Rogues and Redcoats

Last week I caught two documentaries that could fuel a meaty "compare and contrast" homework assignment: Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story and The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Both men were roundly denounced in their heyday, and yet both have their admirers.

Atwater grew up in South Carolina, where campaigning is particularly toxic. He changed the rules of national politics by bringing the smear into the modern age. He and his acolyte Karl Rove have done much to promote the idea of politics as total war with no holds barred.

Ellsberg was an analyst with the Rand Corporation, which was commisioned by the Pentagon to study America's involvement in Vietnam. When the study determined the war was far from just an idealistic effort to build democracy, Ellsberg took it upon himself to make the findings public.

Atwater was condemned for his death-blow against decency in public discourse. Ellsberg was denounced as a traitor for airing America's dirty linen.

One fascinating detail is that both men suffered childhood traumas that shaped their lives.

When Atwater was a boy, his younger brother pulled a pan of hot grease off the stove onto himself and within a few days died of the injuries. Atwater was devastated; the world was revealed as cruel and unfair, and Atwater developed a deep cynicism about life.

The young Ellsberg was riding with his family in a car driven by his father, who dozed off behind the wheel. In the ensuing crash, Ellsberg's mother and sister were killed. Ellsberg remained an idealist, but this tragedy taught him that authority figures are fallible.

In his early forties, Atwater was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. He searched frantically for a religion or philosophy to give meaning to his life. In the end, he repented the tactics that had brought him such success in politics, and he asked forgiveness of those whom he had attacked.

Ellsberg, still alive today, doesn't repent his leaking of the Pentagon papers, and history seems to have ratified his actions. America got out of Vietnam (though we eventually found other places to send our soldiers).


In researching our involvement in Vietnam, Ellsberg joined a patrol of soldiers, who were beset by Viet Cong snipers hiding in the jungle. It occurred to him that America was playing the role of the redcoats in this war, while the Cong were the revolutionaries, taking their opportunistic shots and then fading into the bushes.

Atwater was a sort of revolutionary, too. He decided on his own rules of campaigning, and his flummoxed opponents were often caught out in the open, taking fire from all sides. Michael Dukakis, featured in the documentary, still doesn't seem to know what hit him. He might as well have been wearing a red coat when he rode that tank.

Philosophy in All Caps

I don't know much about Russell Brand. I know he was very funny in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and I have the sense that he is famously libertine. But I've just listened to a charming half-hour interview of Brand by Elvis Mitchell, and the discussion is unexpectedly philosophical, with the conversation ranging from the meaning of desire, to one's place in the universe, to celebrity, and finally to love. Mind you, every sentence, every word spoken by Brand is fast and emphatic.

Early on, Mitchell revs things up with a quote from C.S. Lewis, to the effect that one doesn't have a soul; one is a soul, and one has a body. And with that, baby, it's on!

No Relation

I don't know if anyone noticed, but last Thursday's episode of The Office featured a paper salesman named Danny Cordray. Now, how would this show come up with such an odd last name? Maybe one of the show's producers, Randy Cordray, would know.

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This blog's been pretty quiet, but if you have a hankerin' for more of my prose, you can always check out Second-Chance Cinema, my blog about obscure movies.

Animated

This week I had the pleasure of watching The Secret of Kells, the fanciful story of an Irish boy's attempt to protect an illustrated manuscript from Vikings. This is the film that provoked a lot of huh?s when it got an Oscar nomination for animated feature, simply because few people had heard of it. And in the U.S., few ever did. When it finished its theatrical run this July, its total U.S. gross was under $700,000; it never played on more than 36 American screens at the same time.

This is a pity, because it really is a beautiful, delightful film. Maybe DVD sales and rentals will make a bit more money for the movie's backers. I would urge anyone who isn't averse to animation to check it out.

These are good times for animation. The two behemoths, Disney/Pixar and DreamWorks, produce high-quality work; I'm looking forward to catching How to Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3 on DVD later this year. (The latter is predicted by some to get a Best Picture Oscar nomination.) These movies are always well-promoted, as are, usually, offerings from Fox (Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Simpsons Movie) and Focus (Coraline). Disney also distributes features from Studio Ghibli (Ponyo).

But movies like The Secret of Kells are particularly delightful. They are usually in a more venturesome style, and because they're not well-known, they are discoveries, of a sort. Here are a few more:

9 (from Focus Features, but not given a lot of promotion) features a handful of doll-like creatures made of burlap, trying to survive (and trying to understand the meaning of their existence) in a post-Apocalyptic landscape. Very well done.

Sita Sings the Blues tells the story of the Hindu epic, "The Ramayana," accompanied by blues music from the 1920s. It's a gas, and I believe it's still available for free viewing on the Internet.

Waltz with Bashir came out early last year. It uses animation to tackle a tough subject (especially with respect to box office appeal): the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The movie builds to a heart-stopping climax.

Persepolis tells the story of a free-spirited Iranian girl who grew up while Iran was succumbing to rule by intolerant religious leaders.

Igor has a more mainstream look, but it is an independent production (and therefore obscure) about a world where a hunchback dares to dream of a career jump from Lab Assistant to Evil Scientist. If Oscars were given out for voice performances, Jennifer Coolidge would have a statuette on her mantlepiece.

Going back a little further, The Triplets of Belleville is the wonderful, comic story of cyclists on the Tour de France being used for sinister purposes.


And this year there are other promising animated feature films not yet released on DVD.

Idiots and Angels is by the wonderful, eccentric cartoonist Bill Plympton. He's had a few other feature films, but he's best known for his shorts, including the delightful Dog series (Guard Dog, Guide Dog, Hot Dog, and Horn Dog). This latest is the story of a selfish man who grows wings one night and finds himself compulsively doing good deeds.

My Dog Tulip is the animated version of a beloved book and is said to be spectacular to watch.

The Illusionist is based on a never-filmed Jacques Tati screenplay, and is directed by Sylvain Chomet, who also directed The Triplets of Belleville.

Michael Moore: A Love Story

Two types of people should not watch Capitalism: A Love Story: (1) those who get hot under the collar whenver they hear an opinion expressed from the Left (for Michael Moore will truly melt them down); and (2) those who uncritically believe everything they see (for they could finish watching C:ALS dumber than when they started—Moore spouts a fair bit of nonsense). Okay, maybe there's a third type: (3) those put off by big fat slobs (because that describes Moore pretty closely, and I sort of love him for that). Everybody else should check out the documentary; it's eye-opening a lot of fun.

Which is not to say that it's anywhere near a perfect film. You get a smorgasbord of critiques of the way our economy works, some of which are on-the-nose and some of which are, WTF? I can imagine writing Notes to Michael as I watch the picture, like some priggish Hollywood suit.

A recurring thread in the film is the story of the eviction of a blue-collar family from their home. It's pretty infuriating to see a group of sheriff's deputies pry open a house's locked door and force the residents to leave.

Note #1: Michael, I would love to have seen an explanation of how banks set interest rates on their loans, and how much leeway the regulators give them. It seems like they can charge pretty much whatever they want—whatever the market will bear, until the market collapses. Borrowing money while ceding the lender control over interest rates is tantamount to giving away everything you own. Is the Mafia still in business? I can't imagine a mobster nowadays who's scarier than your average bank or credit card company. Okay, this probably is getting boring; I realize you don't want to lose your audience with too many facts. Hey, I'm still watching!

Note #2: those deputies. How about a fantasy sequence where deputies show up at a telemarketing operation and stand over the callers, making sure they aren't using any underhanded sales tactics? Or maybe the deputies go out on the floor of Congress and monitor the speeches for honesty. It's not fair that the guy with the crowbar only shows up at the common man's house. Just a thought.

There's also a section on "dead peasant" insurance, where companies take out insurance policies on their employees' lives. In general, this is a hideous practice. The only logic I can see supporting it is of the "completion bond" variety. (I don't know if that's the right terminology. I'm referring to the insurance a movie producer takes out on the stars during production, since losing the star would be financially disastrous.) But C:ALS documents companies making a killing (if you'll pardon the expression) far out of proportion to the loss they suffer when an employee dies.

Note #3: How does this really work? I mean, insurance companies aren't stupid. If employers are making money with "dead peasant" policies, then the insurance companies must be losing. Is it that the employers know more about their workers' risky lifestyles than the insurance companies do? Or is "dead peasant" insurance just a crapshoot? You do give some examples of companies whose investments in their workers' imminent deaths aren't producing the expected profit.

The film uses Wallace Shawn as an expert on capitalism.

Note #4: Really? Actor and playwright Wallace Shawn? You know what I think? I love it! The guy is both brilliant and down-to-earth. (Anyone who doesn't know this should go out and rent My Dinner with Andre, which is simply a dinner conversation between Shawn and theater director Andre Gregory. Great film, and it demonstrates Shawn's intelligence and rootedness.) Great call!

Then there's the talk about free markets.

Note #5: Michael, this is where you missed the chance to distinguish between free markets and capitalism. Most of us know about the free market. You have various people manufacturing interchangeable products called widgets, and the free market forces these people to compete and offer the public the best price they can. But the first rule for any entrepreneur worth her salt is this: Get away from the free market as soon as you can! Find a niche where no one else is producing a product like yours! Buy out your competitors and form a monopoly! Spend campaign and lobbying dollars to get the legislature to pass laws that favor you and erect barriers to everyone else! The absence of a truly free market is the dominant feature of our capitalist economy.

One of Moore's big themes is capitalism vs. democracy. He asks a museum guard to point out where the Constitution talks about capitalism. Of course there's no such clause. But here is where the documentary is unbalanced. Any sensible expert on the Constitution could explain the protection our form of government gives to the businessman and the property owner. It's not either/or.

Moore uses a couple of corrupt judges as exhibits against capitalism. The judges were bribed by a contractor who provided juvenile detention to send young offenders to their facilities. Sometimes the judges imposed sentences far longer than the prosecutors asked for. The story is truly outrageous, but the judges did eventually go to prison.

Note #6: For this anecdote, I would shift the focus just a little. Privatization is one of the Republican Party's holy words that deserves to be 99% annihilated. Practice has shown that privatization consists of for-profit entities doing government work at higher cost and lower efficiency in order to funnel taxpayer money into the pockets of Republican friends and the campaign treasuries of Republican candidates.

Then there are the stunts. (Sigh.) I am truly tired of scenes of Moore confronting a security guard with his intention to make a citizen's arrest of a corporate honcho, or his empty bags to be filled with money stolen by a corporation. I get it, but the confrontations are a little sad; the security guard probably lunches on bologna or PB&J. It would be cool to see a guard say, "Michael Moore! I love your films, but you can't come in here; our corporate officers don't want to see you." But probably that will never happen, and the security guard harrassment just looks like bullying ... because that's what it is. And yeah, the corporate officers could spare their guards the humiliation by agreeing to an interview. But you shouldn't beat up on the working man just because some scummy CEO hides behind company security. Whoops, I probably should have called that Note #7.

(And I do think back to a previous documentary, where Moore is invited to interview an infirm Charlton Heston and bullies the old man. It's an unpleasant thing to watch, but in retrospect, considering Heston's long affiliation with the NRA—one of our nation's all-time bullies—maybe the old guy had it coming.)

I really intended to be more critical of this documentary than I have ended up being. Stacked up against the absurdities we get from Republicans every day, Moore's distortions often don't seem much more than white lies. My standards have been beaten down by the level of everyday political discourse.

Michael Moore, you lousy bastard: Um, when is your next movie coming out?

For the Mosque

If I had known the party was going to last this long, I would have arrived sooner.

Really, I thought we'd have a few days of politicians demagoguing, and then we'd move on to the next manufactured crisis. Oh, well. For what it's worth:

A few weeks ago, when I heard about the proposed Islamic mosque and community center a few blocks from Ground Zero, a center where the emphasis would be on tolerance and understanding, it was not difficult to form an opinion. Of course we should allow the mosque to be built; in fact, we should welcome it. This was also the reaction of the local authorities and community, along with a commentator on Fox News and probably a lot of other folks. No-brainer.

Then this summer, a few sharp-eyed politicians spotted an angle, a wedge they could pound on to stoke fear and loathing to their advantage. They've paraded a grab-bag of bogeymen: Islam; the leader behind the mosque; the funding for the mosque; the violation of the sanctity of Ground Zero; the hurt feelings of 9/11 survivors.

Sorry folks. My opinion hasn't changed.

You may detect a lack of energy here. Lordy, I feel like I'm having to explain, for the umpteenth time, why it's good to have an open society. This is like going back to school and repeating civics. Some smarter-than-me fifth-grader can probably do a better job, but here goes. (Or you can skip my feeble prose and read William Saletan's articles here, here, here, here, and here.) As I see it, these are the main arguments against the center, with my responses:

Islam is evil. Well, we certainly have no shortage of people making evil use of Islam these days. The Taliban are lopping off noses in Afghanistan. In many theocracies, women are being sentenced to death for not much more than being women. And Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are proclaiming death to anyone who disagrees with their world-view—Muslims, Christians, anyone.

But I would hesitate to assign a religion to perdition based on the horrible behavior of a few of its followers. Fifteen years ago, it would have been Christianity in the dock. Catholic Rwandans and Orthodox Christian Serbs had carried out genocidal campaigns against Christians and Muslims they didn't like. If anyone had pointed to these murderers and claimed that's what Christians were like, we would have marked that person down for a liar or a lunatic.

Likewise, anyone today who points at extremist Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or wherever and claims they represent Islam is seriously disconnected with reality. In Houston, we've lived among Muslims for years with no problem. (Remember that basketball star who used to play for the Rockets?)

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is not to be trusted. Rauf has spent a lot of time building goodwill toward Islam here and abroad, and he hasn't been afraid to condemn extremists. Christopher Hitchens has found a few objectionable utterances, but this is far from showing the man intends to subvert our society.

You just can't trust those Muslims. This is the blanket version of the distrust issue, and today isn't the first times America has cast an entire group under suspicion. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, we rounded up Japanese-Americans and interned them—just as a precaution, mind you. The President was in on this, as were the Supreme Court and most of the rest of the country. Later we realized what a shameful act this was; the Japanese-Americans were overwhelmingly patriotic. And today I have yet to see any evidence that large numbers of American Muslims are out to destroy our country.

The funding for the center is suspicious. As Jon Stewart has pointed out, the funder of the mosque is also a major stakeholder in Fox News. I think this guy's radicalism may be exaggerated.

Ground Zero is sacred. Fortunately, the Islamic center is proposed for two blocks away. And after the center is built and in use (if that happens), I can easily imagine groups of Muslims walking over to Ground Zero and vowing that never again must Islam be used to justify this sort of atrocity.

Since 9/11, a lot of people in Manhattan have a visceral hatred of Muslims; don't aggravate them. Certainly this is a consideration for Rauf and his followers. They may yet decide to go elsewhere so they don't have to deal with the hostility. But if they decide to see the plan through, how can decent Americans oppose them? It's too much like the old days when blacks were discouraged from moving into white neighborhoods, because there were a lot of whites who hated blacks. Many blacks beat a retreat, but a few went forward. And in many cases integration was disruptive, but ultimately a boon for our country. Segregated America needed to be shaken until its damn teeth rattled. And today's sudden irrational fear of Muslims deserves the same treatment.

Hell is Jean-Paul Sartre

Sartre did his share to fan the flames of tiers-mondisme, notably in his inflammatory preface to Fanon's already inflamed book. Against the backdrop of decolonization and the Algerian War, he argued that "to shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone, to destroy an oppressor and the man he oppresses at the same time: there remain a dead man, and a free man." Sartre's later philosophy was tainted by the link between revolutionary violence and authentic self-realization. In his view, acts of violence committed by the oppressed represent instances of existential self-affirmation: they serve both to eliminate the oppressor and to disrupt the psychology of oppression. In a world where class injustice is rampant, Sartre deemed violence on the part of the oppressed to be inherently "moral," just as colonial violence was intrinsically immoral. Such simplistic oppositions and views became a trademark of Sartre's later "phenomenology of liberation." As late as 1973, at the height of his pro-Chinese phase, Sartre observed crudely that the Jacobin dictatorship failed because its leaders did not kill enough people.

—from "The Counter-Thinker," by Richard Wolin, a review of Pascal Bruckner's book, The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism, in the August 12 New Republic.