March 27, 1963
-
Upload
thenationmagazine -
Category
Documents
-
view
219 -
download
0
Transcript of March 27, 1963
-
7/21/2019 March 27, 1963
1/4
882 The Nation. June24
1
i
with
a
cover headlined The Jewish
Kommandant.
Why wouldnt anybody else publish
Sack? The defense of Sack in New York
centered
on
a statement from Terry Mc-
Doneil, the editor of Esquire who had
turned down Sacks article
on
Morel. He
was quoted as saying the reason he and
so
many other magazine editors had re-
fused to publish the piece was theyre
scared, and Im scared, too. When I
asked McDonell about that quote, he
said, I dont know where he fuck that
came from. Didhe in fact decide not to
publish Sacks article because he was
scared? rcNo,y heaid, that was not
my meaning.
I
had
no
reason to doubt his
research or
his
reporting, and I had run
pieces
of
his in the ast, but the ourcing
of this was not the most comforting.
I
was afraid of not getting it right. But I
was not pressured by anybody.
New Yorksheadline, The Book They
Dare Not Review, distorts the books sit-
uation: Sacks book has been eviewed in
the New YorkDaily News, The New Re-
public, the
Los
Angeles Times and the
San Francisco Chronicle; TheWashing-
ton Post ran
n
item on it in ts Hard-
covers in Brief column;
The New York
Observer ran a front-page story about
Sackswork;
Newsweek
ran
a
Peri-
scope item about it;Publishers Weekly
ran a hot deal item about it;
The
Yif-
rage Voiceput Sack on its cover; and he
was featured on 60 Minutes. Three of
these pieces were ritical, the other seven
were not. The only significant places it
hasnt been written about are The New
York Times Book Review and Time. In-
timidation seems an unlikely explanation
in both of those cases.
The claims that other publishers re-
jected Sacks manuscript out of fear or
in
response to pressure are equally uncon-
vincing. Sacks writing style isrotesque
and at points anti-Semitic; the books
Jewish revenge thesisdistorts and en-
sationalizes history;t lacks the necessary
historicall context; and the notes are un-
acceptable by any tandard. He deserves
credit for finding andoing the work on
an important story, but his blood-and-
guts style is singularlynappropriate, and
his lack ofkill as
a
historian is crippling.
The publishers who turned his book
down were exercising good judgment.
Theres one more problem with Sacks
claim that theews in his book became
like Nazis-they didnt. They didnt
round up theGermans from every corner
of Europe, organize a train network to
transport them toilling centers and en-
list their scientists in developing an effi-
cient system or exterminating them; they
didnt declare their goal was to cleanse
Europe-ofGermans, and then come close
to succeeding. The Holocaust was not
just sadisticSS men whipping nd killing
Jews; it was bureaucratic, scientific and
comprehensive n its mobilization of the
resources of Europes eading industrial
society ,for the purposes of extermina-
tion. That isnt the crime of which Solo-
mon Morel and Lola are guilty.
t
FILMS.
1
STUA~T
LAWANS
Crooklyn
Cannes 9
pike Lees
Crooklyn
feels very
much like
a
first film-which
I
mean as a compliment. Having
long resisted the impulse to be
sincere, and autobiographical, Lee has
now taken the risk, at rather an advanced
age,
of
filming
a
ramblingmemoir about
his family and neighbors in Brooklyn
during the early
1970s.
The author
f
the
screenStory is his sister, Joie Susannah
Lee; the screenplay is by Joie Susannah,
Spike and their brother Cinque. A cozy
collaboration, you might think-certain-
ly too cozy for the majority of film re-
viewers, who have greeted
Crooklyn
with
a
yawn and
a
puzzled question: But
whats it
about?
Friends, readers, col-
leagues:Crooklyn is about emotional sit-
uations that should be familiar to
a
great
many viewers, nd that pike Lee himself
has brought up before, in
Mo
Better
Blues;a film that played out as one long
evasion of the issue. In Cmoklyn,though,
he has opened up these feelings with an
unforced honesty and warmth that not
only sethe pictureapart rom most others
in the theaters today but also establish
this movie as
a
new beginning.
Set on
a
block of row houses in New
YorksBedford-Stuyvesant section, the
film tells a common-enough story about
lower-middle-class life grownense from
economic strain. We see the predictable
moments: the quarrels between mother
and father over whos payinghe bills; the
spats and pranks among the children, in-
terspersed with the kids cockeyedepiph-
anies about the adult orld. As usual n
these cases, the film evotes lavish atten-
tion to re-creating, with gape-mouthed
fascination, the costumes of the era; to
mocking the old television shows; o
wal-
lowing in the music. And yet, I beli
Lee achieveshe remarkable feat of m
ing all this seem fresh-as if he wer
chefserving
up
a revelatory plate
scrambled eggs, r were Thelonious M
discovering hat twelve bars of stand
walking bass can become Misterios
In part , the reshness comes from
films subject matter, which is as new
the screen
as
the themes are old. True
its origins in Bed-Stuy,Crooklynmay
the first movie ever o link sexual aw
ing to shoplifting. Its
lso
one of the v
few films to evoke the mixture of lo
fear and rebellion that may be insti
in African-American children by th
mothers. Weve seen plenty of bl
mammies on the screen before, not
mention black motherfuckers.Crook
though, has the distinction
of
show
us a black mother, period-one wh
strength is not the sentimentalized st
of legendbut strength,with all the d
culties that entails.
The story: Its summer, and 10-y
old Troy (Zelda Harris), the only dau
ter in the Carmichael family, hangs
with her friends on the block, studies
adults, gets into quarrels with her ol
brother Clinton (CarltonWilliams) a
worries about her parents. Her moth
Carolyn (Alfre Woodard), schooltea
er, is getting worn out with work in
out of the house and especially w
bringing home the familys only p
check. In the past, her husband, Wo
(Delroy Lindo), made
a
livhg as
a
pia
and composer; but the market for
has dried up, just asWoody reaches t
stage when you ither grow into an r
of
lasting vdue or lse remain a journ
man. Now hesdesperate.
So
is Carol
The two of them love and understa
each other, and yet their conflict is in
uble. Thats what we see as adult iew
As for Troy, she at first sees the conf
mostly as a parental dispute over w
the children eat andhow they should
disciplined. Then, in fits nd starts,
begins to see more.
Crooklyn
is fresh in what itshow
Troy (and to us); but its also fresh in h
it makes us see. Remember Miste
so? Monks walking bass isnt enti
standard in hat composition. There
twist in it; and
so
too is there a twis
Spike Lees work. He plays the moder
game (unknown to the reat majority
current directors) of letting the film
mind you
of
its own making.
So
for
ample, the opening shot of Crooklyn
gins with
a
kid helping his friends s
a footrace. He calls On your mark,
-
7/21/2019 March 27, 1963
2/4
June20 I994 The Nation. 88
set, and on go the camera starts to
move, as if cued by the actor on screen.
Another example: Forhe scenes in which
little Troy leaves Brooklyn to stay with
relatives in Georgia, Lee switchesrom a
normal camera lens to the type thats
used for certain wide-screen processes.
Because the film is not projected wide-
screen,everythingcomes out looking
pinched and elongated. A perfect match
the character trapped in a strange social
environment; the image caught in an
alien mechanical environment. I could
multiply examples, though the important
point is,not that Lee wants to play this
modernist game but that he does it with
such
self-assurance. The trick with the
anamorphic lens does become tiresome
(because obtrusive) by the end of the
Georgia sequence.Otherwise, though,
these self-reflarive moments seemo come
to Lee as if they were second nature,
elp-
ing
i m
to engage the audience in
a
single
gesture with the surface of the story and
its emotional depths.
The cinematographer for Crooklyn is
Arthur Jafa (Daughtersof the Dust), who
gives the film softer colorsnd adreamier
look than youd see from Lees usual cam-
eraman, Ernest Dickerson. The sound-
track
of
wall-to-wall SouZ Train hits is
filled out evocatively by composer Terence
Blanchard. Woodys piano solo is played
by Sir Roland Hanna. Woody himself s
played
as
a thoughtful, sweet-natured man
who is outwardly strongut inwardly un-
certain-a marvelous creation
by
Delroy
Lindo, till now best known for his por-
trayal
of West Indian Archie in LeesMal-
colmX .Alfre Woodard,
s
ever, manages
to fill every inch of the screen for every
second shes in front of the camera. Just
a blink from her hooded eyes or a deep
murmur from her pursed lips, and Car,
olyns whole life opens before you. A
marvelous remission from acting-as is
the case with young Zelda Harris, who
carries on as Troy with miraculous self-
abandon.
And yet the critics insist: Whats it
about? To them, and to you,
I
advise,
Gosee Crooklyn. At irst sight, youll
find it handsome toook at. Upon sec-
ond thought, youll realize that its rne-
anderings are only apparent, concealing
an elegantly constructed design. Then,
after mulling it over for a day or two, you
may begin to feel grateful for the self-
confidence with which Spike Leeas di-
rected Crooklyn, allowing the film to
stand back slightly rather than jumping
down your throat. You get the pIeasure
of discovering on your own what this
movie is about.
T
e film world officially takes stock
of
itself twice each year. In March,
at the Academy Awards, he Americans
whoru he worlds
movie
business spend
one night pretending to be interested in
art, which
as
they understand it is some-
thing uplifting.
In
May, at the Interna-
tional Festivalof Film in CannesJhe
Eu-
ropeans and Asians (mostly) whoo not
run the movie business ut wish they did
spend twelve days retending
to
be inter-
ested in art, then wind up giving their top
prize to-Quentin TarantinosPulpFic-
tion.
I can say this muchor the decision:
It awarded a picture thats not likely to
winany Oscars.
I
can
say thk much
for
the Canna
ury: It
awarded topprize to a
film unlikely
to
winany
Oscurs.
To appreciate the force of the prize-
giving, you must understand the early
hullabaloo made over Patrice ChCreaus
historical saga La Reine Margot-the
most eagerly awaited
ilm
of the festival,
according to the May
14
number of the
magazineLeFiImFranqais, and lso the
film that carries the hopes of the French
industry. Large inbudget, long in pro-
duction and heavily loaded with Hexa-
gonal stars, LaReineMargot
was
meant
to bear away highhonors at the estival,
then go
on
to breakallbox-office records,
including those for a foreign-language re-
lease in America.
Ha.
After its first week
in release, La Reine Margot was number
two at the rench box office. he leader?
Four Weddings andaFuneral, with slots
three through ten predictably filled by
American productions.By May
22,
Denis
Parent was writing in
Le
Film Frangais,
I want to hank Quentin Tarantino, who
has broughtme the only real fun of this
Festival with his metaphysica1 gangsters.
A little guns, drugs and rock n roll. A
blessed foothold in the consensual swamp
of
Canness aesthetic correctness.Then,
referring to thenightly ritual of celebri-
ties mounting the red-carpeted steps be-
fore the Festival Palace: Jaimerais bien
quon
nous
fame
un hold-up
sur cette
fucking montge des marches.
jolt of adrenaline; at the climax of on
of its three episodes its literally abo
a jolt of adrenaline. Soon enough yo
come down off its high, with that dru
gie feeling of your bones being hollo
and your skin encrusted with dirt; bu
you cant deny that the movie delive
what you paid for,
r
that it omehow e
vates craft and cleverness to the evel
art. Ill tell you more when the pictu
opens. Fornow, itsenough to say that
Pulp
Fiction succeeds,it wont be sole
because of the capital behind it, or th
all-encompassing power ofts marketin
and distribution.The European films
Cannes are backed by a marketing an
distribution apparatus of their
wn,
whic
generally is cobbledogether out of pr
vate sources, state funds and televisio
revenues. Look t the production credi
and you realize that Cannes is now, to
large extent, a festival of made-for-TV
movies.) The difference is that the ack
ers of
Pulp
Fiction, like the folks at M
Donalds, devote their economic pow
to the efficient delivery ofomething th
people want.
And yet, and yet. All around Cann
this year you sawributes to Jean Reno
upon the hundredth anniversary of h
birth,
as
if to remind us of how muc
weve lost. His movies, unlike le c i n h
du BigMac, were about something mo
than their own coolness;unlike your a
erage European film at Cannes, theywe
about something more than their ow
virtue. Among the handful of pictur
that did not insult the memory of Ren
Red, the last film in Krzysztof Kie
lowskis recent trilogy,s also reputed
be Kieslowskis farewell;and indeed, b
the end,, the film makes you think o
Prosper0 drowning hisbook. Onscree
you have an unmistakable stand-in fo
the director himself: Jean-Louis Trinti
nant as a retired judge in Geneva. Lik
Kieslowski in the Decalogue series an
the Blue/ White/Red trilogy, he Trinti
nant character uses electronic quipme
to track the intersections of various De
~
Well, yes. P u b Fiction hits you like
ple, whom he tudies with sorrowfuidi
passion. Knowing all, he feels he m
nothing. Upon meeting
a
fashion mod
(Irhe Jacob) who carries herself with
sort of moral force that can seem natur
to young women, theudge decides at la
to renounce his knowledge.He also u
dertakes to act, a little, just once. I w
say nothing more, except that the fte
math of the judges act makes sense o
-
7/21/2019 March 27, 1963
3/4
884 The
Nation.
in the city of John Calvin, in the center
of international law, in the context of the
other films
i n '
Kieslowski's trilogy. My
advice is to see
While
immediately-it's
about to hit the theaters-and prepare
for the coming revelation.
Among the other films in competition,
Abbas Kiarostami's
Under
the Olive
Trees
turned out toe a pleasing follow-
up to And
Life
Goes
On. In the revious
film,
a
director from Teheran found out
how much he could learn rom the simpIe
folk rebuilding their lives after an earth-
quake in the northof Iran; in this film,
the same simple folk find out ow much
they can learn from the director. Andrei
Konchalovsky's Ryaba,
My
Chicken is
his
follow-up to the
967Asya's
Happi-
ness,a 1ongLbannedfilm about life on a
collective farm. Konchalovsky has revis-
ited the site and the haracters during the
present era
of
Yeltsin and gangsterism in
order to tell a tale about a golden egg. It's
a lot better than his brother Nikita Mi-
khalkov's competition film Burnt by the
Sun a
family drama set in the
1 9 3 0 ~ ~
which has the courage to come out four-
square against Stalinism.
Huozhe ToLive) by Zhang Yimou is
not a follow-up film, thought sometimes
feels likeone. Like FarewelZ
My Concu-
bine
and The Blue
Kite,
it presents
a
few
decades' worth of political upheavals
in modern China through the eyes of a
handful of characters. But what splendid
upheavals Maybe you
should
take the
trouble to see
La
Reine
Margot
so
you
can appreciate what a big, splashy spec-
tacle %hangYimou provides.He also of-
fers you emarkable performances by Ge
You
(a popular comedian in China) as'
a
spoiled rich man brought low and 'by
Gong Lias the brat's unsquashable wife.
And
now
for two films that gave me
hope. Nanni Moretti, who has jocular-
ly embodied onscreen the generation of
left-wing, post"68 Italians, has made his
best film yet in
Caro
Diario (DearDiary),
an apparently offhand set of sketches
about his comings and goings. The first
part shows us the things he loves n and
around Rome. The second part follows
him and a friend on a summer vacation
through the Italian islands. The third part
is about his trials at the hands
of
doctors,
as
he tries to get relief from
a
nagging
itch. By the time you get to the nd, the
medical episode has cast a retrospective
light on the other parts of the film, re-
vealing them o be thematically coherent,
heartfelt and deeply thoughtful. And the
best thing about the film? It alljust seems
to happen, with an ease and modesty that
restore the movies to their rightful piace
in daily life.
Which brings us to Aki Kaurismaki.
His latest, the luridly titled TakeCare of
YourScarJ: TQ~YCZ~O ,s not justmodest.
It's downright impoverished; this film
lacks everything, including a self that
would seem capable of having made it.
It's about two rockin',hop-headed Finns
(their drugs of choiceare vodka and cof-
fee) who hit the road in
a
station wagon
of
dubious parentage. Along the way,
they pick p
a
couple of chicks (one Rus-
sian, one Estonian) and sort
of,
well,
nothing. But they feel pretty cool,
for
Finns. They've got their rockn7 oll, and
the station wagon, and the chicks and,
well-nothing.
Why-do I like it? Becauset some level,
this
is
exactly the
same
movie as
PubFic-
tion-except it's only
65
minutes long,
and was made for a budget o f about
twelve dollars. There ies the hope
of
world cinema.
When drafting
your
will, pleasecon-
sider making a bequest to The Na-
tion Institute.
For
infornabonwrite:ExecutiveDirector
The
Natlon Institute, 72
FifthAvenue,
New York;
NY
10011
(212)
242-8400.
MOVING?
Send both
your old mail
i n g
label and your new
address
to
:
THE N TION
P.O. Box
10763
Des
Moines
IA 50340-0763
Please allow 4-6 weeks for
processing.
PROBLEMS?
If you have any problems
or
questions regarding
your subscription, please
write to
us at the address
above,
or
call:
1 800)
333-8536
Monday to Friday
: OO am to : OO pm CST
Saturday
8 : OO am to 4:OO pm
CST
June
20,19
CLASSIFIED.
~
While we reserve theight
to
edrt, reJed r reclassify
adverlrsernenl.
The
Natlon wishes ~ts 'readers o kn
we
don t
have the facrlrtres
o
check the prornrsesm
by
our
adverlzsers, and'we hove a,st rong presumpt
agarnst censorrng any adverlrsernent, especrally cf
drsagree
with
r lspolr trcs
APARTMENTS
UNDERPAID, qulet and responable
Interns seek
ow-rent ap
ment share, sublet or house-sltting arrangements anywhe
New
York C~t y tartlng nght away. Call KIO Stark at The Na
(212) 242-6400
BED
BREAKFAST
~
LOS ANGELES near Hollywood Garden settlng Tennls, g
Childrenwelcome
P ~ p e y
Shank's. Reasonable
(213) 664-44
BOOKLETS
IHCONTROVERTIBLE PROOF'JESUS FICTIONAU-Josep
created flctlonal Jesus, Gospels Scholarly booWet"$5, Abela
Box 5652-A, Kent, WA 98064 (Details: SASE
'
3OOKS
ANARCHISI C OOK B OOK
available
again Complete, unc
sored
edltlon.
$25, debered B a r r 1 c ~ d e _ B _ o o ~ s ~ ~ x
Secaucus, NJ 07096
THE GREAT BICYCLE CAPER
a ..Frmlseamshinhgsea
n
VEST TR VEL
BOOK
I VE
EVER READ
P. A. G. Phoenix
Ride a
bicycle, alone
and
unsupported,
year
o l d Ed
Wrighb.
151 pages
are
fu l l
cross the United
tates
with sixty-rwo
o adventure,
humor,
and over 100
photos.
Send
$9.95
to XLXS 84W
E(eMUl
NE Suite A - NH 87112
BOOK
SE RCH SERVICES
STILL LOOKING
FOR
A
BOOK7 Free search, Sperllng Boo
160 38th
St ,
#25E-N, New York. NY 10016
Wm CAXTON BOOKSEARCH. Ell lson Bay, WI 54210 Ple
send phone/address with.wants. (800) 288-7724
AWAITING
YOUR
BOOK WANTS.
Lorrame Zlrnmerrnan, Bo
selle r 475 Thaba. Laguna Beach,
CA
92651 Fax (714) 497-47
Phone 800) 28-2073
CATALOGUES
GOOD
VIBRATION
Friendly,Informative
catalogsof
s e i
toys,
books
&
videos.
54,
ap
lied
toward first order
121gValcncla JNT
San
Franclsco CA 9413
COUNSELING
MALE PSYCHOTHERAPIST
C.S.W. NYC central vlllage lo
tlon. Reasonable ee -m gh t onented, In-depth herapy (2
924-1540.
WOMAN PSYCHOTHERAPIST 20+ years experience
Ph
D
cllnical psychology Insight-onented and analytlc C r m n
ventlon, short-term, ong-term lntenslve psychoanalytic
proach Free consultation
Slldlng
scale Carnegle Hall vl cm
(212) 582-5508
-
7/21/2019 March 27, 1963
4/4