January 6, 2006

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 9

eveningsout

Munich has Tony Kushner's anti-Hollywood mark

by Kaizaad Kotwal

At the end of Tony Kushner's first part of Angels in America, when Prior sees the angel crash through the ceiling of his New York apartment, he proclaims, “Very Spielberg!" The line always draws a huge laugh.

How very copacetic, then, that Kushner is the screenwriter for Spielberg's latest film, Munich, based on the hostage-taking and massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. It follows the pursuit and covert assassination of the planners of what came to be known as Black September.

Out writer Kushner first came to prominence with his opus Angels in America. The two-part play dealt powerfully with a slew of issues at the end of the last millennium including AIDS, McCarthyism in the person of Roy Cohn, Mormonism, Judaism, Ronald Reagan, queer culture, transgenderism, race and the body politic in Washington, D.C. of the 1980s. It was a far-reaching play that was moving, funny, unabashedly political, gutwrenchingly real, and humanized the gay American experience unlike any play before it and probably any since.

Beyond Angels, Kushner has written an impressive body of plays, which in this author's opinion already qualifies him for a Nobel Prize in literature. These include the prescient Homebody/Kabul, dealing with the political debacle of Western meddling in Afghanistan-well before 9-11 put that country foremost in the American consciousness.

Kushner's politics are unabashedly leftist, even Marxist. A non-practicing Jew, he has taken on many sacred cows, from Reagan and Cohn to the homophobia of religious and political leaders. His writing is always powerful, intellectually stimulating and relevant.

In most ways, he is the most anti-Hollywood writer one can think of from the world of playwriting. This is probably why he has shied away from Hollywood, which mostly makes movies that cater to the lowest common denominator and that often run as far from political and incendiary issues as they

can.

So when Spielberg approached Kushner to take a swipe at the screenplay for Munich (from an earlier version written by Forrest Gump scribe Eric Roth) the playwright declined. He wasn't sure he was up to the task, especially since Munich was at its core a thriller, albeit based on some powerful political issues from the 1970s, which still remain front and center today.

Eventually he relented and the result is as good a screenplay for a Spielberg film as I have seen and one of the best of this past year's releases.

The reason that the script of Munich works is because Kushner has not sacrificed any of his hallmark writing and values. The script is smart, intelligent, politically controversial and doesn't takes sides as would be predictable for an American film about terrorism, particularly in these days of easy flag-waving and swift stereotyping of anyone who doesn't fit neatly into Bush foreign policy or the talking points of right wing radio mouths.

Munich is a potent parable for our current times where terrorism and its elimination has become the raison d'être of just about everything around us. Even though the film is centered around the hostage-taking, its main thrust is the covert tracking down and assassination of the terrorists, authorized by thenIsraeli premier Golda Meir. That undertaking, called Operation Wrath of God, is carried out by a band of hired killers with precision and blood-curdling detachment. The chase covers many countries, putting government agencies like Israel's Mossad secret service and the CIA together with private groups of dubious morals and mercenary motives.

The leader of Operation Wrath of God is Avner, an Israeli patriot and former intelligence officer chosen by Meir and Ephraim, a Mossad officer.

Avner and his crackerjack team of bomb makers and document forgers are efficient and very successful early in the process. As the killings and political intrigue get thicker and thicker, however, Avner begins to have

doubts about the mission and the ideology of revenge and retribution.

The film begs us to re-evaluate the notion that an eye for eye or a tooth for a tooth will eventually result in a true peace, or a real lasting freedom from terrorism.

More controversially, the film asks what a terrorist really is. It raises the contentious debate about the struggle for homeland and occupation in the Israeli-Palestinian context. It also raises the notion of whether Operation Wrath of God was doing exactly what the terrorists had done to the Israelis summary executions to further a political vendetta.

Kushner's debut feature screenplay is steady and measured and much of the political dialogue and dark humor is vintage Kushner. He was reportedly integral to the shooting of the film, present on the set 98 percent of the time, a rare collaboration between any director and screenwriter.

Kushner never allows us to get lazy as an audience. He creates full-blooded characters and allows us to understand that this debate, about freedom versus terrorism, is not as simple as Bush and his cohorts would have us believe. And that is exactly what might anger many on the right. That this is not an out and out indictment of terrorists, although the film quite strongly states that what they did to the Israeli athletes was barbaric.

Kushner and Spielberg only hit one truly false note, that for a few moments reduces Munich to your stereotypical Hollywood melodrama with its interplay of sex and violence, as though we the audience don't get it. At the end of the film, Avner is exiled in Brooklyn after abandoning Operation Wrath of God mid-way, and he is haunted by his deeds. While he is having sex with his wife, Kushner and Spielberg intercut scenes of terrorists and hostages dying in a brutal bloodbath at the Munich airport. The method and message is heavy-handed in an otherwise subtle film. It is the only part which is very Spielberg, but not very Kushner at all.

Otherwise, Spielberg takes a quiet approach to his directing, creating a film that is stealthy and never feels almost three hours long. There are plenty of explosions and gore, but they somehow fit in a classically tragic sort of mise-en-scene.

Longtime Spielberg collaborators on the technical front have made this one of the best of the year. Janusz Kaminsky's grainy and muted cinematography feels like a documentary and yet packs a blood-curdling punch when it has to. John Williams, who overwhelms many films with the scores he writes, has created a subtle, pulsating work that keeps the terror flowing and allows us to feel more deeply what the characters are going through.

The cast is top notch. As Carl, the methodical clean-up guy, Ciaran Hinds (HBO's Rome) is marvelous as he coldly and clearly keeps at the task. Daniel Craig, the next James Bond, is the South-African-born getaway driver. Craig plays his part with a winning combination of sex appeal and humor.

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Just as Spielberg redeems himself from the stunningly awful War of the Worlds, Eric Bana also comes off a miss as the lead in Ang Lee's Hulk. Bana has always been an actor of intensity and intelligence, and as Avner he gets to use both these attributes to their max. He creates a conflicted protagonist who is both hero to those around, and anti-hero to himself. Bana plays the role with a quiet intensity that serves the film very well. It should be a star-making turn for Bana.

The film is not easy to watch. But it is imperative to see, when so much of the debate around terrorism has been turned into mean-

Matthieu Kossowitz and Eric Bana

ingless sound bites about "us versus them" and "evildoers." Kushner and Spielberg urge us to think deeply about this modern Damocles' sword hanging treacherously over the head of civilization.

Ironically, the film is not what many will expect from Spielberg, although the film has many of his hallmark touches.

True to his brilliant form, Kushner will almost certainly be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay (from George Jonas' book Vengeance) along with Roth.

This time it is Spielberg's, and our turn to proclaim, "Very Kushner!"

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