Spielberg blasts 'extremist' critics of 'Munich'

Breitbart.com ^ | 1/22/06 | AFP

[wagglebee]

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."

[Mamzelle]

I didn't see "Ryan", but--frankly--I think there's a lot wrong with "Schindler's List"--

There was an overarching attitude in that movie that portrayed the Eauropean Jews of WWII not only as helpless and passive victims, but seemed also to glory in their helplessness and passivity. I feel a desire on Spielberg's part that Jews are and should be sanctified by victimization, and any move toward righteous self-defense threatens that sanctification.

And in the closing scene, where Schindler goes off the deep end "I should have done more! I could have done more!" I couldn't help but think how Spielberg speaks so little on behalf of the defense of Israel--has that reluctant embarrassment I so often sense from "sophisticated" leftwing US Jewry. Could Spielberg do more, with his bully pulpit and his hundreds of millions, to prevent another Holocaust?

I believe this "Munich" could be as useful as the Elders of Zion for Islamist propoganda. See what their own have to say about Israel?

[Mr. Mojo]

So not buying into Spielberg's attempt to draw a moral equivalence between terrorists who target/murder innocent civilians and a nation that kills terrorists in self-defense is now an "extremist" position in his feeble brain?

[wagglebee]

You make some good points about "Schindler's List." If nothing else, you should watch the opening segment of "Private Ryan," it is the most realistic depiction of battle that has ever been filmed.

[Alouette]

I used to enjoy visiting his mother's kosher restaurant in west L.A.

Never again!

[melt]

Spielberg apparently blames Israel for putting Jews at risk worldwide. His moral equivalency is, pathetically, too common in Hollywood.

He has no cujones. His movie should be respelled "M'eunuch'".

[popdonnelly]

It's extremist to equate the killers of the Israeli Olympic athletes with the Mossad agents who paid them back. Spielberg has a comic book view of the World.

[John Lenin]

The Olympics should have been canceled after what happened. It didn't even matter who won or lost afterwords.

[SAMS]

Looks like Stevie can't handle a little criticism....spent a little too much time on the Hollywood pedestal.

[MrBambaLaMamba]

The best way to end war and ensure peace is to kill the enemy.

[goldstategop]

Spielberg is wrong: the critics are not extremist. Of course he doesn't understand what makes "24" so popular: sometimes extreme measures are driven by a moral calculus. If they weren't, the rest of us would be dead. What the Israelis did is not a crime, not in any world in which justice is the reason the perpetrators, like the Palestinian terrorist leaders who sent their minions to murder innocent Israeli athletes, were held accountable for their deeds. So that can't be overlooked. The context of an act has to be taken into consideration and in his movie, Spielberg doesn't do that. Then again, what can one expect of a filmmaker who thought the hours he spent with Fidel Castro "were the most important of his life?" Us critics see the Israeli action after Munich, and America's actions in the post-9/11 world with a very different set of eyes than the Hollywood Left.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[marajade]

I disagree. Why let terrorists dictate whether or not the olympics should be held. By cancelling them after that incident they would have claimed they won.

[VOA]

TV Headsup for the forum..."Munich" documentary TONIGHT (Sunday) on
The Discovery Channel at 10PM Eastern:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1562354/posts

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

Any Eagle Scout who would turn on the BSA is someone who can't be trusted. In addition, Spielberg a soft, spineless coward.

[avital2]

don't visit the sins of the son on the mother! she's delightful, and so is her restaurant.

[Uncle Vlad]

I haven't seen "Schindler's List;" I have seen "Private Ryan." "Private Ryan" was one of the most emotionally shattering movies I've ever seen, and it should have won Best Picture.

I saw "Munich" a couple of weeks ago; I thought it was a too long, but a fine movie, from a dramatic point of view. I don't think the events portrayed in the movie were probably terribly accurate, but it was a work of fiction, not a documentary.

"Braveheart," which is far and away one of my all-time favorites, is full of inaccuracies, but I didn't think the historical inaccuracies detracted from the movie itself.

Anyone going to see "Munich" who thinks they're going to see an accurate portrayal of events is probably going to be very disappointed; anyone who goes to see it thinking they will see a highly dramatic movie will probably not be disappointed.

[goldstategop]

Spielberg is good at creative fiction. That all Munich happens to be.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[Ptarmigan]

How about Understanding Saddam Hussein, Mullamar Omar/Taliban, Kim Jong-Il, or Hugo Chavez? The left adores them too.

[John Lenin]

The coverage shifted away from the Olympics to all the details of what happened. It was a huge black cloud that overshadowed everything.

[Guenevere]

I'm reading One Day in September by Simon Reeve....

Has anyone read this?....your opinion

[JCEccles]

"Should you leave the debate to the great over-simplifiers?"

Asked the Great Over-Simplifier.

The leftist twit routinely collapses decades of complex history into 200 minutes or less of liberal pabulum on celluloid. And he dares lecture others about being "over-simplifiers"?