comment #1

JD says ...

Pauline Kael DID know how movies were made. In fact, she was one of the few film critics who actually worked for a studio (Paramount) and she was involved, however peripherally, in the making of Reds and The Elelphant Man.

And, with all due respect to Lopate (an extremely skilled essayist), his argument about Munich is highly problematic. In essence, he's saying "anyone who disagrees with my political perspective doesn't understand politics."

comment #2

Alexander says ...

You're exactly right, JD. He's using the same tired attack on Munich as so many others: if the screenwriters and director don't agree with my political perspective, they don't know enough about it. Charles Khrauthammer (sp?) and countless others did the same thing, as well as people of liberal persuasion.

Good point as well about how Kael knew how films were made. The whole piece doesn't really make sense, actually.

comment #3

Alexander says ...

I guess actually it's Clive James' opinion since Lopate is editing it.

comment #4

Mark Grasinski says ...

I agree, these comments are tiresome. A film's worth should not be judged by how well it passes a "political test".

comment #5

Dixon Steele says ...

I'm the kind of movie fan who likes to read critics, but I never liked Kael's work.

I realize this is sacrilege in some quarters, but all her reviews (essays, really) seemed to be about her, not the movie.

comment #6

Mike Gebert says ...

"He can certainly make a movie, but if it hasn't got a script, then he makes Pret-a-Porter ."

Actually, Kael once said almost exactly the same thing-- only her example was Brewster McCloud. So she clearly understood that her faves were not always on, but she treasured them for when they were.

comment #7

Joe Corey says ...

Munich had more problems than merely politics. Bana's character was set up to be too big of a wishy-washy putz. Who gets set off on a mission like this with a baby on the way? And it has been pointed out by some that there were women on the mission so that people wouldn't notice a bunch of strange men travelling around Europe. Spielberg doesn't know what to do with characters that aren't merely apple pie cooling on kitchen window. Look at how he wussed up the real guy who is stuck at the Paris airport for "the Terminal?" Spielberg can't deal with characters that have an edge and darkness to them and he tried to make a film that required it in Munich.

comment #8

Mike Gebert says ...

Much better movie about a similar subject: The Man Who Caught Eichmann, a TV movie about catching Eichmann and getting the evidence to convict him, with Robert Duvall brilliant as a chatty, self-justifying Eichmann and Arliss Howard as the Israeli guy who wormed his way into Eichmann's confidence in captivity. Of course, it doesn't serve Tony Kushner's New York intelligentsia points about how we're the real Nazis, or Spielberg's fuzzy feelgood all-killing-is-bad sympathies.

comment #9

JD says ...

The impressive thing about Munich's political perspective is that it doesn't kiss either side's ass. Of course, anyone who dogmatically aligns themself with either side hates this. The film certainly doesn't argue that "we're the real Nazis" -- "we" meaning what, by the way? We Israelis? Or are you thinking of the movie as a metaphor for the United States' involvement in the Middle East, a metaphor that doesn't necessarily apply to all aspects of the movie? -- nor does it make the equally simple-minded argument that the other side is a group of one-dimensional Nazis. Thankfully, it's much more complicated than that. Taking sides and ignoring the complexity of real issues is neither dramatic, nor politically sound.

While Speilberg and Kushner may have made some mistakes along the way -- with the kind of secrecy surrounding that mission, I don't think 100% accuracy was even one of their goals -- they avoided the traditional mistakes and made a movie that's actually quite original and level-headed, all things considered.

comment #10

Phil says ...

"Spielberg's fuzzy feelgood all-killing-is-bad sympathies?" Nonsense. He certainly didn't feel that way in Saving Pvt. Ryan, nor did he feel so in Munich. (As watching the features on the 2-disc DVD makes clear.) Indeed, Geoffrey Rush's character, Ephraim, eloquently argues for the pragmatism of what Israel and Avner's team did, and the movie does not appear to disagree with him. And the movie certainly doesn't condemn Golda Meir or anyone else who was involved in the decision-making process.

It's popular to dismiss Spielberg as some do-goodnik liberal mushhead, but his movies are really extremely conservative in outlook.

comment #11

JD says ...

Why do all the terms have to be defined in such dismissive ways, Phil? "Some do-goodnik liberal mushhead"? I know you're dismissing this perception, but why define it that way? The truth is, Speilberg's films appeal to a wide audience largely because he's a humanist with some degree of respect for all people (except Hitler, understandably...and that truck driver in Duel). In fact, this is one of his defining traits: his aversion to human villains or, in some cases, any villains whatsoever (ie. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Munich).

He doesn't have a simplistic, politically-motivated ideology. And I don't see how you can argue that his films are "extremely conservative in outlook." You're probably referring to the presence of patriotism or family values in his work, but these aren't specifically conservative characteristics. If politics comes into play in his films at all (this is rare), he does everything he can to be fair to both sides, I think. Spielberg never gets credit for this, but it's a very sophistcated quality, particularly in the world of mainstream filmmaking where black-and-white characterizations are the norm.

comment #12

Munich again? says ...

Who cares what "Munich's" politics were? It was overlong by alomst and hour and dramatically repetitive to the point of absurdity. And to top it all off, the film concluded with one of the single most hilariously, awful sex-scenes ever done. How did we get back to this movie 7 months after it left theaters?

comment #13

Alan says ...

I sum up MUNICH like this... No matter how righteous you think your cause is, when you kill someone, it messes with you. The politics is there for anyone who wants to take it... but the theme, for me, is that no one can shake off murder.

I think it's a brilliant film, and one of Spielberg's best.

comment #14

Mark Grasinski says ...

I agree, Alan, and if somebody else's name had been on it there would have been a very different reaction in some circles.

comment #15

Dubbs says ...

To address a few of the issues brought up in the posts here, I found one of Munich's unique strengths to be how it handled gender. Giving Eric Bana a whole series of feminine traits was really interesting. From being a great cook to being well-dressed and the emotionally vulnerable husband to his stoic, unsentimental wife, Bana makes for a very odd protagonist. That his primary source for leads (the son of the old guy who can also cook) also has a feminine thing going on - especially in a quick shot when he opens a car door at one point with his foot for no apparent reason, a totally bizarre move - adds to a subtext of femininity going on throughout the movie.

The killing of the female Dutch assassin adds to this whole dilemma, because that scene is very overtly sexual, as if they�re killing her as much for simply being a female as for what she did to their team member. Spielberg doesn�t strike me as particularly mean-spirited or anti-woman, but I found something very bizarrely misogynistic about the female assassin/houseboat scene. That they argue whether to leave her exposed or not indicates that there are serious issues about her gender in the scene. That every player in the Munich massacre was male - both the hostages and the kidnappers - also seems somehow related to all this.

As for the final, cross-cutting sex scene, there's something very powerful about how locked into Bana's heads the Munich airport images are. He can't escape them, even while having sex with his wife. There's something extremely violent about how he's having sex with her, which adds to this whole confusion about sexuality and violence in the film, but all in all, I think the scene is very unique and works well. Even if it's hated, it seems to stick with people.

comment #16

Alexander says ...

Wow, Dubbs--those are all great points and I thank you for sharing them.

Mark Grasinski, I believe you are absolutely correct. If the name had not been Spielberg, the results would have been vastly different in many quarters. It's just the dilemma he has had to face with his tremendous success: he cannot escape himself no matter how hard he (particularly lately) tries.

comment #17

Bob says ...

I'm not sure that there's anything "mysoginist" in the houseboat scene, other than the fact it's obvious they intend to humiliate and make her suffer in addition to offing her in revenge for seducing and killing the "grandpa" of the team.

The characters don't vocalize it, but it strikes me that there's at least a subconcious decision thats been made by Bana's team in this case that since sexuality is her weapon sexuality will play a part in her death: Hence the intimacy of the one-on-one, guys-taking-turns setup of the shooting, and then the final indignity: leaving her naked body, her "weaponry," exposed.

So they've taken her out in a very deliberately nasty manner the specifics of which are related to her female identity, yes, but I'm not sure it qualifies as misogyny. Misogyny implies a general hatred of femininity itself, whereas here the hatred is for this ONE woman in particular, whom they want to hurt in the worst possible way and go with what works. The equivalent would be, say, taking out the evil Monk guy in "DaVinci Code" by strangling him with his own rosary.

comment #18

Dave Polands Gut says ...

The problem with Senor Spielbergo is he doesnt know how to end a film. The end part where he showed Avner is climax against what happend at the airport is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen in screen. Spielberg is too powerful now. He doesnt have any sane person ever say to him "stvie, you're way wrong on this. change it"

comment #19

richard crawford says ...

Pauline Kael worked at Paramount for Warren Beatty for a spell.....she is responsible for getting ELEPHANT MAN made.

She is the greatest critic in the history of movies.

comment #20

steve schiwetz says ...

Kael started writing for the New Yorker in 1967 and Reds and Elephant Man were made more than a dozen years later and after she had made her reputation. Her participation was due to her having been so influential and she "left" after a short while.

Her reviews were about her and what she liked. She liked to talk about what "we" understand or "we" learned from a film, as if they spoke the same message to all viewers.

comment #21

Dubbs says ...

Steve, I don't think a reviewer who talks about herself or what she likes/dislikes is a bad thing. The more a writer speaks their mind, the more they innevitably reveal about themselves, and in turn reveal about what they truly think and feel about any particular movie. Kael revealed her "voice" more transparently than many writers, but her reviews were still about the movie being reviewed. She articulated her insights and objections about films in a cogent manner, and by writing from her point-of-view, she challenged readers to disagree and articulate for themselves a particular film's meaning or worth.

Conversely, the worst reviewers, and for that matter the worst filmmakers, try to please everyone by putting none of themselves into their work, yet still somehow try to create with a definitive voice. It's impossible to develop a strong, original perspective while not including elements of oneself into that perspective. Consistently writing from a singular perspective, in my opinion, is far bolder than trying to guess how a film will fit into pop culture, by loosely parroting the views of countless other critics.
While I strongly, strongly disagree with many of Kael's opinions to this day, and think she outright missed the boat on some of the movies she watched, I'm glad that in looking back on her reviews, I can feel confident that she didn't pull punches or hedge on what a movie made her feel in her heart and mind at the time of writing about it.

comment #22

Jeremy Fassler says ...

I've always found Pauline Kael to be overrated. Yes, she knew how to write reviews, but my main problem lies in these things. One: she said a lot of things just to stir up controversy (Raising Kane); two: frankly, she praised a lot of bad movies in her day (cough SNAKE EYES cough) and three: she never did anything twice. By not looking at movies again, she would speak of them from whatever mindset she was at when she saw the movie. She thought MILLION DOLLAR LEGS was the funniest movie ever made, but she hadn't seen it since she was twelve (this was told to me by a critic), so when she spoke of it, it was from a 12 year old girl's mindset. Some critics do it for you, some don't, I guess.

comment #23

Hydrocodone says ...

Hello all really cool blog
buy ativan buy adipex buy didrex buy levitra buy cialis buy phentermine buy soma buy tramadol buy diazepam buy carisoprodol buy meridia buy paxil buy valium buy xanax buy ultram buy fioricet tooth whitening online pharmacy alprazolam flower online car insurance payday loan web directory business directory carisoprodol hydrocodone buy vicodin alprazolam fioricet hydrocodone vicodin tramadol xanax valium ultram soma carisoprodol ambien ativan lorazepam propecia adipex didrex cialis levitra paxil meridia viagra wellbutrin clonazepam xenical prozac butalbital phentermine