to deny their existence is not quite explained by the film, since they are clearly carrying out Israeli policy and Israel wants that known; they even use bombs instead of bullets to generate more dramatic publicity.
Avner is assigned only four teammates: Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), a toymaker, expert at disarming bombs, now asked to build them; Carl (Ciaran Hinds), who removes the evidence after every action; Steve (Daniel Craig), the trigger man, and Hans (Hanns Zischler), who can forge letters and documents. They travel with assumed names and false passports, and discover the whereabouts of many of their targets by paying bounties to a shadowy Frenchman named Louis (Mathieu Amalric).
Eventually Avner meets Louis' "Papa" (Michael Lonsdale), who has been selling information for years. Papa fought in the French Resistance, is now disillusioned: "We paid this price so Nazi scum could be replaced by Gaullist scum. We don't deal with governments." The family, he believes, is the only unit worth fighting for. His speech is moving, but does he really believe Avner and his money do not come from a government?
The film's most exciting moments are in the details of assassinations. Plastic bombs are planted, booby traps are baited, there is a moment of Hitchcockian suspense when the team waits for a little girl to leave for school before calling her father's telephone; they have failed to see her re-enter the house, and are astonished when she answers the phone. As the team tries to prevent the explosion, we reflect how it is always more thrilling in a movie, when someone needs to run desperately, for it to be an awkward older man.
The teammates move among world capitals. One night, in a comic screw-up with deadly possibilities, Avner's men and a PLO team are booked into the same "safe house." As the operation proceeds, it takes a psychic toll on Avner, who moves his family to Brooklyn, who grows paranoid, who questions the ethical basis of the operation he heads: "Jews don't do wrong because our enemies do wrong," he argues, and "if these people committed crimes we should have arrested them." To which he is told, "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values."
The same debate is going on right now in America. If it is true that civilizations must sometimes compromise their values, the questions remain: What is the cost, and what is the benefit? Spielberg clearly asks if Israel has risked more than it has gained. The stalemate in the Middle East will continue indefinitely, his film argues, unless brave men on both sides decide to break with the pattern of the past. Certainly in Israel itself it is significant that old enemies Ariel Sharon, from the right, and Shimon Peres, from the left, are now astonishingly both in the same new party and seeking a new path to peace. For the Palestinians, it may be crucial that the PLO's corrupt Arafat no longer has a personal stake in the status quo, and a new generation of leaders has moved into place.
Spielberg's film is well-timed in view of these unexpected political developments, which he could not have foreseen (Sharon left his Likud Party on Nov. 21, 2005, and Peres left his Labour Party a week later). Far from being "no friend of Israel," he may be an invaluable friend, and for that very reason a friend of the Palestinians as well.
Spielberg is using the effective form of a thriller to argue that loops of mutual reprisal have led to endless violence in the Middle East, Ireland, India and Pakistan, the former Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, Africa, and on and on. Miraculous, that the pariah nation of South Africa was the one place where irreconcilable enemies found a way to peacefully share the same land together.
At crucial times in a nation's history, its best friends may be its critics. Spielberg did not have to make "Munich," but he needed to. With this film he has dramatically opened a wider dialogue, helping to make the inarguable into the debatable. As a thriller, "Munich" is efficient, absorbing, effective. As an ethical argument, it is haunting. And its questions are not only for Israel but for any nation that believes it must compromise its values to defend them.
First off, did anyone else notice that Louis the Frenchman looked exactly like young Roman Polanski? That freaked me out.
Second, I agree with matt35mm 100%.
Like others, I had problems with both sex scenes, thought they were out of place. I felt the first one, when Avner's wife is still pregnant, was merely to set up the second one. I didn't like the juxtaposition of the sex with the Olympics massacre; I know we're supposed to get that everything that happened in Munich and what transpired afterwards will always stay with him but (and I don't say this often) the sex felt kind of gratuitous. I don't know; I promised a friend of mine that I'd go see it with him when he goes so maybe a second viewing will change my mind on it but after one viewing, it didn't sit well with me.
The one thing I flat out didn't like was that I knew that Spielberg was going to end with that shot of the World Trade Center. I live a short ride from where they shot the final scene (as a matter of fact, I was trying to shoot part of a short in a warehouse near there earlier in the year that fell through) and I knew as soon as we got that aerial shot of Avner walking away, I started thinking, "He's gonna end on the Towers. I know he's gonna end on the Towers." Sure enough...
Yes, the film is about terrorism and yes, it is about morally questionable retaliation to said terrorism but the film illustrated that well enough on its own without spelling it out like that. I dare say that was even more telegraphed than Spielberg has done before.
But man, he was channeling Hitchcock through most of the first half, it was great. He reminded us of how great a director he really is. A(lmost a)ll is forgiven for The Terminal.
Quote from: lockesparrow on December 28, 2005, 09:41:54 AM
First off, did anyone else notice that Louis the Frenchman looked exactly like young Roman Polanski? That freaked me out.
So on point.
I was a bit freaked out by the second sex scene. But now having a week to digest the movie it seems to make sense. Sex just seems like natural way to work things out. And if Bana needs some sweaty head swinging sex to overcome the guilt of killing terrorists, well then some sweaty head swinging sex shall be had. I really like the shot with the two towers. First, they were there in the 70's. Second, I don't think the framing really drew your eyes straight to them. Lastly, I felt it really did tie up the whole movie. Modern Terrorism started in Munich, and for American audiences at least, that last image shows directly what it has led up to.
Bana's character wasn't using the sex to overcome guilt. He was haunted by the images during an act that should be normal and intimate.
First off, I think this is the best movie of the year. I saw it tonight, so it still has to soak in my mind, but it was excellent.
Most of my gripes with the movie are pretty minor.
SPOILERS
For me the ending sex scene is like DeNiro not being able to shoot the deer in the Deer Hunter (The whole New York partof the movie is like the third act of Deer Hunter), These events have certainly distorted his reality, but it wasn't necesary to intercut it with the Munich events. To show his face would have been enough. I think Spielberg should have opted to be a little more subtle here. The sex scene all by itself without the intercutting would be much more powerful.
The only real flaw is that Spielberg should have been a little more subtle. He really drove whole the "family-is-more-important-than-your-country" theme. I mean, it was an integral part of the movie and a moral dilemma for Bana's character, but there was a point where I said, "okay, enough about family!" and then the ending: why did he have to end it with the shot? I think enough suggestions were made about the never-ending cycle of violence in today's world to have to remind us. tone it down steven, and you may have the best movie of your career.
Now to the good stuff. This is the only four star of the movie in the year and is easily the most exciting of the year. More so than King Kong. And unlike Syriana, it isn't mired in it's political implications and wasn't too preachy. For the most part (other than the previously menionted missteps) it knows it's place. it is an excellent political thriller with characters that everyone can connect to. What I love about Bana's character is that he is such a simple guy. Not complex at all, nor should he be. He is an every-man, and a blind patriot. I think the most important theme of this movie is blind patriotism. it is not until the end that he asks any questions, but it's too late. it's already screwed him up. Was anyone else really reminded by the Deer Hunter in a lot of it's themes?
Very solid performances all around. Awesome directing. The suspense is amazing. Visually, there were some great shots. There were some great scenes that really hit me pretty hard. 4 out of 4. go see it.
Soo happy that this is the last film I will see of the year.
SPOILERS
My only series of gripes are as follows. Something didn't feel right with how they (Bana's character) found Louis in the first place. It was like, he calls up his buddy he knows and tells him and his girlfriend that they don't know the peeps hes after, but they might know someone who does. And surely they do and set it up. And not only that, the guy and his team happen to know where every flippin' one of them is in the whole flippin' world. It may be how it really happened, I don't how much the truth it is based on and what not, but for some reason it felt weak. This leads to how it didn't really show how they found each target. We always got, "He's in London" or whaterver then cut to the scene of them hunting the target or planning it out. Again, this may have worked, it just felt weak to me. Last one in my trilogy of gripes would be that if each target sees that this pattern is happening through the news, wouldn't they make it a little harder for themselves to be found. I know they're always being guarded, but not heavily in some cases espeacially with the one who was supposedly the hardest one to find. Well that's not true, he was pretty heavily guarded at the home. I don't know, maybe these aren't problems at all. Something about them just felt a little off to me.
I LOVED this film however. I feel I don't really need to point out why, hence only reflecting on the small and maybe not even well explained gripes. Spielberg just did it soo right.
It did a great job of introducing the hammer to the head, the hammer to the head, hit the nail, hammer to the head. My favorite moment was like twenty seconds in when the camera tracks past the terrorists changing their clothes in the lawn. I really liked that shot and one or two more. The this land is my land stairway conversation about having a home to come back to was the best dialogue for my buck. Oh yeah there was good dialogue sprinkled in. And a damn fine action sequence, when they go to kill that one Middle Eastern guy and the army comes and they're like "Oh no you didn't dress like girls and then come kill my man."
Thinking about it I liked it more than I thought I did and probably a little more than War of the Worlds. But goddamn, hammer to the head.
C. Perhaps C+.
I felt like the weariness was too intellectual and not emotional enough--most of the weariness was revealed through dialogues and there wasn't enough emotion--wasn't like andrien brody in the pianist where the viewer actually felt the weariness. I felt like the film was really good but it missed the main emotion it was trying to nail.
Just saw it. Enjoyed it a lot. Anyone else reminded of Coppola's The Conversation watching this?
Very good.
Possible spoilers.
I know some people were worried about the aesthetic of the film, considering the source material, but it all worked out perfect. The action sequences are never gimmicky or flashy, they are just perfect. Unlike most action films, the sequences were filmed by a director with confidence. The shots linger, space is created and maintained and the viewer is oriented. All of which is extremely refreshing.
Emotionally, I was very involved with the team of characters. Unlike syriana (which I also enjoyed), everyone feels real rather than a member of an event. Much like Saving Private Ryan, Munich balances entertainment with grace. Nothing is dumbed down or cheapened. At the same time, it isn't obtuse and pretentious. Spielberg remains our best storyteller. His move from fiction > fact has only increased his worth to cinema.
As for the sex scene, it is shocking and difficult to watch...but that's the point. It really shows how much Avner has gone through and what it has done to him. Also, I like that the film doesn't take a political stance. I'm not going to say that I don't like politics in film, but I respect a film that can maintain a political ambiguity. A film that respects the audience (and in this case, the real events) rather than trying to promote a political idealogy.
One of the top 5 movies of 05.
Spielberg blasts 'extremist' critics of 'Munich'
Steven Spielberg hit back at critics of his latest film "Munich" about the targeted killing of Palestinians behind the massacre of Israelis during the 1972 Olympics, in an interview to be published Monday ahead of the picture's German and Israeli release.
Spielberg, 59, told German news weekly Der Spiegel that "Munich" aims to reclaim the debate about the moral costs of the struggle against terror from "extremists" and engage moderate forces in the West and the Middle East.
"Should you leave the debate to the great over-simplifiers? The extreme Jews and extreme Palestinians who consider any kind of negotiated settlement to be a kind of treason?" he said in remarks printed in German.
"I wanted to use the medium of film to make the audience have a very intimate confrontation with a subject that they generally only know about in an abstract way, or only see in a one-sided way."
"Munich", which hit US screens last month, depicts an Israeli campaign to hunt down and kill Palestinian radicals behind the hostage-taking of Israeli athletes and coaches during the Munich Olympics.
The drama ended in a massacre: 11 Israelis, five Palestinians and one German police officer were killed.
The film, which will be released in Israel and Germany this week, looks at the psychological and moral toll the assassinations took on the Israeli agents. It is billed as "inspired by real events" to deflect criticism about its historical accuracy.
"Munich" was blasted by some US Jewish commentators who accused Spielberg of equating the Israeli assassins with the Palestinian militants.
Spielberg dismissed the charges as "nonsense".
"These critics are acting as if we were all missing a moral compass. Of course it is a horrible, abominable crime when people are taken hostage and killed like in Munich," he said.
"But it does not excuse the act when you ask what the motives of the perpetrators were and show that they were also individuals with families and a history.... Understanding does not mean forgiving. Understanding does not mean being soft, it is a courageous and strong stance."
Charles Krauthammer's column on "Munich". (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-1_13_06_CK.html)
This is one of the most truly vile things I've read in a long time.
Quote from: polkablues on January 22, 2006, 11:39:05 PM
Charles Krauthammer's column on "Munich". (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-1_13_06_CK.html)
This is one of the most truly vile things I've read in a long time.
That's really amazing. I'm pretty sure I saw the same movie as this guy but I don't remember seeing what he saw. There's a difference of being critical of Israel and being anti-Israel. In the United States, up until recently, we knew we were allowed to criticize the government without being labeled a traitor. This invective is runoff from that type of thinking.
The massacre looked like pretty straightforward terrorism to me. We don't know anything about the athletes except... that they're athletes! They were Olympians for Christ's sake! But the movie isn't about them. Even the poster says, "This is the story of what happened next."
I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine who was saying that Munich defined the difference between a terrorist and an assassin. A terrorist would have set the bomb off when the little girl answered the phone... the end.
Either way, murder is murder whether it's for revenge or whatever. So why depict the Palestinians as inhuman savages and the Israelis as saints just to placate the neo-cons who don't want to believe that real life isn't that black and white?
This article is like interpretations of Nostradamus' quatrains: if you believe it pinpoints the end of the world, you're going to see it in there. And if you think that showing Israel in a (minorly) unflattered light implies that the filmmakers are anti-Israel, then you'll find plenty of "examples" to back that up? But it's all a great big stretch.
Thanks, hacksparrow. You just summed up exactly the way I felt about the article but was way too pissed off to type out last night.
Quote from: hacksparrow on January 23, 2006, 09:10:25 AM
There's a difference of being critical of Israel and being anti-Israel.
Even worse, Krauthammer seems to be of the belief that being critical of Israel makes you not only anti-Israel, but an anti-Semite as well. It's the "with us or against us" mentality taken to this disgustingly exploitative degree. He uses the historical victimhood of the Jewish people as a blunt weapon with which to batter anyone who questions Israeli policy.
I had high expectations, and Munich still managed to surprise me. I think is the most "diferente" movie Spielberg's ever done. It's quite an achievement form any point of view. He blends the thriller and the political commetary almost without people noticing it. I was on a crowded theatre with a bad sound, and even with that problem the audience was quiet and attentive, something totally unusual.
The aesthetic of ithe whole thing was remarkable. It looks like no other Spielberg/Kaminski movie ever. Looks like a seventies film, a lot of yellows, kind of ugly, lots of zoom ins, which was really cool. Kaminski said in American Cinematographer that he was happy to be shooting an espionage thriller cause finnally he convinced spielberg to use zooms, something he reportedly "hates".
The film is good at making its point in the most straighforward hammering way, but at the same time, the transformation of Bana's character is handled very subtly. He slowly but surely turns into this paranoid nervewrack.
The way this movie has been treated by the press and the attacks about it being "no friend of israel" and "afraid ot take a point of view", are complete bullshit. Really, it's so depressing when an intelligent film is attacked for not being in the same level of stupidity than some opinionated people out there.
MAYBE SPOILERS
About the final shot with the twin towers, I think is great. For New Yorkers it must be no surprise that he ends with that shot when looking where the character is and all, but we the rest of the people that don't live in new york or have never been there don't notice this instantly. And as someone else said, the framing doesn't call atention to the towers, and it actually took me a few seconds to see them. I think is great cause is Spielberg way to say, with Bana all fucked up and the towers behind him: "This is where we're going".
And that's why I think this is a completely new move for Spielberg, cause up till now, he never dared to end any of his movies on a completely depressing note. Munich is certainly a downer. No bittersweet abstract conclusions (AI), no questionable "dark maybe it is all a dream" ending (Minority Report), no bullshit "the son lives at the end" finale (war of the worlds), just some plain and simple sad note to end. People left the theatre either in total silence or in full discussion of the israeli-palestinian conflict. Mission accomplished.
Quote from: Losing the Horse: on January 01, 2006, 06:09:24 PM
My favorite moment was like twenty seconds in when the camera tracks past the terrorists changing their clothes in the lawn.
I have to say that was one of the most captivating shots I've ever seen. There is definately something brilliant about that shot and I've got so see it again to figure out what.
Quote from: ®edlum on January 30, 2006, 05:05:24 PM
Quote from: Losing the Horse: on January 01, 2006, 06:09:24 PM
My favorite moment was like twenty seconds in when the camera tracks past the terrorists changing their clothes in the lawn.
I have to say that was one of the most captivating shots I've ever seen. There is definately something brilliant about that shot and I've got so see it again to figure out what.
I am absolutely clueless as well, but it is astounding.
Lately I've been absent from this board, but trust me, I'm still watching movies.
I've had a lot of time to think about Munich. I don't mind giving an opinion and risk the possibility I am merely repeating the complaints already said. (I've barely read this thread) Speilberg is ambitious with this film. He is not looking for just the repeat aesthetics of Schindler's List or Amistad. The film has a new found realism for Speilberg. He takes the action oriented situation of these Jewish assasins and places their story in the context of a larger realism for Speilberg that gives the audience the gained experience the characters have to the learned dillusionment of terrorism and the unexpected identification with their villianous Muslim counterparts. We have to get to a place with Eric Bana to truly understand that identification.
The problem with this film is the flow and story structure up until that point. The movie is well made, no doubt. It just has the usual Speilberg sentiments flavored in for no reason. The over dramatification of the terrorists for refusing to kill the child has less to do with digging at the characters than it does with taking on audience identification. If the film was truly interested in understanding that situation from the larger perspective of the characters it wouldn't given the scene so much focus and sentiment in music and filmmaking. The situation would have been shown but at a distance because the film would know its greater points were yet to be made. The structure of the story would have been a gradual upward climb to those higher emotions and peaks. Speilberg dips in and out of emotional twists less for the greater objectivity of character and instead more for audience identification. Its not confident writing. It is sentimental writing that really has little place in realism.
Another point is the ideological spin. Granted, Speilberg wants the audience to understand both sides of the Terrorist bandwagon, but he also doesn't want the characters to do that. Speeches are thrown in specifically to represent the counter argument. It still remains a bad cliche in politicial films. It is the feeling to be politically correct and aware of the politics of both sides even if the greater points of the film will likely make the same ideas already understood. The fear is those ideas can be misinterpretated and backfire. I almost feel writers and directors back themselves up legally with such speeches. Again it is not necessary and in cases like Munich acts as a major disruption to the flow or realism the film had going for it.
I went in expecting to like Munich. Schindler's List for the most part is a masterpiece. Munich bobbles between sentimentality and greater realism that by the end of the film I was annoyed because it missed being a great film by only simple mistakes. Its just those mistakes have defined nearly all of Speilberg's career. Even in a bad year for movies like 2005, Munich is another misfire by Speilberg that goes right along with Saving Private Ryan. The sentimentality of his films made people early on wonder if he'd ever make serious films. He did so with Schindler's List and Amistad. Will Speilberg's next attempt be according to those two or the sentimental drivel of Saving Private Ryan and Munich?
rating: read my post.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on February 01, 2006, 04:15:05 AMEven in a bad year for movies like 2005, Munich is another misfire by Speilberg that goes right along with Saving Private Ryan. The sentimentality of his films made people early on wonder if he'd ever make serious films. He did so with Schindler's List and Amistad. Will Speilberg's next attempt be according to those two or the sentimental drivel of Saving Private Ryan and Munich?
I finally saw Munich this afternoon. It, along with A.I., is more "serious" than Schindler's List or Amistad. The speeches and flag waving in the latter films are grotesque compared to Munich's honesty and present-day relevance. SPR and Amistad are safely set in the past. Munich is omnipresent. I think Munich rightly opines that the Israelis/Arab/Palestinian conflict is NEVER going to be "solved"...at least not without concession from both sides (which is presently unthinkable).
I don't know if showing all of the assassinations was necessary, but it certainly drove home the point (hammered it home as stated above). Bana's dissolution at the end is tragic and true...I was heartbroken. It's a wonderful film.
Quote from: Sunrise on February 05, 2006, 01:15:55 AM
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on February 01, 2006, 04:15:05 AMEven in a bad year for movies like 2005, Munich is another misfire by Speilberg that goes right along with Saving Private Ryan. The sentimentality of his films made people early on wonder if he'd ever make serious films. He did so with Schindler's List and Amistad. Will Speilberg's next attempt be according to those two or the sentimental drivel of Saving Private Ryan and Munich?
I finally saw Munich this afternoon. It, along with A.I., is more "serious" than Schindler's List or Amistad. The speeches and flag waving in the latter films are grotesque compared to Munich's honesty and present-day relevance. SPR and Amistad are safely set in the past. Munich is omnipresent. I think Munich rightly opines that the Israelis/Arab/Palestinian conflict is NEVER going to be "solved"...at least not without concession from both sides (which is presently unthinkable).[.quote]
Munich is a personal story. The larger politics it draws from that personal story makes it less serious. The film is a study of realism through the events that happened at Munich and afterward. It is a character portrait. Character portraits can not give us the broad strokes to truly understand the Middle East situation. They can achieve empathy instead. Speilberg is stretching his material and focus thin by trying to be so "understanding" of the Middle East.
As far as the other films go you mentioned, I have little to comment on. I do not understand the similarity between Munich and AI. I don't see how Schindler's List is flag waving. It has negative aspects, sure, but flag waving? I'm going to need explanation.
I don't think any film can give us the broad strokes to understand the Middle East situation entirely. But I would argue that a character portrait is the only way we can get close. That is the difference between something "inspired" by real events and a documentary.
I didn't read Spielberg as trying to understand the Middle East conflict so much as to assert that there is no way through it with violence followed by retaliation followed by violence, etc. There is no way "home" without concession.
I also don't mean to make a thematic comparison between Munich and A.I. They both simply stimulate me more than the other films mentioned. Schindler's List is not flag waving compared to Saving Private Ryan. That was a misstep. Private Ryan, however, is only serious (from my point of view) for the first thirty minutes or so.
Quote from: Sunrise on February 05, 2006, 02:27:41 AM
I don't think any film can give us the broad strokes to understand the Middle East situation entirely. But I would argue that a character portrait is the only way we can get close. That is the difference between something "inspired" by real events and a documentary.
I didn't read Spielberg as trying to understand the Middle East conflict so much as to assert that there is no way through it with violence followed by retaliation followed by violence, etc. There is no way "home" without concession.
Here are my specific points to why I think Speilberg tries too hard with Munich.
1.) When Eric Bana is talking to the Muslim terrorist, an opposite ideology is trying to be summed up. Its a wrong step to take. The film only had to document the increasing turmoil of Eric Bana's experience to make us feel the hopelessness in the Middle East. Speilberg correctly assumes the little dialogue that has been given about Israeli aggression. He only had to film the experience of these characters to show that.
2.) The character who is killed by the female assasin has a specific unrealistic moment. Before he is killed he gives a thorough and thoughtful speech to Eric Bana that is too aware and too understanding of their situation to be realistic for someone who is suppose be going through the same pain everyone else is.
Those examples, among other sympathetic moments, play against the realism strand the film carries. I think Eric Roth felt too hurried to give the audience emotional cues. It keeps Munich from being a serious film.
Quote from: Sunrise on February 05, 2006, 02:27:41 AM
Private Ryan, however, is only serious (from my point of view) for the first thirty minutes or so.
I say Saving Private Ryan ends being good right after the DDay Invasion but, yea.
IT'S A MOVIE. it's not a documentary. spielberg never claimed this was the REAL DEAL. he's using real events to talk about a larger issue. god forbid there be actual moments that make you involved in the characters and the conflict just because they arent 'true'. they're not ridiculous and they work in the context of the film. that's whats important. who cares about real?
Quote from: modage on February 05, 2006, 09:39:42 AM
who cares about real?
Charley Krauthammer apparently.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on February 05, 2006, 03:05:32 AM
Here are my specific points to why I think Speilberg tries too hard with Munich.
1.) When Eric Bana is talking to the Muslim terrorist, an opposite ideology is trying to be summed up. Its a wrong step to take. The film only had to document the increasing turmoil of Eric Bana's experience to make us feel the hopelessness in the Middle East. Speilberg correctly assumes the little dialogue that has been given about Israeli aggression. He only had to film the experience of these characters to show that.
2.) The character who is killed by the female assasin has a specific unrealistic moment. Before he is killed he gives a thorough and thoughtful speech to Eric Bana that is too aware and too understanding of their situation to be realistic for someone who is suppose be going through the same pain everyone else is.
Those examples, among other sympathetic moments, play against the realism strand the film carries. I think Eric Roth felt too hurried to give the audience emotional cues. It keeps Munich from being a serious film.
Those were certainly coincidental moments to say the least...but they didn't take me out of the film. Some of those sympathetic touches separates this film from Syriana for me.
im just adding my two cents about how incredible this film was...its number my 2 of 2005 for me..just an exciting, entertaining film...bana is one of my new "it" guys...dude is awesome in this...and i liked daniel craig...i was upset that he's the new bond and i think that sucks because he is really ugly..but he made up for it in this film...and i thought the sex and violence ending was solid...steven didnt fuck it up this time..
Look for DreamWorks' Munich to be announced soon by Universal for release on 5/9. Separate single-disc widescreen and full frame editions will be available (SRP $29.98 each) along with a 2-disc Limited Edition (SRP $36.98). The single-disc editions will have a video introduction by director Steven Spielberg. The 2-disc edition will add a 7-part behind-the-scenes documentary (including The Mission, The Team, Memories of the Event, Portrait of an Era, The On-Set Experience, The International Cast and Editing, Sound and Music).
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"A high-octane thrill ride!"- Shawn Edwards, Fox TV
This is probably for the 1-disc version. I bet the SE will have better cover art, hopefully like the poster:
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Guess they heard you Ravi
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'Munich' Star Eric Bana Dishes On Working With 'Ruthless' Spielberg
Source: MTVNews
As star Eric Bana reflects on the flick's DVD release, which was nominated for five Oscars, he can finally allow his own slightly upturned grin to contrast the blank expression of his character, haunted hit man Avner. Calling from a film set in his native Australia, the intense actor let his guard down for a revealing discussion of Steven Spielberg the basketball coach, the fatherly scenes you may never see and a message for the haters who continue to approach him with "predetermined crap."
MTV: "Munich" is finally making its way to DVD Tuesday (May 9). What will fans be able to appreciate more at home than in theaters?
Eric Bana: There's so much detail in so many of the sequences in this film. I think the DVD for this would be pretty spectacular [for appreciating] the way Steven has composed some of the shots. I was blown away the first time I saw it, and I was there!
MTV: Spielberg was still shooting in mid-2005 for a firm December release. Did the tight schedule help or hurt the making of the film?
Bana: It helped in the sense that we had a pretty crazy schedule, but from what I gather, it's not at all unusual for Steven. I don't think this film would've been shot any differently if he had an 18-month production. He always schedules films tight and hits the ground running, so for the crew, it's no different to what they're used to. ... For me, playing a role so forlorn, I actually liked the workload because it enabled you to completely immerse yourself and not come up for air until it was over.
MTV: Did Spielberg hit his end date perfectly?
Bana: We finished bang-on. I think it was 69 or 70 days, and it was the day he said we were gonna finish that we finished.
MTV: Your head must have been spinning.
Bana: It's really [like] a basketball team working on a film. It's sport and art merged together.
MTV: The DVD offers a peek into that Spielberg process, as well as footage of the real-life tragedy. What it doesn't give us, however, is the rumored scenes between you and an actor playing Avner's father.
Bana: He's referred to in the end, but yes, you never see it.
MTV: So you did shoot those scenes?
Bana: We did. ... There was only one, and it was a scene when I went back to Israel and it was towards the end. It didn't make it in for whatever reason. I don't think there were that many deleted scenes; it was pretty tight. I don't think by any means it was a four-hour film cut down to two and a half.
MTV: Why do some movies make tons of deleted scenes, and others don't?
Bana: The one amazing thing about Steven is he's absolutely ruthless. ... He would, on the spot, say, "OK, we just deleted the scene that comes after this, because there's no way I can cut to it." ... He would make that decision on the spot, and that scene that you were going to shoot this afternoon or tomorrow morning is now gone.
MTV: A lot of actors will request an additional take if they feel they weren't good enough while the cameras were rolling. Were you afraid that would have screwed up the Spielberg process?
Bana: If I felt like I had any, I'd always ask, and Steven would always give me that. It's just that give-and-take thing. But you need to send some [good] prints to him early if you're gonna ask. You'd better give him something he likes the first time.
MTV: The subjects of Israeli-Palestinian terrorism and soul-sucking retribution got people talking.
Bana: [He laughs.] Yeah, that's for sure.
MTV: Tell us about the moviegoer response that meant the most to you.
Bana: I've had a lot of people from both sides comment, which I thought was really interesting. People who thought they were going to hate it, who preconceived it as propaganda, were really surprised by it, and that's been pleasing. ... It's always good when you [get compliments from] people who served in certain areas, who relate to men on a mission. I had similar experiences with "Black Hawk Down."
MTV: What about the flip side? "Munich" message boards are typically populated by some very angry people.
Bana: I don't feel as though people get that angry about the film. We're dealing with a subject matter that makes people angry — and there's a real difference between the two. I've found in most cases, people's [negative] opinions of the film were that way before they went in. It doesn't really bother me. ... There's been so much predetermined crap written about the film that was quite unbelievable, really.
MTV: We've heard stories about the film being shot under intense secrecy. What was the craziest precaution you witnessed?
Bana: I don't know that it was any more secretive than any other project that I've worked on. For some reason, it's getting kind of more and more crazy, and I guess it's got to do with piracy. I worked on another film last year ... and there were crewmen who hadn't even [been allowed to] read the script ... but I'm sure security was pretty tight on the set.
MTV: Because of the subject matter?
Bana: We undoubtedly had more security than normal; there's just no doubt about that. That took a bit of getting used to, but when you really got into it, you kind of don't notice.
MTV: You shot all over the world, in Hungary, Malta and France. Did some of these places get a bit scary?
Bana: We just needed it physically because when we were shooting, we weren't in hostile areas or something, but you're exposed to the public so much. A lot of those areas you can't completely lock down and control, so I guess it kind of lends itself to that.
MTV: Every actor wants to work under Spielberg. What's the best piece of advice he gave you?
Bana: He was always very good at encouraging you to go with your instincts. If you had a thought and you were about to start questioning it too much, he would cut you off and say, "Don't even think about it. Do it on camera. Do it on film. Do it, do it, do it." Which is pretty great — that he's prepared to have something unfold before him. He's really excited by that whole process of things happening on film.
Where si the 2 disc version of this? I haven't seen it anywhere.
Quote from: Derek on June 01, 2006, 10:24:52 AM
Where si the 2 disc version of this? I haven't seen it anywhere.
After a lot of searching (all the Best Buy's, Circuit City's and Target's I went to didn't have it), I finally found it at Tower Records.
Quote from: Derek on June 01, 2006, 10:24:52 AM
Where is the 2 disc version of this? I haven't seen it anywhere.
does this help?
Quote from: Cinephile on June 01, 2006, 11:52:51 PM
and a newly discontinued:
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I got it for free (well, sorta....) at Movie Stop.
Quote from: MacGuffin on June 01, 2006, 11:11:24 AM
Quote from: Derek on June 01, 2006, 10:24:52 AM
Where si the 2 disc version of this? I haven't seen it anywhere.
After a lot of searching (all the Best Buy's, Circuit City's and Target's I went to didn't have it), I finally found it at Tower Records.
Thanks, would you say it's worth it if I tried to find it on ebay?
Quote from: Derek on June 02, 2006, 03:40:34 PM
if I tried to find it on ebay
just thought i'd save you the trouble of potentially getting ripped off by a fraudulent romanian and let ya know that dvd empire still has it. (http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_item.asp?userid=99364800599605&item_id=1096264)
thanks!
August 7, 2006
'Munich' 2-Disc Limited Edition available again
The now out-of-print two-disc limited collector's edition of "Munich" is available again in presumably limited quantities through Barnes & Noble's online store.
Used copies of the title has been fetching anywhere from nearly $50 and up lately due to its scarcity, but you can grab a copy of the set at bn.com (http://video.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?ean=25192921124&z=y&frm=0&itm=1) for a reasonable $27.98 (a 30% savings off of the suggested retail price). Act quickly before supplies are gone!
This is an amazing film, one of spielburg's best....just the right amount of sentimentality and violence. Eric bana blew me away and it was interesting to see Bond. Geofferey rush had a sinister way about him. Man, this was soo fucking good.
This is the one film from my top 3 of 05 that still holds up for me. I just watched it again as well a couple months ago and it really is fantastic. Spielberg had a good year in 05. War of the Worlds was really good as well.
I don't think these two will wash out the taste of Indy 4 though.
let time pass stefen...time heals all scuffs, scrapes, and misfires.