A Mighty Farce
UPDATE: A Mighty Shame. “Danny had a cameo in his own murder.”
Haven’t seen this flick. Not sure, based on this astonishing and reprehensible review, that I want to. Apparently, it’s about Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl running around looking for her husband. 800-pound guerrilla in the corner, apparently tastefully understated by filmmaker, equivocated upon by Ebert, Islamic terrorism and the beheading of an American Jew:
Although we do meet the possible suspect Omar (Aly Khan), there are not any detailed scenes of Pearl with his kidnappers, no portrayals of their personalities or motivations, and we do not see the beheading and its video. That last is not just because of Winterbottom’s tact and taste, but because (I think) he wants to portray the way Pearl has almost disappeared into another dimension. His kidnappers have transported him outside the zone of human values and common sense. We reflect that the majority of Muslims do not approve of the behavior of Islamic terrorists, just as the majority of Americans disapprove of the war in Iraq.
I reflect that tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of Muslims don’t give a damn that Daniel Pearl had his head sawn off, and may figure that as an American Jew related to Israelis, he had it coming. I further reflect that the videotape of Daniel Pearl talking about his Jewish roots and Daniel Pearl dead is gripping footage, more so than any Hollywood output I can think of and I’d hazard, more than anything in this film. One of the more chilling and horrific things I’ve witnessed, and I have some acquaintance with horrible and meaningless death. On further reflection, exactly what is Ebert trying to say here? Iraq War = Terrorism?
Sounds like this film has transported Daniel Pearl’s story (not to mention Ebert), outside the zone of reality, reality being that he was killed as a living effigy of us all, by religiously inspired madmen who have a lot of support among otherwise seemingly normal third-worlders and some who live among us. Anyone planning on making a Hollywood blockbuster with hot actresses about that? Not Michael Winterbottom, I’m guessing, director of “Mighty Heart” and “The Road to Guantanamo,” which had already established him as an award-winning filmmaker with no great interest in terrorism per se. Back to Ebert:
Many thrillers depend on action, conflict, triumph and defeat. This one depends on impotence and frustration. The kidnappers cannot do more than snatch one unarmed man after he gets out of a taxi, and Pearl’s friends are lost in a maze of clues, lies, gossip and dead ends.
I recommend some gun camera vid of al-Qaeda getting it as they try to flee Baqubah. Nothing impotent or frustrating about that. How about the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? No mention by Ebert of this villain of Shakespearean proportions, an evil dramatic genius who did every two-bit Hollywood screenwriter’s work for him with this pronouncement at Guantanamo:
“I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan … for those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.”
Seems to me it would be, how to put it, a very nearly criminal oversight if they left that out.
But I can’t argue with this:
Mariane Pearl reminds us in her book, and the movie reminds us, too, that some 230 other journalists had lost their lives at the time of Pearl’s kidnapping, most of them during the conflict in Iraq. That means they proportionately had a higher death rate than combat soldiers. That’s partly because they are ill-prepared for the risks they take and partly because they’re targets.
OK, I’m going to bicker with the ill-prepared part … unless you mean that they don’t carry guns … and state that most of the dead newsmen I know about are dead because if you want get the news, you need to be out front. You prepare for that mentally, knowing you can get killed in this job. There’s a war on and things happen. But he may be right about the proportion. All I can say about that is that among 30 newspaper and TV men and women attached to 2nd Brigade of the 3rd ID in the invasion of Iraq, three were killed in action by Iraqi fire, and one died of circumstances related to the conditions in which we lived. That’s 1:7.5, better than a decimation. Not counting two other journalist deaths associated with the brigade, the accident of war known as the Hotel Palestine incident for which three friends of mine, American soldiers, face murder charges in Spain. Speaking of mighty farces.
Which brings us to the following:
The Americans who complain about “negative” news are the ideological cousins of those who shoot at CNN crews. The news is the news, good or bad, and those who resent being informed of it are pitiful.
It is true that the news is the news, and people of all political stripes will snipe at it. Regardless of what you think of the news and the newsgatherers, I don’t believe the people who complain about negative news coverage on Iraq are advocates of beheading newsmen. But that’s not what Ebert is saying here. He’s not talking about suicide bombs or people being dragged out of their cars or houses and summarily executed, as has happened to Iraqi newsmen. He’s talking about CNN news crews being shot at. We reflect. Did Ebert just take up the banner of Eason Jordan, the disgraced former CNN chief who had to resign after he stated that American soldiers were targeting journalists?
So if we think, as I do, that there is a great deal of bias in the war coverage, does that mean we’re the ideological cousins of journalist-targeting U.S. soldiers? Or ideological cousins of the terrorists? Or, if Iraq War = Terrorism, as Ebert suggested earlier, are American soldiers the terrorists? Clarify please, Ebert. Here’s Tom Elia on the same issue.
In closing:
What is best about “A Mighty Heart” is that it doesn’t reduce the Daniel Pearl story to a plot, but elevates it to a tragedy. A tragedy that illuminates and grieves for the hatred that runs loose in our world, hatred as a mad dog that attacks everyone. Attacks them for what seems, to the dog, the best of reasons.
I don’t even know what any of that means. Sounds like someone dancing around the issue, and making excuses for the mad dog. “Attacks everyone” seems a little generous. Jews, Americans, Europeans seem to get singled out for special attention. Variation on the “Why do they hate us” theme? Anyway, as a reader notes in comments below, the murder of Daniel Pearl already was a tragedy, not in need of elevation.
Different, but related: Ed Driscoll, “Just as newspapers historically have had editors to–hopefully–tamp down on their writers’ excesses, so to does Hollywood have story editors, directors, producers and network standards and practices divisions to keep their own writers’ extremes in check.” Well, maybe and maybe not.
American Thinker thinks Ebert = Eason, too.
Welcome, Aces, Pajama wearers, American Thinkers. Need a palate cleanser after that? Have a laugh with the guys in Iraq. It’s been a long, hard war. Or you can check in with Jack Army. He and his guys just got lucky.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:09 am on Saturday, June 23, 2007
24 Responses to “A Mighty Farce”
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June 23rd, 2007 at 6:54 am
I am so goddamn sick of those who cannibalize the spirits of their betters. Immoral, vain equivocators–shame on them all.
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:43 am
The Americans who complain about “negative” news are the ideological cousins of those who shoot at CNN crews.
You may need clarification of this statement, but I do not. It angers me beyond words. How dare this sheltered, smug, shameless little Hollywood pr**k make such a judgment!
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:05 am
What a horrible review. Everything is so vague, American soldiers who shoot at journalists by accident during war are just as bad as the terrorists.
And there are the “good” Americans who oppose Iraq War and the “good” Muslims who oppose violence. We’ll have to take his word for it since the demonstrations and street protests against violence seem to be underreported.
The only heroes are the reporters, the leftist ones of course. And we need the Euorpeans, who for the most are satisfied to let the Americans shed the blood and make the sacrifices, provide the critique and issue the warrants for the bad on either side, terrorists and those pesky US soldiers.
June 23rd, 2007 at 2:22 pm
A Mighty Farce
Jules Crittenden runs roughshod over Roger Ebert’s review of A Mighty Heart, and quite rightly so, as he catches Ebert writing:Although we do meet the possible suspect Omar (Aly Khan), there are not any detailed scenes of Pearl with his…
June 23rd, 2007 at 3:29 pm
[...] 23rd, 2007 by mvdg Sounds like a great movie… and the review is even better: Although we do meet the possible suspect Omar (Aly Khan), [...]
June 23rd, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Hollywood: “Not anti-war, just on the other side.”
June 23rd, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Ah, yess. The moral equivalence of sawing necks and shooting insurgents. It’s all so grotty, after all.
For those who want to understand where the Eberts of the world are coming from, I suggest exploring the site http://www.yourmorals.org/explore.php .
If you’ll do anything–ANYTHING–to avoid hurting anyone else’s body or feelings, you’re a pure liberal. If there are other considerations you take into account, you’re a partial or total conservative.
Conservatives think liberals are simple-minded, stupid. Liberals think (feel) conservatives are evil, unfeeling.
I prefer the old adage, paraphrased, that says that an 18-yr. old who isn’t a liberal is uncaring. A 30-yr. old who isn’t a conservative suffers from arrested (brain) development.
June 23rd, 2007 at 7:14 pm
I watched the Pearl video, the grainy crappy version that appeared on the Web. I didn’t want to; I felt obligated. I watched the next one that got posted, too — God help me, I forget the poor bastard’s name. I stopped after that. It wasn’t really helping them, and I got the idea. It made me sick with rage. And impotence. And contempt.
I won’t presume to tell Pearl’s widow how to be — whatever gets her through is none of my business. But I’ll bet money those Hollywood assholes never watched that video. It would surely taint the story they wanted to tell; the one without the monsters in.
June 23rd, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Nick Berg. It’s actually worse.
June 23rd, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Jesus, yes. That was it. Nick Berg. They sawed and sawed while he gurgled and screamed.
You read “beheading” and you think, “nice clean thwack with a sword.” Bull-shit. It’s not like that at all. It’s like hacking through a hambone with a breadknife. Only, it’s a living man.
At least Pearl happened off camera.
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Are there any real conservatives left, Brian?
They certainly wouldn’t support our grubby little attempts at Empire, would they?
I believe consrvatives used to say, “no unnecessary foreign entanglements.”
As for the movie…it’s just a movie.
Try to worry about something more important than wingnut mythology once in a while.
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Roger says:
“Mariane Pearl reminds us in her book, and the movie reminds us, too, that some 230 other journalists had lost their lives at the time of Pearl’s kidnapping, most of them during the conflict in Iraq.”
I don’t believe this is a factual statement. Daniel Pearl died February 1, 2002. The Iraq War (The Second Gulf War) began March 20, 2003. Maybe I’m missing something. But if I’m not, then this is sloppy journalism and Mariane’s book is incorrect.
Which says a lot about the filmmaker/novelist. The details don’t seem to interest them. When Angelina was on the Larry King show, she couldn’t even tell Larry where the remains of Daniel Pearl are buried.
It’s a shame that this film was made by these people. The best “art” questions the human condition, its behavior and the effect it has on society. For these folks not to explore the gruesome, anti-human ideology that cut off Daniel Pearls head is pathetic.
Winterbottom, Mariane, Angelina, Brad….all of these people are unbrave and cowardly to ignore the issue.
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Yeah Alpohie, it’s just a movie. So was “Triumph of the Will”, just a movie.
Conservatives in America (and liberals, and leftists) used to say no foreign entanglements. Then Hitler came along and Americans learned that leaving the rest of the world to be overrun by genocidal lunatics advocating armed doctrines was a really stupid idea. The Democrats in the USA have forgotten this lesson, but only the stupid conservatives like Ron Paul have forgotten it too. The Islamofascists are proponents of an armed doctrine as vicious and smelly as the others that have done such damage to the world, Jacobinism, Naziism, Communism. Wake up and smell the burning corpses they produce, or you’ll go under.
As for claiming we are up to empire building, you would n’t know a real imperialist if he dropped a nuke in your lap. Since Iran is developing nukes for that purpose as well as for genocide, and nobody seems willing to do anything effective to stop the Pharaohs of Teheran, you may get the opportunity to find out what imperialism really is. It is not liberating people from tyranny and midwifing halfway decen, consensual government afterwards, which is what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Stop thinking in the shallow cliches of simple-minded vulgar Marxism. The world is not like that. With an isolationist USA most of the world will look much like Darfur and Gaza. That must be the world you want to live in.
June 24th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Incompetent American rubes spreading death where ever they go isn’t any better than American isolationism, Michael.
Unless you make a buck supplying them or cheering them on, of course.
Then its full steam ahead.
A note to wingnuts: Stop milkin’ WWII for phony justifications…we don’t have Stalin doing all the heavy lifting this time around.
June 24th, 2007 at 12:36 am
This was clearly despicable:
“We reflect that the majority of Muslims do not approve of the behavior of Islamic terrorists, just as the majority of Americans disapprove of the war in Iraq.”
This needs clarification indeed…
“The Americans who complain about “negative” news are the ideological cousins of those who shoot at CNN crews. The news is the news, good or bad, and those who resent being informed of it are pitiful. ”
…but is likely just as disgraceful. Ebert really, really wants to make a stronger political statement here — he has filmmaker or “real journalist” envy in that they can do so and he’s stuck just reviewing movies — but he can’t, he has to couch and hedge so his prose comes out obscurely. Writing always comes out crap when the author can’t find a way to say what’s on his mind. Lucky for us.
June 24th, 2007 at 1:05 am
Alphie says:
“Incompetent American rubes spreading death where ever they go isn’t any better than American isolationism” “Unless you make a buck supplying them or cheering them on, of course.”
You don’t even know who “them” is do you Alphie.
Well one of the Hamas “them” threw a Fatah “them” off a 15 story building while his hands were tied behind his back the other day. If you watched any of the beheadings you’ll notice that is a failry standard practive of “them”. Pretty cowardly stuff.
And if one of “them” wants to leave the “them” religion; a group of wise “thems” gets to declare the heretic “them’s” death.
BTW, “them” killed over 150,000 people in Algeria with not an American rube in sight.
June 24th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Hollywood is, after all, tinsel town and one expects a certain unreality there. It makes sense for films about spacemen and Shirley Temple and Donald Duck cartoons. It helps common folks like me forget their troubles. But the pretentious nonsense that is our subject here overlaps the real world. Given the juxtaposition of names and events in this movie with people who actually lived (and died) and events that actually happened, a few sad souls might be deceived into believing that there is the remotest element of truth in what is here portrayed. And that is, genuinely, sick.
June 24th, 2007 at 2:10 am
Hamas isn’t America’s problem, Sheryl.
Nor is Algeria.
As for the wingnuts who think their bizarre version of Daniel Pearl’s widow’s story is more authentic than her own version…maybe it’s time for a little self-reflection and soul searching.
June 24th, 2007 at 3:58 am
Alphie,
Hamas/Jihadist/Islamofascists cult members think they are America’s problem. The actions on 9/11 proved that as a fact. And if you don’t believe that, well I wish you well in your ignorant bliss.
But most of us live in the real world and want to attempt to understand it and perchance make it a better place. That sometimes entails making judgments and taking actions against decayed and degraded societies whose problems have become the world’s.
However, you sound like a person who finds nothing for which he is willing to fight. But no need to worry about your own personal safety Alphie; your freedom to believe there is nothing worth fighting for is being protected by the exertions of better men than yourself.
June 24th, 2007 at 4:10 am
sheryl,
Let’s just say you can get a reliable majority of Americans to agree that we should kill terrorists who want to kill Americans.
Anyone who wants to add groups or individuals to our target list for their own personal reasons risk losing that majority.
In fact, I’ll say you guys have already lost it.
June 24th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
“What is best about “A Mighty Heart” is that it doesn’t reduce the Daniel Pearl story to a plot, but elevates it to a tragedy.”
Yeah, that’s a real moronic statement.
As if it weren’t already a tragedy.
This elitist “review” stuff helps qualify R. Ebert for KOAM title, King of All Morons.
June 25th, 2007 at 3:53 am
I wrote at the beginning of the comments that I was sick of those who feed off of the spirits of their betters. Sure enough, our own little spiritual cannibal shows up on cue to show us the craven heart of such a feeder.
Alf the ant is a perfect collectivist. Being lazy, he has given over his individual mind to any other who will do his thinking for him. The other must have a simple, easy to remember message so that Alf the ant, and those like him, can parrot it without too much trouble. This is why he never says anything of worth, and when confronted with a subject for which he has no pre-programmed response, will offer up non sequiturs galore. Since a human being can never really ignore the fact that they have given up the reasoning mind that makes them human, Alf hates anyone who has the courage to think beyond the script and will duly denigrate reason (mere bias) and reality (whose reality?).
You will also note, if you are unfortunate enough to encounter him very often, that anyone who does not spout his brand of bile is a “neo-con wingnut.” It doesn’t matter a whit whether you’ve stated that you do not agree with the neo-con philosophy, for the ant has no independent cognitive faculty left to integrate such an idea. Having given up his own rational faculty, he is a perfect example of perceptual level, concrete-bound drone. Very unattractive in what should have been a rational animal.
He has named his blog “Alphie1Victim,” or some such. Says it all, really.
June 25th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
EBERT AND PEARL
There’s a new movie out about the War on Terror. OK not really, but it’s set in the time of the War on Terror and involves one of the main news stories about it. Daniel Pearl, the journalist who had his head brutally sawed off by Khalid Sheikh Mohamm…
June 25th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
alphie Says:
“Incompetent American rubes spreading death where ever they go isn’t any better than American isolationism, Michael.”
Good point, jihad boy. Actually, I can’t think of anything offhand that it’s better than, but I certainly wouldn’t disagree with the statement. One good reason I live in the US is that we have a country and military that has always been very faithful to the judicial codes they have sworn to and we’ve always come down hard on transgressors like that in military and civilian courts. Not sure how it is in your country, but by the consistent cluelessness concerning the US in your comments, it’s very different there.
“A note to wingnuts: Stop milkin’ WWII for phony justifications…we don’t have Stalin doing all the heavy lifting this time around.”
Note to jihad boy: Stop milking every success your compatriots have killing unarmed innocents as phony justification for US military failure in trying to protect said innocents. Your side will never win the war that way.
Or stay In character - clueless while spouting the jihadi cant.