On Sun, 6 Feb 1994 19:25:00 -0700 <[log in to unmask]> said:
>Spielberg's exploitation of the Holocaust is just
>that--the atrocities he films were relatively minor compared to their
>reality.  Watch instead, Lina Wertmuller's *Seven Beauties*, which I came
>home and watched afterwards.  Instead of Itzhak Perlman's schmaltzy faux-
>Jewish nostalgia music, you'll find Wagner's "Flight of the Valkyrie"
>juxtaposed over images of the camps--highlighting the irony of the
>"highest" point in German culture meeting its true manifestations in the
>camps.
 
True, Wagner is a perfect echo, a haunting reverberation, not of German culture
but of a tragic moment in German and World History.  But do you see no irony
in calling the music of Itzhak Perlman "faux-Jewish"?
 
>And worse yet, I think, is Spielberg's insistence on making an upbeat movie
>in the face of current world politics.  Do you think anything less is now
>occurring in Bosnia?
 
I'm confused.  Is bemoaning the horridness of human behavior the only
legitimate protest?  Isn't there value in modeling goodness in the face of
all those horrors?  If there'd never been a Night and Fog (Nuit et Brouillard)
or Shoach, perhaps Schindler's List would be inappropriate.  But it comes in
a sequence -- film gave voice to unspeakable horror, it's time now to stop
decrying the defeats and to start honoring the victories.
 
>But Spielberg will win Best Picture and Best Director for having done his
>little bit in convincing that two-thirds of the U.S. population who are not
>sure the Holocaust occurred that perhaps it did.
 
It was no "little bit."  Even if the movie is truly bad, if it accomplished
that, there's goodness it it.     --       Shari L. Rosenblum
                                                   (slrbm@cunyvm)