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January 13, 2006
It's Friday the 13th, so I'm not going to press my luck. Today will be the first of an increasingly rare feature lately, Readers Of The Day.
This came in from LARRY GROSS: "Congratulations on the skillful display of "close reading" that you performed in this hot button on Munich. As interpretation goes, I thought it flawless.
It does not unfortunately fully address the question of the aesthetic skill with which the enumerated concepts are enacted within the work, and there are some problems.
The paradox of Munich aesthetically, all turns around the presentation of two things: How doubt is portrayed, and the role of Louis and Papa in the structure.
Your analysis of the structure of evolving doubt on the macro-level of the film's overall structure is very persuasive...but it doesn't quite mesh with the way the characters are portrayed...Carl, Robert, Avner, and Hans each has his doubt moment, but the evolution of it doesn't seem to feel as if it makes entirely lucid sense--is for instance Robert "really" guilty for not having been a very competent bomb-maker...his "doubts" seem to erupt from nowhere...same with Hans after being one of the hard-core ones suddenly announcing he wishes he had let Avner clothe the woman's corpse properly...Carl has "consistent" doubts, but then, he has to show in his last speech that he's the wise man who functions best with doubt by cleverly analyzing Avner's need to keep running...he's confirmed there as a man of lucidity beyond doubt...which partly undermines the role he's apparently been playing--"psychology" has always been Spielberg's weak suit...here he wants to link moral argument with the characters evolving psychological response to their actions. I could not applaud his aspiration more--but here, he's like a chef cooking with too many ingredients--or to apply the metaphor from Amadeus--you have "too many notes"--the articulation of these competing causalities just doesn't "ring" harmonically as say it does in the best of Kubrick--you are very right to say that this is absolutely Spielberg's boldest attempt to achieve the multi-leveledness of Kubrick and again for that of course SS is to be commended--but--
The trickier paradox is Louis and Papa--How to say this but they are both the best and the worst thing about the film.
Best because in a peculiar sense, that your analysis conveys, they are actually where Spielberg's own personal moral comfort lies--they are the poetic-amoral-professionals-but-with-a-code that every Hollywood auteur that Spielberg has idolized and has wanted himself to be, Hawks-Ford-Hitchcock etc. The tough but talented guys who operate with skill and success in the arena of moral ambiguity, and know that no 'ideology' or intellectual justification can ever be absolute or pure, and are sustained by their own aesthetic response to things, food, cars, children, exquisite French farmhouses, perfect grandchildren etc...they are emblematically both purer and dirtier than everyone else, because they know the ideological treacherousness of the world, but they have routinized their response to this condition through their commitment to money and privacy--they are both the "wise child" (Louis/Amalric has a presence that mixes up Leaud, Truffaut, an early Spielberg mentor-deity, and as one critic noted an uncanny resemblance to another amoral holocaust child survivor, Roman Polanski...Papa/Lonsdale is the dream rabbinical dad, magically free institutional illusions and governmental hypocrisy or taint, that all abandoned children like Spielberg always dream of)
The problem with Louis and Papa as a concept is that despite their vividness and considerable on -screen charm, they feel almost completely phony--they are a conceptual necessity of Spielberg's own intellectual conflicts rather than a consistently believable entity in the story--first of all--why aren't any of the groups who they betray to Avner after them? Was sending the Palestinians to the safe house, their idea of whimsy--since the cost in bloodshed was rather high Avner's continuing to work with them seems low on the plausibility meter--
Everything no matter how evocative and interesting about Papa and Louis in fact reeks unbearably, in this context, of contrivance--(it's nice to have all the work of finding terrorists reduced to standing in front of posh furniture shops in Paris but somehow uh-uh, I don't think so)...what I suppose I'm saying is that Spielberg-Kushner, need Louis and Papa so deeply as an ambiguous anchor to their concepts that they skipped various empirical details to make them believable at the level of story and plot...they are definitely "creatures" from the Spielberg impulse toward fantasy and since that is probably on an aesthetic level his deepest loyalty, they have their own strangely non-truthful truth (get that?)...but they conflict with the rest of the film's sobriety and near documentary accuracy. And Kubrick, for instance, would never have allowed himself such a glitch in stylistic continuity as they represent (unless he was making the Shining and committed, in a sense, to such systemic irregularities)
There is so much skill in Munich to admire as has been pointed out by you and others and there is no doubt that the negatives I've pointed out don't keep it in any way from being a good--and-necessary film, (god knows one of the very few such from the mainstream studios this year) just not a masterpiece on the level to which it aspires.
AH! writes: "To be honest, I had been expecting something well made but nothing like the visceral and haunting experience Spielberg & Co have served up. The first trailer and a lot of the publicity surrounding the film haven't really conveyed the scope or the depth of the film.Also, after disappointments like "The Terminal" and "AI" I had forgotten Spielberg could make something this raw and compelling. Although, given the wildly different subject matter, it seems silly to compare Munich to films like Duel, Jaws or even Schindler's List it has the same urgency and masterful suspense that those films had. I went in expecting a slower, more dialogue driven drama and was stunned by the construction and execution of the film. 164 minutes flew by. Plus, it was intriguing that he used the format of a thriller as a way into the thorny moral and political themes at the heart of the film. On paper it shouldn't work. But it works superbly.
I still want to see it again, but the main things that stuck out for me on first viewing were:
- The Olympic Massacre: As soon as the film started and John Williams' pounding score dovetailed the PLO terrorists entering the Olympic village I almost couldn't look at the screen. The sense of dread is sickeningly palpable and overall the sequence (and subsequent flashbacks) is one of the most impressive recreations of a historical event I can ever recall seeing.
- Eric Bana: His performance in Chopper was tremendous but here he has a very tricky role that he pulls off with aplomb.
- The recreation of 70s Europe: I haven't read many reviews talking about Rick Carter's production design, which is odd because it is a masterful recreation of early 70s Europe.
- The portrayal of killing: So often killing on film is loud guns blowing away anonymous victims. It is rare to see a film explore the different ways a) killing is done, b) how it affects those who do it and c) the wider significance of killing to a region and race.
- The history and the politics: For Spielberg to take on this film now is remarkable but the bold way the film tackles the conflicts in the Middle East is as refreshing as it was unexpected. I had expected a sentimental tinge to this story (a la Saving Private Ryan) but it is notable, especially for Spielberg, that the primary emotion of Munich is not hope, but despair. And that is very brave for any filmmaker to do.
Along with voters who will be offended by the politics of the film, this is probably the reason it won't get the Oscar or box office recognition it deserves."
HOW DO YOU SAOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE writes: "It's true that the trope of home is being used as counterpoint to violent revenge. I can add two more instances to Spielberg playing or focusing on home or a parody of home -- at the cozy meeting in Meir's home/office, she plays what the English calls "mother" by pouring coffee and handing it to Avner. It would have been odd etiquette since she is Avner's superior. But if the scene is to be a parody of what hominess is like, then it makes sense.
- Avner holds his daughter, whom he calls "frightfully ugly." His wife rejects moving to New York, reminding him that Israel is their home, and he replies that she is the only home he knows. She laughs at him, calling him corny. He says: "Do you think it is easy for me to say?" She says no, and he says: "Then don't laugh at me." It's a sweet scene, because of the nuclear family, because of the easy banter between the two, in stark contrast to the terse and uneasy conversation during the mission. It's also Spielberg being
self-reflexive, laughing at some corniness in his own films, no?Friends and I have argued about the bleached-out scene when Avner is being debriefed. It must be intentional, but to what purpose? Not too sure.
Not usually a Spielberg fan, which makes Munich all the more surprisingly powerful."
January 3, 2006 - Reflections On A New Year
January 6, 2006 - Sundance Preview
January 5, 2006 - The Business Of 2005, Pt 1
January 9, 2006 - The Business Of 2005, Pt 2
January 11 - Munich In Sequence | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3
January 12 - V For Vendetta
