Posted on 01/22/2006 4:02:16 PM PST by 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."
Actually isn't there a good movie already about the Jews fighting valiantly back in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, called "The Wall" or something like that? As I recall it was an excellent movie. I think I will try to find that and watch it again. Let's hope that Spielberg DOESN'T try to redo this movie and distort that with his liberal, left-wing anti-Jewish bigotry. Even though he is Jewish, his sympathies lie with the Palestinians & Islamic terorists as an extension of Spielberg's left-wing bigotry & ideology.
Well, Spielberg has done a very good job of over-simplifying history by failing to distinguish between good and evil, and portraying the whole event as one big gray area.
**I go to see no movies directed by leftie propagandist**
That's good, I don't care for most any movie. Reality is not completely displayed on the screen, most of the time.
In real life, while walking in the mountains I never did hear a man-made symphony, or while riding a horse, no sound of an acoustic guitar, either. When a teen, I got into a few scuffles, but there was no dramatic background music there either.
So much is completely misleading. In one of the 'Airport' movies, the 747 sits on the sea floor after a crash landing, the pilot says, "don't worry, this plane is pressurized", the air can't get out, and the water can't get in (or something like that). Well, the jet engines have to be running to provide the pressurization.
I remember back when I went to movies, a navy veteran sitting nearby started laughing at something in that flick, that simply could not be done in a submarine.
Mr. Spielberg lives in that fantasy world where the screen can make the impossible happen. He and his likeminded friends no doubt believe that they could and should create a worldwide utopia, that with their leadership, man really can do only good things. Those folks are blinded by the devil, who is obsessed with destroying mankind. Simple as that.
There is a spiritual war going on, believe it.
That's exactly it!! Even Hitler had friends, his mom thought he was a cute kid, the people who were on his side had no complaints. Everyone has a human side, but those who chose evil should only be looked at through the lens of their chosen actions. Otherwise it is moral relativism. What a big jerk SS is.
Yup. Good movie, but if you want history, read a book.
I agree. They should have closed them down in honor of those athletes.
<< "Saving Private Ryan"[Is one] of my favorite movies. >>
I almost liked it up the the point where the Hanks character talked in terms of the war being all about his trading the Hanks' character's life for that of the Ryan character.
Until that moment I'd spent decades believing WW-II to have been about the death-worshipping pagan-heathen/pantiest satanist, Hitler and his Nazis and about wiping their extreme liberalism/socialism from the planet.
I saw "Man on Fire" last night and it ocurred to me this was the movie Spielberg could have made.
When Denzel Washington kills the chain of people responsible for the killing of a child, the audience is not wondering about "what the motives of the perpetrators were" and no one wants to see "that they were also individuals with families and a history."
Self-hating Jews tend to obsess with the Holocaust. They equate Jewishness with victimhood & everything else negative. There is probably a sadomasochistic streak in them.
If not after that, they should have been canceled after the Russian team upsetted the U.S. in basketball. :-)
Munich, the massacre, had only modest success in launching the Palestinian cause with the blood of 11 Jews. "Munich," the movie, has now made that success complete 33 years later. No longer is it crude, grainy TV propaganda. "Munich" now enjoys high cinematic production values and the imprimatur of Steven Spielberg, no less, carrying the original terrorists' intended message to every theater in the world.
Welcome to the leftist room of mirrors where equivoction equals a strong stance. Where the murder of innocents and the punishers of criminals are morally equivalent.
Spielberg: "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."
Spielberg reminds me of that gopher game where they pop up only to get clubbed. WHY would anyone but a leftist idiot care about a terrorist, his family and their history????? Who but a left winged moonbat would want to "examine" them?
Spielberg better start using some sandpaper on that thin skin of his. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. He's the one wanting us to examine and understand the terrorists and their families. So it should not surprise him that the public has every right to examine HIM and his MOTIVES. I have a sneaky feeling that before it's all said and done, Mr. Spielberg will regret having made Munich.
Spielberg wants to put a human face on the Palestinians... that's fine... do so... but make sure in the end we know who they are... a bunch of murdering thugs who are guilty of the murder of 11 innocent athletes.
I liked the book and the documentary that went with it... listening to the Palestinian justify what he did as brave was sickening... yes, you big strong Arab... you and your cohorts, armed to the teeth, woke up 11 sleeping athletes, held them hostage, them murdered them. If that is Arab bravery... it's a joke.
Hey Spielberg, let's ask why the KKK hated? Let's see a movie about "understanding" the KKK!
Idiot.
Thanks for the ping, btw.
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