T2 – Steven's Prayer For Peace
His “Prayer For Peace”
By RICHARD SCHICKEL
Posted Sunday, Dec. 04, 2005
Just after finishing his new movie about the aftermath of the massacre at the Munich Olympics, Steven Spielberg talked with TIME movie critic Richard Schickel, who collaborated with him on the TV documentary Shooting War, about his reasons for taking on Munich, his anger at the International Olympic Committee and his modest plan for improving Arab-Israeli relations.
TIME: WOULD IT BE FAIR TO SAY THAT THIS MOVIE IS, IN THE END, ABOUT THE HUMAN COST OF A QUAGMIRE? Yes. And also for me this movie is a prayer for peace. I always kept thinking about that as I was making it. Some-where inside all this intransigence there has to be a prayer for peace. Because the biggest enemy is not the Palestinians or the Israelis. The biggest enemy in the region is intransigence. Do you know Amos Oz’s books? There’s a wonderful quote we found, that sort of makes sense to me: “In the lives of individuals, and of peoples, too, the worst conflicts are often those that break out between those who are persecuted.” They see in each other’s faces a reflection of some larger oppressor. That may well be the case with the 100-year conflict between Arabs and Jews.
DO YOU THINK THIS FILM WILL DO ANY GOOD? I’ve never, ever made a movie where I said I’m making this picture because the message can do some good for the world–even when I made Schindler’s List. I was terrified that it was going to do the opposite of good. I thought perhaps it might bring shame to the memory of those who didn’t survive the Holocaust–and even worse to those who did. I made the picture out of just pure wanting to get that story told. I thought it was important that at least my kids someday could see what happened, just to hear that story being told. I feel the same way about Munich. I don’t think any movie or any book or any work of art can solve the stalemate in the Middle East today.
BUT IT’S CERTAINLY WORTH A TRY. Everything’s worth a try. I didn’t make this movie to make money, and I don’t know if I’ve made a commercial movie at all. But I certainly feel that if filmmakers have the courage to talk about these issues–whether they’re fictional representations of real events or are pure fiction or pure documentaries–as long as we’re willing to talk about the real tough, hard subjects unsparingly, I think it’s a good thing to get out in the ether. It’s not a bad thing. And there’s a project I’m initiating next February that I think might also do some good.
WHAT’S THAT? What I’m doing is buying 250 video cameras and players and dividing them up, giving 125 of them to Palestinian children, 125 to Israeli kids, so they can make movies about their own lives–not dramas, just little documentaries about who they are and what they believe in, who their parents are, where they go to school, what they had to eat, what movies they watch, what CDs they listen to–and then exchange the videos. That’s the kind of thing that can be effective, I think, in simply making people understand that there aren’t that many differences that divide Israelis from Palestinians–not as human beings, anyway.
IN THE SAME WAY, EVERYONE IN THE MOVIE IS HUMAN. YOU FEEL FOR THEM ALL. Right. I think the thing I’m very proud of is that [screenwriter] Tony Kushner and I and the actors did not demonize anyone in the film. We don’t demonize our targets. They’re individuals. They have families. Although what happened in Munich, I condemn. One of the reasons I wanted to tell this story is that every four years there’s an Olympics somewhere in the world, and there has never been an adequate tribute paid to the Israeli athletes who were murdered in ’72, and I wanted to tell this as a tribute to them. That was an important motivation for me, one of the earliest reasons I wanted to tell this story. I wanted this film to be in memory of them, because they seem to have been forgotten. The silence about them by the International Olympic Committee is getting louder for me every four years. There has to be an appropriate official acknowledgment of what happened.
IT SEEMS TO ME THAT EVEN THOUGH YOU SAY, “I DIDN’T MAKE THIS MOVIE TO MAKE MONEY,” OBVIOUSLY YOU DO WANT AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE TO SEE THE MOVIE BECAUSE OF THE ISSUES THAT IT RAISES. The subject matter isn’t the kind of subject matter that is going to outgross King Kong–not even on the last day of [Kong’s] release. But one never knows in this business. I don’t have a crystal ball, and I’ve never had one, even though I’m accused of having one secreted away somewhere. I don’t. And I don’t know. I’m lucky at this point in my career that I can make the movies I want to make without having a studio come in and second-guess me. I always say thank goodness for Jaws, because Jaws gave me final cut. I’ve had it now for 30 years, and because of that I only have myself to blame for anything that goes wrong.
PEOPLE ASK ME WHAT YOU’RE REALLY LIKE. THE SHORT ANSWER I ALWAYS GIVE–AND IT’S A TRUTHFUL ONE–IS THAT I DON’T KNOW ANYONE WHO’S BETTER AT KEEPING IN TOUCH WITH HIS INNER CHILD. ON THE OTHER HAND, YOU MAKE AN AWFUL LOT OF MOVIES, LIKE MUNICH, THAT ARE FAR FROM CHILDLIKE. GUESS I’LL HAVE TO COME UP WITH A NEW ONE-LINER ABOUT YOU. I don’t know if you can, Richard. Maybe the child in all of us dies just when we need him the most. I cannot tell you how many people come over to me on the street and repeat almost verbatim the line the Martians say to Woody Allen in Stardust Memories: “You know, we like your earlier, funnier films.”
THEY COME UP TO YOU? They’ll say, “Why can’t you get back to making E.T. or Raiders?” This is not from young people but from older people, who I guess grew up with the movies I made when I was a kid and they were kids too. So I’m bewitched by Woody Allen in the sense that I keep hearing this scene from Stardust Memories played out in my real life. It’s very bedeviling.
SO DOES THAT MEAN YOU’RE GOING TO PUT AWAY CHILDISH THINGS FROM HERE ON OUT? Well, you never can tell. I keep looking around for things, but then when I get the opportunity, say, to direct Harry Potter, I say no. When I get the opportunity to do something like Spider-Man, I say no. The films that are offered me that have childlike souls, I tend to say, “I’ve done that.” I don’t know if that just means I’ve grown up for good or whether something’s going to come along that’s going to make me say, “O.K., whatever I said to you is full of hot air, and the child lives in all of us until we die.”
YOU SEEM TO HAVE THIS PATTERN OF DOING TWO MOVIES BACK-TO-BACK AND THEN STEPPING BACK. DO YOU LIKE DOING IT THAT WAY? I hate doing it that way. When I don’t have a movie, I don’t take a job just for the sake of working. I just sit it out until I find something I’m passionate about. If I find something light, I’ll make it. Like Terminal. It wasn’t a film that I’ll be remembered for, but it’s a film I’ll remember for the rest of my life, a sweet short story that gave me a chance to work with Tom Hanks–and people think I’m crazy for saying this–giving what I think was his best performance. Some people have said, “Why did you make that little movie when you could have been doing something important?” And I said, “Well, at the time it was important.” And if I find something dark and historical–like this Doris Kearns Goodwin book [Team of Rivals, about Abraham Lincoln] I’m working on now–I’ll do that. It’s just how things work out. It’s all about timing.
He’s praying for peace? This his bone to the PLO saying “forgive us, we’re all not bad like the Mossad is”?
Weird.
“That may well be the case with the 100-year conflict between Arabs and Jews.”
This conflict is much longer than that. Mohammad himself massacres Jews in the Koran. Much of the anti-Semitic rhetoric used by jihadis comes from the Koran.
Call me nuts but I don’t think a movie is going to solve the Jew-Arab conflict. Just going out on a limb.
I do like the idea of the 250 cameras. Hopefully that pans out for him.
“I think the thing I’m very proud of is that [screenwriter] Tony Kushner and I and the actors did not demonize anyone in the film. We don’t demonize our targets. They’re individuals. They have families. Although what happened in Munich, I condemn.”
Is anyone else troubled by this answer? Is Spielberg actually trying to imply that although the actions in Munich by Black September were evil, the perpetrators themselves were not? That’s supposed to be a “tribute” to the victims?
I’m not troubled by that answer. To cite something that came up in another thread, the recent German movie Downfall could not at all be described as “demonizing” Hitler, but to be equally sure, nobody watching it could have had any doubt that the portrayal they were witnessing was that of a genuinely evil person.
Haggai, the word “demonize” aside, the way that Spielberg uses the word “although” sounds to me like he’s saying that he condemns the murders but not the murderers.
I suppose you can read it that way, but again I’ll mention Downfall. One could easily describe its portrayal of Hitler as “an individual devoted to his lover, his dog, and kind to his secretaries, although…” and yet nobody could describe the movie as not condemning Hitler. I don’t see a reason to worry about this just because of one possible way to read into one quote in one interview.
Any film lover looks forward to anything that Spielberg does and I am no exception. I am there. That doesn’t mean I can’t ask questions. What does it mean to condemn the murders but not the murderers?
Sounds clever…but what does it mean? That killers or terrorists should never be punished? That all acts of violence regardless of motive are equivocal?
People are not born evil but can choose to commit evil acts. If one does not condemn them for this, how can one deter evil acts?
Truth is, I do not know what Spielberg’s world view is these days. I do think he is a very different man than the one who made Schindler’s List over a decade ago. He seems to be coming more from a relativist view nowadays. The man who made Schindler’s did not.
I certainly do not think that punishing acts of aggression are the same as the act itself. This was one of the problems I had with Cronenberg’s film. By equivocating all violence as the same they actually make a more simple film…not a more complex one.
I’m sure this will get great reviews if it does equivocate the acts of Israel with the acts of Palestine…but I’m still thinking little better than Amistad business at this point…especially now that both Narnia and Kong seem to be quality pieces of work.
Also, if the only way he can cast doubt on the actions of Israel is to not depict the violence of the terrorists…he has failed his mandate.
As Jean Renoir says in The Rules of the Game, “the awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons”. Nobody thinks of themselves as evil.
Kushner will KILL this movie.
I am looking forward to this movie.
Joe: Since when did “praying for peace” become “a bone to the PLO”?
Lindenen: As much research as Spielberg has done on this project, I am sure he knows that the conflict is more than a 100 years old.
Josh: You’re not nuts. Everyone knows that. “I don’t think any movie or any book or any work of art can solve the stalemate in the Middle East today.”
My point being, stop focusing on the minutia and focus on the big picture.
Please Mr Spielberg,
Stick to making movies and not trying to cure societies many ills. Thanks.
Chit Chat Man, then why does Spielberg say it’s 100 years old? A lot of people act as if the Jew-Muslim thing started with the creation of Israel. It didn’t.
Right, because a filmmaker should never try to tackle serious issues. He should just give us popcorn fun.
Huge difference between tackling issues and thinking you can effect thousands of years of conflict. Like Muslims even watch a Jews movies. C’mon now!
Spielberg’s 100-year quote was a little awkward, since he just referred to “Arabs and Jews,” but certainly the modern Arab-Israeli conflict dates back for roughly 100 years (a little more than that, but close enough), to the beginning of the modern Zionist movement. Also note that several of the top-ranking PLO terrorists over the years weren’t Muslims. I don’t see much reason to jump all over Spielberg for it.
Lindenen: If I am referring to something that has a long history, I usually say, its a 100 years old, instead os saying its over 300 years old. The 100 implies that it is a historical issue.
Secondly, from all that I have read Jews and Muslims lived in peace together for centuries. I believe it was last year when TIME did a piece on the creation of Israel and how that started the current, current, conflict in the region. Interesting read.
If you think the creation of Israel caused all the tension than you are either a rabid pro Muslim or seriously misinformed about world history and culture.
I’m sure the Arab world watches movies from the biggest filmmaker on Earth. Maybe not this one and maybe not Schindler, but I’m sure there are plenty of Arabs/Muslims who saw War of the Worlds this year.
I think Chit Chat Man is referring to the Zionist movement, which is certainly the catalyst for modern troubles, if not the originator of the broader historical conflict.
I mean ‘although not’, not ‘if not’.
I never said I was either, nor did I say that the creation of Israel caused all the tension. I said two things:
One was that the TIME article made for interesting reading and brought some interesting ideas to the forefront.
Second was that Jews and Muslims lived peacefully together for centuries.
The question I have, based on your post is: Is being rabidly pro Muslim wrong? Would you say the same thing for being rabidly pro Jewish?
Zionists are responsible for all the problems?? If I didn’t think you were a raving nut already, jeffmcm, I’d have a problem with you. You are just a real clueless guy. Do some research before you run your mouth off like that again. It would help you in life.
Learn to read. I said “catalyst” which is a word that does not imply blame, merely causation. If there had been no Zionist movement there would be no state of Israel and hence to Arab-Israeli conflict. Just like if there had been no Mohammed there would be no Islam. Cause and effect.
Mark, I don’t like you.
Catalyst??
Typical Liberal crap. Always blame someone else for the problems. No, it’s not the guys actually bombing and causing terror and killing innocents. It’s the Jews themselves! If they weren’t so Jewish everything would be honky dory. They need to convert and beg for mercy. Get a clue, cluelessmcm.
I genuinely feel sorry for you. Must be so tough being you.
Question for you Jeffmcm. If Zionism is the “catalyst” for all the problems than what do you propose? The destruction of Israel and the Jewish people? Seems that’s what you want. I thought Lefty’s cared about people.
Maybe Jeffrey is a Mulsim fundamentalist. Would explain a lot.
Wow . . . just when you think the Hot Blog couldn’t get any lower. Maybe Dave should have put one of his “be respectful” disclaimers on this one. I honestly can’t tell which of you three is the biggest asshole (but if I had to choose you get all the honors, Mr. Ziegler.).
Krazy Eyes is back and it is to comment on a political thing. How strange????? Never would have guessed that.
Makes no sense to try and have a reasonable discussion if people think the Jewish people brought all this on themselves. You can’t reason or discuss with the ignorant.
Josh and Mark, I think you only read and hear what you want. Since you dislike me, you assume I’m anti-Israel and pro-terrorist.
The fact remains, the founding of Israel was the start of the Arab-Israeli wars. Just like the assassination of the Archduke was the proximate cause of WWI. The Archduke wasn’t a great guy, and the nation of Israel is in most respects a good thing. I think that most rational people agree that the founding of Israel was a good thing after the Holocaust. Of course, you don’t think of me as a rational person, so I must return the compliment.
Dickweeds.
Why would I dislike you? Why would you assume I would even take the time out to care?
Some of your comments are head scratchers. But if I cared what posters said or thought I’d be in an insane asylum.
I always knew it was the Jews fault. Thanks Jeffrey for finally telling the world how it really is.
Don’t forget the bags of Jew Gold they keep around their necks, Sanchez.
Don’t scratch that head too hard, Josh.
Sometimes I think five of these screen names are the same person.
Someone first suggested that back in August or September, I believe. There do seem to be glimmers of unique personalities, though.
Don’t worry, jeff.
I don’t let people like you effect me. I just have a few chuckles at you. Keep up the good work.
James Leer is Tobey Maguire.
All this useless talk takes away from the core issue here.
Accusing Zionism for escalating tensions in the Mid East and how that deals with Munich and how Spielberg will handle the issues presented.
Liberal and socialists are anti Zionist. Mostly out of principle. Seems to be why a few of the rousers are saying what they say here.
I’m sure this movie will further talk of this. Probably for worse. But to blame a group of people for what is bad among people? No sensible person should be doing that. Especially on a movie site.
You can argue the basis of creating the Jewish state but you can’t blame or say that a certain group is a catalyst for hate and terror.
That Spielberg. Always causing controversy and making people think. All the pre publicity for the film doesn’t hurt either.
Just don’t blame the Hispanics. We’re too lazy to start trouble.
LOL.
Josh, try to wipe the drool when you chuckle.
I think most people understand the Zionist debate is settled. Spielberg’s film will not address it. The question is, how does a civilized society deal with barbarism.
Oh yeah, I’m also really excited about the Lincoln movie that’s up next. I wonder who’ll play Crazy Mary Todd.
LOL
jeffmcm reminds me of Begbie in Trainspotting…
He throws a drink over his shoulder in a room crowded with assholes then, when said assholes start freaking out, he pulls out a switchblade:
“No cunt leaves here until we find out which cunt did it!”
Lovin’ it.
jeff reminds me more of spud without the charm.
Why do you even respond to people like jeffmcm? They clearly have nothing to add besides trying to stir up arguments. I don’t think a thread goes by where he/she doesn’t try and start something. I don’t think he even likes movies which is the depressing part. At least those arguments are interesting.
I think we all know by now to shrug off and roll the eyes whenever jeffmcm starts ranting and raving over history, politics, or anything that deviates from film.
Don’t keep it up with him. His next post will be about how there was no Holocaust and it was made up by the Jews. Then all hell would break loose here.
Sorry I haven’t been around in the last 48 hours…
Please cut this petty personal stuff out.
If you disagree with J-Mc’s idea of how the modern conflict evolved, please feel free to educate him, but not to call him names.
It really does detract from the actual conversaion.
And you know what’s next… shutting down the thread because it’s devolved into nothingness….
Yeah, I’m real sorry I haven’t been around here either. Glad to see everyone was capable of entertaining themselves in my absence.
I love that I have been called both an communist and a holocaust denier. Next up: Flat Earth society.
Just to clarify, the last thing I’d call someone as an insult is Franco Begbie. I was just reminded of that scene this week.
My feud is with Blackcloud and Blackcloud alone.