Actually, Hanna Karolyn, I used to get art prizes during my school years so I hope I understand something about art.  I can perceive the “nuances” and other dimensions in Munich quite well, thank you. I’ll discuss it with facts in Sheerly Avni’s review of Munich titled “But Is It Good for the Jews?” in the Reports section.

Some of Munich’s “nuances” guide the audience to certain images, ideas and understandings which may be misleading. It may be historical fiction, but the artist wants the movie to have political influence. Hanna, I know my opinions may not “conform to your engorged projection” of how I must perceive and understand the movie’s nuances and space, but here is something to think about:  Bring together the world’s ten best artists to critique any work of art, and you’ll likely have ten different opinions about nuances. You don’t want me to become terminally pedantic and engorged in your worldview of how I should critique any work of art, do you?

TonyN, While you are undoubtedly very knowledgeable about many things, perhaps art is not one of these. You seem under the misapprehension that there exists in art anything of particular value that is “historically accurate,” and that art is ever an “impartial presentation” (a damning compliment if I’ve ever heard one). Worse still, you seem to believe that art--Your Art (you know, Big, Important, Socially-Relevant Art)--must conform to this engorged projection, as if art is shown where to go by thinkers of your sort! Harping on the “omissions” of Spielberg, as if they were sins committed against Truth!, shows your pedantic designs all too well. Why is it you political intellectuals are so often incapable of even seeing nuance and space, let alone understanding them?

Richard S., on the contrary, my comments are relevant and worthwhile even if you don’t like them.  This is because Richard Core’s comments (see above) are based on Kenneth Turan’s review of Munich.  If you read Kenneth Turan’s review as well, you might realize that my comments were a response to certain things Richard Core and Kenneth Turan wrote.  I chose to focus on things that are unlikely to be mentioned in the mainstream media.

You could, of course, choose to provide an alternative critique of Turan’s review.  Or you could comment on the movie without reference to Core and Turan.  Or you could critique David Brook’s review of the movie as you’ve done (although I’m not sure if this is most relevant here). 

You are right about two reasons that pro-Israel types dislike the Munich movie.  I had also mentioned that some critics had attacked the movie as “a ‘superficial’, ‘pretentious’ and ‘problematic’ work that draws an incorrect moral equation between Mossad agents and Palestinian terrorists”. 

Spielberg’s movie certainly is not “too hard on the Israelis” unless the pro-Israel types were expecting a movie based on complete fiction, instead of “inspired by real events” as the Munich movie claims.  Others can complain that Spielberg’s fiction will unfairly help Israel’s image as it omitted at least one significant event —the Mossad’s hit squad’s careless and brutal murder of an innocent man in front of his screaming pregnant wife.  Inclusion of this scene would likely affect a non-Israeli audience’s view of the morality of Israel’s actions.

Even Israelis close to the real events realize this advantage:  “…conducted a screening in Tel Aviv for the widows of two of the 11 athletes who died… After the screening, Ilana Romano, whose weightlifter husband was the first athlete to be killed in Munich, defended the film. “For me, it was important that the film does no dishonour to the memory of the murdered athletes, nor to the image of the state of Israel. Both my criteria were satisfied,” she said…Mrs Romano pointed out that Spielberg did not mention Mossad’s assassination of the wrong man in Lillehammer. “Had Spielberg wanted to harm Israel’s image, he would have included the Lillehammer affair. Don’t let’s over-analyse Spielberg’s film,” she said.”
http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1670524,00.html

In addition, the pro-Israel types can choose to complain that Spielberg “doesn’t explain sufficiently the cost of Palestinian terror for Israelis.” However, others can complain that Spielberg did not explain the cost of the disproportionately greater Israeli state terror, colonial oppression, ethnic cleansing and dispossession for Palestinians.  It would be problematic for Israel’s image if the film showed the disparities, for example, 704 Palestinian children have been killed versus 123 Israeli children since September 2000.  Or what Israelis did to Palestinians in 1948 or after 1967.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/

Hey, Tony...is that all you could say?  I was hoping for an even longer comment that would say virtually nothing about the film that was relevant or worthwhile.

At any rate, it’s interesting to note that some Israeli government officials and hardline pro-Israel types dislike the film for the exact opposite reason Tony doesn’t like it.  They believe it’s TOO HARD on the Israelis & doesn’t explain sufficiently the cost of Palestinian terror for Israelis.

David Brooks at the NYT is one of these.  I’ve written a blog post (linked to this comment) critiquing his attack on the film (I don’t even think he’d seen the film when he wrote his column).

When watching Spielberg movies such as Munich and Schindler’s List, one should not confuse an entertaining movie with historically accurate and impartial presentation. Take the Spielberg movie Schindler’s List.  Evidence suggests that the real Oskar Schindler may have been less heroic than the character Spielberg created. In fact, Schindler had almost nothing to do with the list because he was in jail much of that time.  And Schindler helped the Nazis plan the invasion of Poland, which led to millions of Jews and Poles being murdered by the Nazis.  In the end, Schindler’s List was simply another movie reminding people about the Holocaust.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/biography/stor y/0,,1359301,00.html

What Spielberg omitted from his new fictional movie Munich is that the Mossad assassins executed at least one wrong man.  In July 1973, the innocent Moroccan waiter, Ahmed Bouchiki, was gunned down in front of his pregnant wife on a street in Norway.  “…as (Bouchiki and his wife) began their walk from the bus stop to the flat, two members of the (Mossad) action team exited a Mazda and began firing into (Bouchiki) with Baretta .22 caliber pistols. The pregnant woman crouched over the dying man, screaming as the team escaped from the scene.” Five Mossad agents were later captured by the Norwegian authorities and convicted of the brutal murder.  However, the murderers were imprisoned for only two years before being released to Israel in 1975.  “In January 1996, Israel paid undisclosed compensation to Bouchikhi’s family but did not admit responsibility for the killing.  “No one pays out compensation unless they are guilty,” Torill Larsen Bouchiki, widow of the murdered waiter, said...” We don’t know how many other innocents were murdered by the Israel’s hit squad, but whose unsolved cases were not traced back to Israel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,193475,0 0.html

Spielberg’s omission conveniently does not contradict the movie’s underlying themes of “justifiable homicide” for Israel’s benefit and that Israel’s murderers are seen as human beings even when killing others – albeit human beings who eventually become morally-conflicted and felt some remorse and concern whether they were doing the right thing.  Furthermore, the Mossad assassins are portrayed as obsessing about ensuring that only their targets are killed, while meticulously avoiding the deaths of innocent civilians. Portraying the Bouchiki murder would shatter this fiction. Spielberg’s Munich thus feeds into the myth of Israel’s image as righteously responding to terrorist violence, never initiating unjustified violence against the Palestinians.

By omitting to explain Palestinian motivations, Spielberg feeds into the myth that Palestinian murderers are terrorists who cannot be understood as human beings.  Some claim that Black September attacked the Munich Olympics because its leaders were angered by the International Olympic Committee’s refusal to allow Palestinian athletes to participate in that Olympic Games, while the Israelis were allowed to participate even though Israel had invaded, brutally occupied and colonized more Palestinian territories (West Bank and Gaza) since 1967.  However, according to three-term Israeli Knesset member Uri Avnery, “The name “Palestine” had disappeared altogether from the map, and even the Palestinians who had remained in their homeland lived under oppressive rulers - first the Jordanian and Egyptian, and then the Israeli military governor… All PLO leaders believed that the “armed struggle” was necessary, considering the vast disproportion between the might of Israel and the almost negligible force of the Palestinians… It is accepted by most authorities that without the “armed struggle”, the Palestinians would not have achieved anything and would have lost their homeland long ago. They believe that the violent attacks enabled the Palestinian people to return to the world map and allowed the PLO to attain its historic achievements: its recognition as the “sole legitimate representative” of the Palestinian people, its invitation to the UN, its international standing, the Oslo agreement, its return to Palestine and the creation of a world-wide consensus supporting the idea of a Palestinian state. But Arafat did not see the “armed struggle” as an end in itself. Violence is for him a means among others. At the end of 1973 he did something that is rare among leaders… From there it was but one step to the second conclusion: the Palestinian state can only be founded on compromise, by a political settlement with Israel. (Arafat) started to work on it.”
http://gush-shalom.org/archives/article261.html

As a sideshow, certain critics, including a few Israeli officials, have attacked Spielberg’s new movie Munich as “a ‘superficial’, ‘pretentious’ and ‘problematic’ work that draws an incorrect moral equation between Mossad agents and Palestinian terrorists”.  At the same time, and it’s interesting to note this, Ariel Sharon’s own “aide helps Spielberg promote controversial film.” Are Israel and/or Spielberg trying to benefit from controversy, just as Passion of Christ did?
http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1670524,00.html

Finally, Kenneth Turan and others will remind us of “the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics”. Indeed, this event is often referred to as the “Munich massacre.” But if the term “massacre” means killing a large number of humans indiscriminately and cruelly, then the “Munich massacre” of 11 people hardly qualifies to be a massacre in terms of size.  But calling it a massacre supports the Israeli image of a poor, defenseless and threatened nation of people.

In contrast, what certainly is a massacre is an event that Spielberg is unlikely to make into a movie—the 1982 Israeli-overseen massacre of 800 to 3,500 Palestinian refugees.  That year the United Nations General Assembly condemned the massacre and declared it to be an act of genocide.  Israel’s Kahan Commission found then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon personally but “indirectly responsible” for the Sabra and Shatila massacres.  But no legal action has been against Sharon, who continued to serve in subsequent governments, and in February 2001 was elected prime minister of Israel.  We’ll forever be reminded of what Palestinians did to Israelis in 1972, but rarely about what Israelis did to Palestinians in 1982… or before or since that time.
http://www.indictsharon.net/