Spielberg talks about film 'Munich' in magazine

[Fiona]

Director Steven Spielberg said his new film "Munich," the story of Israel's revenge for the killing of its athletes by Palestinian guerrillas at the 1972 Olympics, is "a prayer for peace," Time magazine reported on Sunday.

Leaders of Jewish and Muslim groups as well as diplomats and foreign policy experts will preview the film before its Dec. 23 U.S. opening but Spielberg has shied away from the media hype and costly promotional campaigns that typically precede a big-studio movie.

The magazine said its interview was the only one the Oscar-winning director planned to do before the release of the film, which focuses on Israel's response after a Palestinian group took members of its Olympic team hostage at the Munich Games. Eleven Israeli athletes, five kidnappers and one German policeman were killed.

"Somewhere inside all this intransigence there has to be a prayer for peace," Spielberg told Time, "because the biggest enemy is not the Palestinians or the Israelis. The biggest enemy in the region is intransigence."

The director also discussed another film project he is initiating in February, in which he is buying 250 video cameras and players and giving them to Israeli and Palestinian children so that they can make movies about their own lives.

"Not dramas," Spielberg said, "just little documentaries about who they are and what they believe in, who their parents are, where they go to school, what they had to eat, what movies they watch, what CDs they listen to."

Spielberg said the children will then exchange the videos with one another.

"That's the kind of thing that can be effective, I think, in simply making people understand that there aren't as many differences that divide Israelis and Palestinians. Not as human beings anyway," he said.

The director told Time he's very proud of the fact that "Munich" doesn't demonize either the Israeli or Palestinian side.

"We don't demonize our targets," Spielberg said. "They're individuals. They have families."

The movie stars Eric Bana, Daniel Craig and and Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush.

Reuters

[richard]

Spielberg hopes to use film to connect Israelis and Palestinians

The Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg has broken his silence over his controversial new film about Israel's response to the massacre of its athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and at the same time revealed a personal project to promote understanding between Israeli and Palestinian children.

A wall of secrecy has surrounded the production of Munich, Spielberg's first foray into the issue of the highly charged Arab Israeli conflict.

The film tells the story of the aftermath of the 1972 Olympics, when Israel organised a squad of Mossad agents to track down and assassinate members of the Palestinian terrorist group, Black September, who were responsible for the hostage crisis that subsequently led to the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes.

Although almost nobody has yet seen the film, it has already been criticised by both Israelis and Palestinians fearful of reports about how they are portrayed.

However, the director told Time Magazine that the film is a "prayer for peace", and that the biggest enemy in the region is not the Palestinians or the Israelis but the intransigence that exists between the two sides.

Spielberg revealed that he is launching a project in February aimed at tackling that lack of understanding.

"What I'm doing is buying 250 video cameras and players and dividing them up, giving 125 of them to Palestinian children, 125 to Israeli kids, so they can make movies about their own lives," he said. "Not dramas, just little documentaries about who they are and what they believe in, who their parents are, where they go to school, what they have to eat, what movies they watch, what CDs they listen to - and then exchange the videos.

"That's the kind of thing that can be effective, I think, in simply making people understand that there aren't that many differences that divide Israelis from Palestinians - not as human beings, anyway."

The director also condemned the International Olympic Committee for failing to pay adequate tribute to the Israeli athletes who were killed during a botched rescue attempt in Munich.

"I wanted this film to be in memory of them, because they seem to have been forgotten," he told Time.

"The silence about them by the International Olympic Committee is getting louder for me every four years.

"There has never been an appropriate officials acknowledgement of what happened," he added.

There has already been speculation that the film - which is scheduled to open in the UK next month - could do as well at the box office and critically as Schindler's List, the 1993 Holocaust film that won seven Oscars, including that of best director for Spielberg.


Source
Jamie Wilson in Washington
The Guardian