Movies on Monday: Memories and Reactions

I read that when Oliver Stone made JFK he said in an interview that his models were Z and Rashomon. I decided to look at them. I've seen Rashomon often on PBS and TCM. I understand Stone’s interest in the movie because it’s a Japanese master director’s take on: What is truth? I seem to remember the subtitles running by too fast.

Then there is Z, the Costa-Gavras masterpiece. Available on Netflix; rent it, it’s worth it. Also, a must read is this blog about Z and Costa-Gavras:

http://www.dinaview.com/?p=159

It’s not about the movie I want to talk; it’s about my reaction to one scene. I saw this movie before our torture of “terrorist” prisoners and the spin so many government officials and journalists have given this atrocity. Not that I was ever naive enough to think that Americans did not and could not use torture. But if I had to triage my concerns when I saw the movie, torture was not even on the list.

And, my reaction which shocked me at the time and I still remember, really isn’t even about torture.

As I remember it, the movie left no doubt that the good guys were not going to win. Fascist thugs just killed the opposition and the military encouraged and protected them. Abrupt violence pervaded the movie. The quiet scene where Trintignant, as the prosecutor, is typing up charges and the complicit generals (notice as each general enters the office, the “fruit salad” on his chest gets larger) are forced to sign the confessions is atypical of the movie. (Note: this scene is available on YouTube.) It’s fast-paced, brutal, visceral film.

And that’s where I got caught up. There is one scene where the thugs are almost caught. It’s a scene that clutches you in, heart racing; and there I was, rooting for the thugs; hoping they would escape. Costa Garvas had artfully, if only for a moment, turned me, an ardent liberal progressive, into a quisling sympathizer for fascist thugs.

OK, that emotion didn’t last. I don’t see the two sides of torture; I adamantly oppose it. But I tucked that moment away. I didn’t have an epiphany; it wasn’t Paul on the Damascus road moment but I did understand that anyone could be “turned.” The old saying: Whatever man is capable of doing; he can be made to do, hit home. That’s why good propaganda is so effective.

Why, you may ask, are you blogging about Z on Memorial Day? I guess I could say: it is a movie; it is Movie Monday.

But it was a John King interview with three Iraqi veterans yesterday which made all this so current to me. King asked one veteran why he fought in Iraq and the veteran said: Well, after what they did to the Twin Towers... King, then, did try to extricate him from this error by telling him Iraq had nothing to do with that NYC bombing. (Unfortunately, if that lie had been uttered by a Cheney, King would have probably just gone on to his next question.)

The veterans was not believing that and just repeated: Well, after what they did....

You dumb schmuck, I thought. You bought into the lie. And then I thought to myself: You’re a dumb schmuck, don’t patronize. You, if only for a second, bought into the lie while watching Z.

It’s so easy to pontificate; keeping ever vigilant is the tiresome part.