Fw: brief notes on two recent films and what one of them show about Israel today

FWD from David McReynolds:

----- Original Message ----- 
From: David McReynolds 
To: David McReynolds 
Sent: Friday, December 07, 2012 9:25 PM
Subject: brief notes on two recent films and what one of them show about Israel today


This goes to the Edge Left list, and to Middle East contacts. This is brief, hardly a review, but mainly  "a foot note" on the Footnote.

First - because I found it a fun film, and very Italian, I'd recommend We Have a Pope, which came out this year and tells the story of what happens when the college of Cardinals, in picking a new pope, chooses one who is overwhelmed by being chosen. I found it touching, a reflection on the burdens of office, and an ironic situation where, in an effort to deal with the problems of a man who is burdened by being chosen, the Vatican brings in a psychiatrist (who is not a believer) in an effort to find out the source of hesitation.

My main question was where in the world the director found so many elderly men to play the role of cardinals - and so convincingly. This film didn't rate that highly with the audience - Rotten Tomatoes gave it a favorable rating of only 55% of those who saw it. But I enjoyed it.

Second, I had looked forward to the 2011 Israeli film, Footnote, which was given such a high rating by almost all those who had seen it - and won a number of awards. I found the film
something of a bore but my view is clearly a minority one. The film deals with two scholars, a father and his son, who are devoted to study of the Talmud at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

By accident - a confusion brought on by the fact the father and son share the same last name - a highly prized award is given to the father.  The tension in the film flows from the efforts of the son to keep his father from finding out that he was not the real winner of the award. Primarily because I'm not much interested in the Talmud, and because I found the father to be a boring, hollow and pedantic man, I was not deeply drawn into the film.

However what did interest me - and the reason for sending this little mini-review out - was that while the Palestinian issue was never touched on, and not a single Arab was shown, by the end of the film I realized that at almost every point, as people entered and left various buildings,  there were routine security checks. Footnote showed us a society which has so deeply accepted insecurity as a fact of life that it is unaware of it. One needs hardly add that this is increasingly true of our own society.

- 30 -


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)

See my reflection On Being a Militant and Radical
Organizer -- And an Effective One:
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded, and with more photos in Fall 2012. Material on our Native
background.)  And see Personal Background Narrative: 
http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm  (Updated into 2012) 

For the new (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial introduction by me.  We are now at 
the 50th Anniversary of the massive Jackson Movement
of 1962-63:  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm