Munich (and I’m not talking about the World Cup)
June 11th, 2006
By sheer coincidence, we had a group viewing of Munich (in Entertainment Weekly’s words, “Steven Spielberg’s latest ‘Big Important Movie’”) on the same day that the 2006 World Cup opened in Munich. Maybe we should have watched soccer/football instead. It might have actually contained more insightful political commentary.
In all the glowing reviews I read when Munich was released in theaters last December, the word “political” dominated. I knew it was about the assassins assigned to avenge the deaths of Israeli athletes slain at the 1972 Olympic Games—but somehow, knowing that the screenplay was mostly by Tony Kushner, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Angels in America, I expected more politics and less assassination. As Kushner himself says, “Nothing ever happens in my plays. People sit around and talk.”
Would that there had been more talk, or at least more narrative impetus. At two hours and 44 minutes, the movie was at least an hour too long. Did we really need to see every single assassination? I think we could have gotten the message “violence begets more violence” after just a couple. Oddly, before Kushner took over the screenplay, some of it had already been drafted by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), but somehow I have a hard time attributing Munich’s bloodfest to the Master of Saccharine. I think I mostly blame Spielberg. I mean, all the gore was effective once—in Schindler’s List—but when he keeps basing every film around shock-inducing violence, it gets a little old.
At least for me, Schindler’s List was more interesting as a story than Munich because it portrayed a dissolute, profit-oriented character who, to his own surprise, manages to do good. (Plus, there’s that one scene in which, after all the horror is over, Schindler breaks down and sobs, “I could have done more.” Uf. Years after seeing the movie, that’s what I remember most vividly (not to downplay the atrocity of the Holocaust events—I’m speaking in narrative terms).) In Munich, we get the far more boring arc of a “basically good” character (Avner, played by a very aesthetically appealing Eric Bana) who is drawn downward into an accelerating cycle of violence. It’s a classic fall from innocence. Not like we’ve ever seen that story before.
I’m struck here by some similarities between Munich and another well-reviewed 2005 movie that disappointed me: A History of Violence. Both go out of their way to portray their heroes as kind family men who love their wives and children. In fact, each movie frames the violent bloodbath in its center with two contrasting sex scenes between husband and wife. In the first scene, everything is idyllic and pleasurable for both, while, in the second, the “fall” has occurred, and we see the ways in which the hero has brought violence home with him. (There are differences in the way they bring violence home, though. The second sex scene in A History of Violence is borderline, if not actual, marital rape, while, in Munich’s second sex scene, Avner is merely haunted by memories of the murders of the Israeli athletes. Which seems odd, by the way, because he wasn’t there. And yet he keeps having “flashbacks” to that event throughout the movie. It seems far more psychologically plausible at this point in the film that he would have been remembering the murders he himself had committed.)
The way these sex scenes are used bothers me, and I’m still trying to put my finger on why. Maybe it’s just that their narrative purpose—showing the change in the main character—is so blatantly obvious. But I think it also has something to do with using women—and the male protagonist’s interaction with women—as the primary gauge of that character’s corruption.
For me, the most disturbing scene in Munich was not the bloodiest (I wasn’t looking at the screen for most of those scenes anyway) but rather the most personally vengeful. One of Avner’s group of secret operatives has been seduced and killed by a female assassin. In spite of the fact that this woman had nothing to do with the Munich situation, they then track her down and kill her. They seem more ruthless with her, not just because she killed their friend and associate, but because she used sex to do so. After each one in the group shoots the woman, they leave her naked in a chair (though I feared that they would rape her, they didn’t—and one operative also expressed regret afterward for not covering her up). It’s not as if the film is glorifying the violence in this scene at all—it’s not. But it still bothers me, for some reason, that violence against a woman is the turning point in the film, the point at which it’s clear that they’ve gone too far. I guess it seems like the filmmakers are using women for easy narrative tricks, rather than letting them be characters in their own right. Plus, it seems like there’s an attempt to manipulate vestiges of chivalrous feeling in the (male) audience: it’s as if the movie assumes that the audience will only fully recognize the horror of violence when they see it enacted against women. Yet, ironically, “we must protect our women” has actually been an excuse for violence for, let’s see, how many millennia now?
Of course, “we must protect our women” used to be (and still is, only sometimes now it’s “we must protect their women”) a rallying cry for nationalistic violence. And this brings me to something else that troubles me about Munich. Avner learns, by the end of the film, that nationalism is no answer. He has killed in the name of Israel, and yet, in the end, the Israeli government betrays him. So he retreats to private family life in the U.S. (as does Tom Stall at the end of A History of Violence). There’s nothing in between, no larger community in which he can participate. It’s either corrupt nation or private family life. It’s not like it would make sense for Avner to go off and join the Peace Corps or anything, but it does bother me to see individualistic retreat portrayed as the only option to violence.
Stick to soccer, gentle readers. Trust me.
Entry Filed under: Movies
7 Comments Add your own
1. Possum | June 11th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
I agree that the movie’s linking of sex and violence was disturbing, but I think the movie was very consciously trying to be disturbing (in a way completely different from the linkage of sex and violence in, for example, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” starring the most beautiful and most beautifully violent couple in the world, according to People magazine.) In my view, Munich very much forces us to think about why violence gets linked to sex (as well as to “family” by the way, in even more problematic ways) for Avner, and encourages us to de-link them or at least question that link. Maybe I’m over-reading, but to illustrate my point, I’d like to compare the sex-violence linkages in Munich to the ones in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
As you recall, Hamlet is supposed to avenge his father’s murder. His uncle is the one who committed the crime, but Hamlet repeatedly focuses his anger on his mother and his girlfriend. Some feminists have thus noted that the play turns women into scapegoats and conclude that the play is sexist. However, Jacqueline Rose’s famous article on Hamlet points out an important moment when the Ghost interrupts Hamlet’s berating of his mother. The Ghost tells Hamlet to knock it off and get back to what he is supposed to be doing — going after the uncle and dealing with the corrupt state of Denmark. Rose argues that Shakespeare admirably reveals how a troubled male ego turns a woman into a scapegoat and further argues that that the play consciously critiques that scapegoating. (In other words, while the play could have simply displaced the moral ambiguity of statecraft onto the figure of woman — and a much older version of the Hamlet story did apparently do that — the play instead psychoanalyzes that displacement. Rose is a Lacanian critic, you see.) I might make the same argument for Munich, though Munich is generally muddled and confused. Speilberg is aware that there’s something to think about here, and he’s heard of psychology, but he’s confused about what he thinks, and unlike in Shakespeare’s play, no ghost (symbolizing the conscious and conscientious articulation of the unconscious) arrives to tell the team of assassines to knock it off and get back to their job (although Avner’s “boss” Ephraigm, played by Geoffry Rush, does ask about it, and the team does wonder about why they did what they did to the female assassine.)
However, perhaps what is strong about Munich is precisely that it is so muddled and confused, and that seems precisely the point. Nothing makes sense. That is why Avner is described by other characters and by himself as a guy who can act decisively in the face of confusion, ambiguity, and a lack of evidence and reason. Spielberg’s genius is in getting the audience to feel (approximately) the confusion that Avner may (or should) have felt.
This confusion, as you point out, is also apparent in the Avner’s flashback. Why is the details of the Munich event one of Avner’s “memories”? Possible answer– because it was repeated over and over by the news (that we see at the beginning of the film.) This isn’t actually Avner’s memory, but rather, his imagination. Unfortunately, Speilberg isn’t at all clear about this. Instead, he repeats that “memory” over and over and over and over and over, and repeats it as a memory, as if Avner was actually there, present, a witness. It’s the “memory” that motivates him. But any “presence” is most certainly a mediated one — a mediation that Speilberg gestures towards critiquing in the beginning of the movie, seems to be interested in throughout (kind of), but doesn’t explore as well as he could have. Instead, he busies himself with contriving the plot to fit a definite symbolic logic and moral.
To fit this moral (violence begets violence, and we all live in the same house and are basically the same even though we don’t know it), the movie which claims to be about history has to ignore history. Although the movie mentions the fact that Israeli F-16’s were dropping bombs on people in 1972, it only mentions it in passing, in half a sentence. The movie itself participates in the oldest Hollywood lie in the book. Hollywood always turns the over-dog (Israel, in this case) into the under-dog. Every Hollywood hero-film has its hero isolated, alone, fighting with his bare knuckles and his wits, against a larger force of bad guys who have lots of technology and stuff. The real world is usually the exact opposite of the movie world. In the real world, the Americans and Israelis are the ones with the technology (F-16s for instance) and the more overwhelming military-industrial complex, whereas the “bad guys” (whether they are Vietnamese, Arab, gangster, or whatever) would, in reality, be the ones fighting with their knuckles and wits. It’s a deliberate reversal that’s always interested me because it’s so obviously untrue, yet apparently still convincing to movie-goers. What we see in Munich is a bunch of pathetic characters that Speilberg wants the audience to empathize with. But where is the movie that shows an Israeli F-16 dropping a bomb on a small town in Lebanon or Palestine and the effect that such a bomb would have on that town? Spielberg was too chicken-shit to be that honest. That’s Spielberg for you. He’s brave enough to take on the big issues, but not brave enough to face them honestly.
Meanwhile, I would be interested in how you might compare “Munich” to a movie like “Paradise Now” or “The War Within” which are more sublte investigations into the psychology of terrorism. They have a lot of the dialogue and character development that you like, and less of the action and special effects that Speilberg likes. I recommend both. And I suppose comparisons can also be made to the “Lord of War” and “Syriana.” All of these movies released in the same year, interestingly enough.
2. theotter | June 11th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Hmm . . . maybe I didn’t make my point about sex and violence clear. I would definitely agree that the movie is trying to portray the linkage as disturbing–I’m glad they’re not glorifying it. But what bothers me is that it seems that the movie only expects the audience to really recognize how bad violence is when it affects women (or children, actually). And, again, nothing new or interesting there. I mean, it’s preferable to Mr. and Mrs. Smith (more on that later), but I’m troubled by the implied hierarchy of the value of human lives. We’re supposed to be more upset when women or children die than when men (”guilty” men) die (though the film does a good job of questioning whether some of the assassination targets were involved, it seems like we’re not supposed to be as shocked by their deaths as we are by the threat of death to the piano-playing child or the happy lovers at the hotel. “Look how innocent these people are! Innocent people die when you commit violence”). Well, yeah, but drawing those distinctions between innocent and guilty (bad people/good people) are one of the main ways we try to justify violence.
I would also agree with your/Rose’s Hamletian reading of Munich, and that it’s not carried off well.
As for Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I haven’t seen more than a clip of it, but what I saw really, really bothered me. I voted online for the MTV Movie Awards (hey, at least they nominate movies that people have actually seen!), and one of the categories was “Best Kiss.” With the exception of Brokeback Mountain (which won, actually), most of the nominees for “Best Kiss” featured some sort of violence between the kissers just beforehand. Slap, smooch. Yuck.
I think I thought the movie was a bit more nuanced on the Israel/Palestine portrayal than you did, but maybe I’m influenced by an Entertainment Weekly article I read that talks about how Kushner has often made speeches that irked staunchly pro-Israel people. http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1141318_1|111648||0_0_,00.html
I’ve been wanting to see Paradise Now. I think. As long as it’s not as gory as Munich.
3. Dormouse | June 13th, 2006 at 1:24 am
With the exception of Brokeback Mountain (which won, actually), most of the nominees for “Best Kiss” featured some sort of violence between the kissers just beforehand. Slap, smooch. Yuck.
Actually, there’s a fair amount of violence in some of Brokeback Mountain’s kissing, too. But I don’t know which scene they nominated, so.
You would think the sex/violence pairing would bother me more. But it doesn’t. I mean, it can, depending on how it’s used, but it doesn’t bother me by default. Combative relationships have always fascinated me, whether they’re combative in the fun, playful way (Han/Leia–shut up, Otter!–Beatrice/Benedick, Ron/Hermione, even Lizzie/Darcy) or combative in the much darker way that we find in movies like Mr & Mrs Smith or in shows that depict what I like to call “deliciously screwed-up” relationships (Battlestar Galactica and Farscape come to mind, though the violence in the latter relationships tends to be less endemic and less disturbing than those of the former).
Of course, I don’t enjoy seeing the violence all be on one side–someone being beaten while the person doing the beating is getting sexual pleasure out of it? Not at all something I enjoy seeing. But there is an erotics of violence, and I think there’s also violence in the erotic–I really, truly think it’s part of the human condition. Exploring that in ways that are, perhaps, “safe,” allows us to acknowledge that part of ourselves.
Is it disturbing that all the most popular kisses involved violence? I suppose so, but, again, it depends on your definition of violence, and how it’s used, and what the purpose is, and…
(All intellectual-sounding stuff aside, I fully admit to being a child of Hollywood and tv, and I have to say that I like watching really sexy people blow things up while flirting/kissing/whatever. But then, I prefer movies to fiiiiiiiiilms, so.)
4. Possum | June 14th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Dormouse, I realize my previouis post might lead some to believe that I don’t like movies like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but in fact, I do — and by that I mean that the new Mr. and Mrs. Smith with lots of sexiness and explosions rocked, while the old Mr. and Mrs. Smith (by Hitchcock) was boring precisely because it lacked the sex and violence and actually was about… groan, a relationship.
All goes to show, the metaphor is more fun than the literal.
5. theotter | June 14th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
As I said, I haven’t seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith, so I really shouldn’t have an opinion on it. I was just disturbed that almost ALL the MTV “Best Kiss” nominees featured violence. Plus, I’d seen none of the films from which the Best Kisses were taken, so I had no character context. Which, as you can imagine, makes a difference for me, since I like characters a lot.
Maybe what y’all are calling violence I would call fierceness or tension or passion. I’m okay with those.
How does Mr. and Mrs. Smith go to show that the metaphor is more fun than the literal? I’m confurzled.
Oh, actually, now that I think about it, from the little I know of the recent movie and from the little I know of Hitchcock in general, you’re probably saying that it’s more fun to watch people act out relationship tensions physically (in a Hollywood way) than to see them tear each other apart psychologically. Yes?
6. Possum | June 14th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
The metaphor of Mr. and Mrs. Smith (and I got this from the interview with the writer and director, so please don’t blame me — it’s not my idea)…. So, the “fight” between the married couple is the literal (and is what happens in the Hitchcock version), whereas the “all out battle with lots of high-tech weapons and crap between two professional hit-men (hit-persons?) who happen to also be married to each other” is the metaphor. Get it? Fight = fight. It’s a metaphor… kind of. Interspersed between the explosions and scenes of Angelina and/or Brad taking clothes off and looking extraordinarily hot (both literally and figuratively), there are scenes of them together talking to a marriage counselor.
That’s how the metaphor (even a dumb metaphor) is more fun than the literal. Sorry I didn’t explain.
7. theotter | June 14th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Okey doke, I get it–thanks!
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