Film debate and aesthetic critique have now entered the abjectly surreal. Yet another piece of moralizing, this time from Andrew Sullivan, who hasn't yet seen the goddamn movie. (At least Sullivan, unlike Greenwald, repeatedly affirms that admitted lapse.)
What am I missing? Is it really so hard to postpone comment on a film until one has ... uh ... maybe, like, watched it?
I haven't any idea what Zero Dark Thirty's interpretive message is. I haven't seen it. Furthermore, I'd be immovably reluctant to take someone else's interpretation at any value, face or otherwise.
Case in relevant point. I thought the real brilliance of Saving Private Ryan was Spielberg's portrayal of the "wimpy," bookish, trilingual clerk who abhorred the impersonal brutality of war. In my view, the clerk was no coward; he simply found mass slaughter incomprehensible. When the war got personal, though--i.e., when the German soldier whom the clerk had earlier released then betrayed him--the "wimp" had no problem with retaliatory violence. Clerk, kaboom. German soldier, kaput.
Spielberg, or so I believed, was trying to get at war's intimacy through one man's experience and to suggest that perceived cowardice is often not cowardice at all--it's extreme intelligence. That, anyway, was my interpretation, and I recall having a heated debate with a former career military friend who protested mightily that Spielberg was indeed portraying cowardice in the field.
Who was right? Me or the military guy? I don't know. Steven won't return my calls, no matter how many flowers I send. The point, though, is that the determining point makes no difference: I have my interpretation, which I find artistically and psychologically and philosophically valid. And that, after all, is one high objective of good filmmaking--individual interpretations--which, had I depended on the military guy's interpretation, I wouldn't possess from Saving Private Ryan.
The same purist liberal voices like Green Glenwald who attack Zero Dark Thirty without seeing the film are no different than their purist conservative counterparts who attacked Scorcese's Last Temptation of Christ, etc. without seeing it. Narrow-mindedness is clearly not the exclusive domain of the far right.
Posted by: Anonymous | December 11, 2012 at 12:54 PM
Just now from Sully: "I've got an invite to a screening of "Zero Dark Thirty" Thursday evening. I'll post my thoughts as soon as I have collected them."
Wouldn't that be a welcome departure from recent practice.
Posted by: Bruce Adams | December 11, 2012 at 01:14 PM
Well maybe the act by pundits of reviewing a movie they haven't seen yet, stems from pundits' habit of predicting electoral and legislative outcomes before anything happens.
Posted by: AnneJ | December 11, 2012 at 03:19 PM
Ha! Good point, AnneJ.
Posted by: Janicket | December 11, 2012 at 05:07 PM
Of course, since Greenwald has already criticized the film, it will be effectively impossible for him to give an unbiased review of it once he actually sees it. He will have to review in the context of a world in which he has already condemned it. If the condemnation turns out to be unwarranted, he will either have to retract it or double-down.
This is why you don't comment until you know what the hell you are talking about.
Posted by: Chris Andersen | December 11, 2012 at 05:39 PM
Well, from what I've seen of Greenwald, he will never take the chance of having to retract anything he says, so I daresay he'll never go see the movie and put his inerrancy at risk.
Posted by: Janicket | December 12, 2012 at 01:09 PM
sikrl casque beats by dre ptcajm http://beatsbydresolde.fr zftez casque dr dre ixccif http://casquesbeatssolde.fr lppcz beats by dr dre hthhbo http://beatsbydrebestbuy.ca gbyhl beats by dre snlsjs http://beatsbydrebestbuy.co.uk xegmi beats by dre jboilu http://cheapbeatsheadphonesaustralia.com fwuk beats by dre sale fehzgy http://drdrebeatssales.ca xwpkd beats by dre outlet znperx http://beatsbydrdreukoutlet.co.uk lbx
Posted by: Smeamesic | December 20, 2012 at 02:28 AM