Abracadabrah

I create as I speak

Sadly, Mr. Daoud, You are NOT following the program!

UPDATE at end

Spielberg's therapy program for peace, that is.

According to Spielberg, if only Israelis and Palestinians would get together and talk and hug and cry together and look at amateur films of each other's lives (a program he has planned for 2006), then intractable geo-political problems would melt away like so much pollution into the dissolving ozone. Which is the reason, Mr. Spielberg and his corps of actors...

...[S]pent 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.' ”

Yet, despite this extremely cathartic approach to an intractable geo-political problem, sadly Mr. Daoud will not get on board.

The Palestinian mastermind of the Munich Olympics attack in which 11 Israeli athletes died said on Tuesday he had no regrets and that Steven Spielberg's new film about the incident would not deliver reconciliation.

Uh oh! But poor Mr Spielberg made the move in order to help bring peace! Think about all the people you will be disappointing, Mr. Daoud.

All we can imagine is that perhaps he has not yet had enough crying and hugging sessions with his counterparts in Israel to be serious about making peace.

"We did not target Israeli civilians," [Daoud] said.

"Some of them (the athletes) had taken part in wars and killed many Palestinians. Whether a pianist or an athlete, any Israeli is a soldier."

What's with the buckets of negative energy there!

Would a colonic help with that?

Spielberg's producer, Kathleen Kennedy, told a preview audience at Princeton University that a Palestinian consultant was used for "Munich". She did not say who it was.

What!? They're not afraid, are they, that if they reveal his name, he might be assassinated as a collaborator or something? Dude! That's so unhip!

UPDATE: But then it occurs to me, Mr. Daoud has the right to be pissed! After all, Michael Moore used Hezbollah to distribute Fahrenheit 911 in Lebanon. And what! Mr. Daoud hasn't even rated a private screening!! That's just so unfair!

Previous posts on this subject:

Another Review of Munich
Take The Poll On Munich In Ha'aretz
Spinning Munich Into Gold
Roger Friedman Doesn't Do Irony
An Oscar For Munich?
Not Faster Please
The Final Irony
Updating Spielberg
Et tu, Brute?

[Hat Tip: The Corner]

posted by Alcibiades @ 1:34 PM