Being in full agreement with Swanstep’s earlier post, allow me to chime in. (Brilliant post btw, Swanstep, very pertinent and accurate arguments. Thank you for the solid read.)
How do you reconcile a remark like that with the fact that roughly 21% of Israel's more than eight million citizens are Arabs, and those Arabs serve on the Israeli Knesset and in the Israeli military?
Not for Israel’s lack of trying, considering that back in 1947-48 the population in Palestine was 2/3 Arab and 1/3 Jewish. If you want to talk about Arab representation in the Knesset, you might want to mention that only about 13 out of 120 Knesset members are Arab citizens (at least as of 2011). You might also want to mention that Arab representatives often find themselves under police investigation or are beaten by Israeli forces during demonstrations. And you might also want to mention that those who perform military duty (you are referring to the Druze population, I believe?) are not exempt from discrimination.
That an Arab in the State of Israel has more rights than he does in any other country in the Middle East?
Your comparison is irrelevant. Israel is the state that claims to be a democracy. When referring to the rights of Arab citizens in the state of Israel, one should compare them to the rights of the other citizens in the same state. And no, Arab citizens do not have the same rights as Jewish citizens. There are about 50 discriminatory laws against Arab citizens inside the borders of Israel and, of course, the situation is worse in the West Bank, where Palestinians live under military rule.
You can argue that Israel is a democracy for the Jewish people, but you cannot argue that it is a democracy for everyone living in Israel. That is simply not true.
Regarding your other points, the same can be said. As far as worship goes, access to mosques is often restricted (virtually every single Friday there’s got to be some altercation at al-Aqsa, which may seem an isolated incident at first, but if one follows it for a while, it is soon revealed to be incitement from the Israeli forces, baiting the Palestinians in hopes that conflict will arise). And Arab women – as well as men – have difficulty finding any jobs because of the lack of military service (a requirement from most employers wishing to hire only Israeli Jews).
According to the terrorist organization Hamas (the only source of data we have available to us, God help us all) IDF reprisals have claimed 2000 Palestinian lives, but Israel could have gone in and taken 200,000 lives if it wanted to. Or two million.
But it didn't.
Israel has already been declared a terrorist state (by Bolivia) and many countries (particularly South-American ones) have severed their relations with Israel. Millions of people all over the world have put pressure on their governments to do the same (there have been numerous demonstrations, with hundreds of thousands of people marching in support of Palestine) and – failing that – there is the boycott of Israeli products that every person can do on their own. The BDS movement has gained a lot of momentum in the past few years and it will only continue to do so.
That is the reason why Israel stopped its offensive. Had it continued and – as you suggest – killed 200,000 or two million people, its political isolation would have been complete, as no country would have afforded to be associated with this abomination.
Remember the Sinai Desert, which Israel gave back to Egypt in 1978 -- or doesn't that count for anything? And how about Gaza in 2005?
How about Gaza, indeed? The 2005 disengagement was quite the media circus. Now, for some context. Around 8,500 settlers were removed – plenty of notice, transport provided, new accommodations waiting for them, plus the aforementioned media coverage. Now, in the first ten months of 2004, about 13,350 Palestinians were made homeless – no notice (families often had no time to gather their belongings; if they did not move immediately, they risked being arrested or shot), no media coverage and, of course, no compensation.
Most importantly, Gaza continues to be under occupation. Israel continues its blockade on Gaza – land, air, sea – as it has done for the past almost eight years now, exercising full control over its borders. Not having soldiers on the ground does not mean not occupying a land (if that is what you were trying to imply).
So Israel is a country that gives up land for peace...
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/8/31/bethlehem-israelconfis cates.html [Take out the space. For some reason, imdb won't let me edit it out.]
I’m just going to leave that there. (For anyone unfamiliar with the situation, this is the norm, not the exception. A quick look at a map of illegal settlement expansion over the years should give you an idea as to what I mean.)
grants full rights of citizenship to Israeli Arabs,
We’ve established that that’s a lie, yes…
and shows tremendous restraint in its reprisals against enemy rocket fire.
Aaand that is a Zionist talking point not even worth addressing. If you genuinely believe what you just wrote, that massacring over 2,000 people and wounding over 11,000 is showing restraint, that people resisting an illegal occupation constitute “enemy rocket fire” and Israel’s offensive is a “reprisal”… If you genuinely believe that, quite frankly I don’t think there’s much hope for you.
I'm sure you'd agree that this is hardly the behavior of a country interested in "ethnic cleansing."
I would agree that this is hardly the behaviour of a country proclaiming itself a democracy. I would also agree that it is consistent with the behaviour of a settler-colonialist state founded through a process of ethnic cleansing, which practises apartheid (extremely obvious right down to the segregated roads in the West Bank). But that is the extent of my agreement on this matter.
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filmklassik
10 years ago
So much to respond to, and so little time. But let's start with a few remarks that fairly beg to be examined with greater scrutiny. For example, when I pointed out that:
"An Arab in the State of Israel has more rights than he does in any other country in the Middle East?"
You said this:
Your comparison is irrelevant. Israel is the state that claims to be a democracy.
Thanks for acknowledging that Israel's neighbors are anything but democratic. Then you go on to point out that --
...many countries (particularly South-American ones) have severed their relations with Israel. Millions of people all over the world have put pressure on their governments to do the same (there have been numerous demonstrations, with hundreds of thousands of people marching in support of Palestine) and – failing that – there is the boycott of Israeli products that every person can do on their own. The BDS movement has gained a lot of momentum in the past few years and it will only continue to do so.
-- which begs the question of which OTHER countries in the Middle East have "millions of people all over the world" applied pressure on their governments to sever ties with?
If one really cares for the welfare of Palestinians... then, in addition to Israel, why not ALSO call for a boycott of Lebanon where Palestinians are not allowed to own land, hold government posts, or even live outside camps?
Is there a BDS movement in regards to Lebanon?
No? Why not?
And in addition to Israel, why not a boycott of Kuwait, which threw all of its Palestinians out after Arafat sided with Saddam Hussein in the occupation of Kuwait?
Or why not a boycott of Egypt which only intermittently allows the border with Gaza to be opened?
Why not a boycott of Jordan which is taking citizenship AWAY from its Palestinians?
Did you hear that? Jordan is STRIPPING PALESTINIANS OF THEIR CITIZENSHIP! Is there any BDS movement right now in regards to Jordan?
No? Hmmm. Why not?
Is there one in regards to Turkey for its recent massive bombing of the Kurds?
Is there one in regards to Saudi Arabia where to openly practice as a Christian is a crime, and where women may be flogged for driving a car?
Pretty inhumane, no?
Pretty barbaric.
Not to mention twisted and dehumanizing.
So, any BDS movement in regards to the Saudis?
No?
Okay, how about Syria, with its 200 thousand dead so far and counting?
Two hundred thousand.
No?
No BDS movement against any of those countries.
Only against Israel, huh?
Only against the Jewish State.
Why do you think that is?
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M_Lane
10 years ago
Thanks for acknowledging that Israel's neighbors are anything but democratic.
Stating anything suggesting total democracy would be misleading and I have no interest in doing that – when you lie, you lose credibility. Now, the point I was making in my original statement – which I am making now and will spell out for your convenience – is that Israel’s neighbours are nowhere near the level of hypocrisy found in Israel. Also, if Israel claims to be a democracy, it will be judged by the standards expected of any democracy. (If you try to twist someone’s words, try finding someone whose grasp of the English language isn’t so good.)
As for the rest of your post – I see you can’t address any of the points I made (I know you can’t, because everything is double-checked and based on fact, and while you might be able to argue about interpretation, the facts remain the same), so you go into a histrionic rant along the typical lines, “Everyone does it, so why are you picking on Israel?” Also good, of course, is to throw in or imply anti-semitism. Damn, you’re a textbook case. Congrats!
Now, for anyone wondering why the boycott on Israel – very simple: Israel is the recipient of massive funding from the US (over $3 billion every year in military aid alone), as well as many other Western countries (think arms trade, in particular).
Every person with a conscience will refuse to have their tax money directly or indirectly fund Israel’s terrorism and apartheid, hence the BDS and putting pressure on their respective governments to sever their ties with this state.
And again, the problem with Israel’s unlawful behaviour (and that of its fanatical Zionist supporters) is chronic. It is not an incident that happened once, as a result of a certain political climate (which is no excuse for unlawful behaviour, but would be easier to manage in terms of PR and reparations). The Nakba – the catastrophe, this process of ethnic cleansing of Palestine – is an ongoing process. It. Never. Stopped. For almost 70 years, it has been happening – not as overtly as in 1947-48 and '67, due to social media and the global public outcry and, to a certain extent, external political pressure, but it has never stopped. That, together with all the Israeli policies geared towards this purpose, is quite horrifying. And it needs to stop (or be stopped, whichever works).
P.S.: Take whatever time you need in replying, there is no hurry. I am notoriously bad at replying to people and would not hold another to a higher standard than I do myself.
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filmklassik
10 years ago
if Israel claims to be a democracy, it will be judged by the standards expected of any democracy.
In other words, the way to avoid global censure is to simply declare oneself an authoritarian regime and then- voila!- you get to hang gays from construction cranes and beat women for kissing a man out of wedlock and criminalize the practice of Juadiasm and Christianity to your heart's content... because you never CLAIMED to be fair in the first place!
That's about the lamest justification for a double-standard I have ever heard in my life.
What you're really saying to Israel, then, is this:
"Dear, Israel -- Even though women, gays and lesbians enjoy equal rights in your country and freedom of religion is guaranteed for all, we are STILL going to sever ties with you and not with your enemies, because we expect so much less from them. You're just going to have to deal with an odious double-standard. Get used to it.
Love,
The World"
Or, to put it another way:
"Here are the rules, folks: If you claim to be civilized and turn out to be less-than-perfect, we are going to boycott you and sever all ties with you. But if you claim to be tyrannical, misogynistic and homophobic, well, you can do whatever the hell you want. Go crazy. We won't say a word."
Yeah, makes sense to me. Not ridiculous at all.
Moving on...
...for anyone wondering why the boycott on Israel – very simple: Israel is the recipient of massive funding from the US (over $3 billion every year in military aid alone)
Ah. So it's the fact that Israel receives so much aid from the United States that bothers you so much. And yet... you and your ilk are boycotting the country RECEIVING all the aid and not the country offering it.
Interesting.
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M_Lane
10 years ago
In other words, the way to avoid global censure is to simply declare oneself an authoritarian regime and then- voila!- you get to hang gays from construction cranes and beat women for kissing a man out of wedlock and criminalize the practice of Juadiasm and Christianity to your heart's content... because you never CLAIMED to be fair in the first place!
That shows a lesser degree of hypocrisy, yes. Hypocrisy was the topic of that paragraph. Keep up!
That's about the lamest justification for a double-standard I have ever heard in my life.
If you want to talk about double standards, we can talk about the fact that Israel has broken 66 UN resolutions and there has been no consequence. Iraq broke two and was invaded and bombed. Allow me to expand. Let’s take Resolution 194 (the refugees’ right of return). From 1948 to 2000, it was reaffirmed 135 times and was ignored each time by Israel. The wording of that resolution and others is strikingly similar to the 1990 one, which demanded that Saddam Hussein withdraw from Kuwait. When he failed to do so, he was attacked. Oops.
What is even more disturbing is that Israel regularly ignores UN resolutions, yet it is rewarded by the US (and also Britain). In 2003, Israel asked the US for $8 billion in loan guarantees. They sent Amos Yaron to negotiate this (he was the military commander in Beirut, 1982, when the Sabra and Shatila massacre took place, which the UN declared an act of genocide). Aaand the funds were granted.
What you're really saying to Israel, then, is this:
"Dear, Israel -- Even though women, gays and lesbians enjoy equal rights in your country and freedom of religion is guaranteed for all, we are STILL going to sever ties with you
Because no amount of pinkwashing will excuse/justify/annul the severity of Israel’s documented human rights crimes and war crimes, ranging from genocide and ethnic cleansing to apartheid.
(…) if you claim to be tyrannical, misogynistic and homophobic, well, you can do whatever the hell you want. Go crazy. We won't say a word."
With regards to this comparison to the other countries in the Middle East that you appear to be stuck on, I have already stated in my previous post that circumstance is no excuse for unlawful behaviour. Furthermore, there very clearly have been consequences (see the Iraq example above). I will ask you again to please keep up.
Everything else in your post, I have already addressed and bolded in my previous reply. I have no need to recycle it. Go back, read it again. If you still have questions, go read it and pay attention to the words that were not bolded. And just to be safe, read it once more!
While you may be complacent in empty rhetoric, I am more interested in facts. On that note, thank you for giving me the opportunity to present some facts regarding Israel and Palestine.
Regarding our exchange, however, I will remind you that you have previously expressed disagreement, but failed to substantiate it. If it makes it easier for you, I will gladly make a numbered list, so you can address my points instead of taking a sentence or two out of context and trying to twist it to suit whatever logic you follow. Maybe that way, we could have a meaningful dialogue going. :)
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filmklassik
10 years ago
Jesus. So much sophistry to justify your own personal acrimony toward the most pro-gay, pro-female, pro-religiously pluralistic country in that part of the world... and your blank indifference toward the others.
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nickm2
10 years ago
I got him on 'ignore', but I'm sure he won't care until a 'fundy' drags a blade across his throat & then he'll probably still wonder why they're so angry with him....
Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?
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filmklassik
10 years ago
To be a Progressive means willfully ignoring facts or patterns of behavior that threaten to puncture the Utopian air bubble that you're living in.
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M_Lane
10 years ago
I got him on 'ignore', but I'm sure he won't care until a 'fundy' drags a blade across his throat & then he'll probably still wonder why they're so angry with him....
I would not recommend it, but “if either of us ever sees Lebanon again, you may try at your convenience.” (Massive brownie points for whoever gets it; I just had to.)
Well, Gentlemen (Ladies?), adding anything more at this point would be overkill. Thanks for the interaction and have a good day.
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ecarle
8 years ago
Man did this thread go places. The Middle East will never be an easy topic; all the more reason "Black Sunday" remains amazing to me that it was made when it was made.
I still think it is the unsung great movie of 1977.
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telegonus
8 years ago
My take, EC, (hi, btw, ) really takes, on Black Sunday not becoming a hit: for one thing it probably came out a year or two too late for the kind of movie it was. Marathon Man was as perfect for 1976 as Jaws was for the previous year, Chinatown for the year before that, The Sting and The Exorcist for the year prior to that. As we've discussed so many times before, and to reiterate: timing is everything.
Why, is the question logical question, as to 1977 being so wrong for Black Sunday. The short answer is that it was too sophisticated a movie for its genre, which was sort the spy thriller or international intrigue genre, at the high end of which Marathon Man was. That movie was, like Black Sunday, intelligent and gripping; and it featured that early to mid-70s miracle we've also talked about a lot regarding movies of the period: people acting and talking like grownups.
That was starting to ebb in the still nascent era of the action blockbuster, the crowd pleasing movie of the sort young directors like Steven Spielberg were masters of, whether summer or Christmas season,--the time of year matters less than the approach--and Black Sunday was a far cry from a Spielberg flick. Or a Lucas one. Two of the many factors in its excellence, its willingness to respect the movie audience's intelligence, and a willingness to, now and again, examine human nature with depth, which is to say maturity.
The previous year's Rocky was showing the way moviegoers really wanted to go: easy to identify, mostly inarticulate, uneducated characters; little or no psychological ambiguity; and language that didn't send to viewer running to the dictionary or thesaurus. From the same year as Black Sunday came the highly popular Smokey And The Bandit. To call it a dumb movie is too miss the point, the reasons for its success. It wasn't dumb, it just wasn't trying to explore the complexities of the human condition. Black Sunday did, if not literally addressing issues, often by implication,--knowing glances, bits of dialogue--that suggested that there was even more going on beneath the surface. Movie audiences wanted less, not more, and thanks to those 1976-78 blockbusters, that's what they got.
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ecarle
7 years ago
My take, EC, (hi, btw, )
---
Great to see you here, telegonus.
I suppose I'm all "stuck" on the board for "that other movie," but I find it my home base to talk about practically anything.
Meanwhile, my quick brush-up on posts I wanted to re-visit brought me here. And YOU here. Maybe I can find a few others that strike your fancy. "That other movie" is really almost at its end of talk. Except when new folks show up.
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really takes, on Black Sunday not becoming a hit:
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A pleasure to read!
--
for one thing it probably came out a year or two too late for the kind of movie it was. Marathon Man was as perfect for 1976 as Jaws was for the previous year, Chinatown for the year before that, The Sting and The Exorcist for the year prior to that. As we've discussed so many times before, and to reiterate: timing is everything.
---
Absolutely. I will note (again, I think it is in my OP), that Chinatown, Marathon Man, and Black Sunday were all produced by ambitious Paramount CHIEF Robert Evans(he cut a deal to "produce on the side.") And all three of Evans' big productions across 74, 76, and 77 were, in different ways: thrillers. Expensive thrillers. With important directors (Polanski, Scheslinger, Frankenheimer.) With expensive and IMPORTANT stars.
Jack(Chinatown) and Dusty(Marathon Man) were "prestige stars," but surely Robert Shaw in Black Sunday had that "Jaws" thing going for him. Robert Evans -- as a studio chief -- knew that such casting would make these "event films." Marathon Man had the biggest deal cast: Dusty AND Laurence Olivier AND a Jaws star(Roy Scheider.)
----
Why, is the question logical question, as to 1977 being so wrong for Black Sunday. The short answer is that it was too sophisticated a movie for its genre, which was sort the spy thriller or international intrigue genre, at the high end of which Marathon Man was. That movie was, like Black Sunday, intelligent and gripping; and it featured that early to mid-70s miracle we've also talked about a lot regarding movies of the period: people acting and talking like grownups.
---
Your paragraph above is buttressed, hopefully, by mine above yours. I guess we can note that Robert Evans bought great scripts from major screenwriters, as well, for these movies. Robert Towne on Chinatown; William Goldman on MM(from his novel); and Ernest Lehman(!) as a co-writer of Black Sunday.
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That was starting to ebb in the still nascent era of the action blockbuster, the crowd pleasing movie of the sort young directors like Steven Spielberg were masters of, whether summer or Christmas season,--the time of year matters less than the approach--and Black Sunday was a far cry from a Spielberg flick. Or a Lucas one.
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"Fraid so. Black Sunday might well have hit nice and big in '73 or '74. Though the blimp deal did get some dissing as too "disaster movie-ish"(which it was, and wasn't.)
Note in passing: Black Sunday was originally scheduled for Christmas 1976, but ended up out at Easter 1977...I figure Paramount figured they didn't really have a genre blockbuster on their hands. (Though producer Evans swore some distributors told him "This will be bigger than Jaws!" Wrote Evans..."it wasn't bigger than my jaw."
So Black Sunday missed getting wiped out by Star Wars(May 1977) but really wasn't the right movie for '77. Neither was Sorcerer, by William "Exorcist/French Connection" Friedkin, which WAS flattened by Star Wars.
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Two of the many factors in its excellence, its willingness to respect the movie audience's intelligence, and a willingness to, now and again, examine human nature with depth, which is to say maturity.
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Well, its problem, noted some critics, was that the film felt the need to explain the terrorists with some understanding, if not compassion. And to posit the heroes as too ruthless. (This line I just wrote has and could trigger a whole new battle. I hope not.)
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The previous year's Rocky was showing the way moviegoers really wanted to go: easy to identify, mostly inarticulate, uneducated characters; little or no psychological ambiguity; and language that didn't send to viewer running to the dictionary or thesaurus.
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There ye go. Though -- this ONE time -- screenwriter Sly Stallone actually wrote with some depth and characterization that helped lift Rocky up.
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From the same year as Black Sunday came the highly popular Smokey And The Bandit. To call it a dumb movie is too miss the point, the reasons for its success. It wasn't dumb, it just wasn't trying to explore the complexities of the human condition. Black Sunday did, if not literally addressing issues, often by implication,--knowing glances, bits of dialogue--that suggested that there was even more going on beneath the surface. Movie audiences wanted less, not more, and thanks to those 1976-78 blockbusters, that's what they got.
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Well, let's face it: life can be very hard, and people sometimes just want to laugh, or to get that happy ending. Smokey hit huge because(among other things) it was happy. The "gloom and doom cinema" of the 70's was being shown the door, or at least kicked over to the "Oscar bait" division.
Black Sunday had a happy ending -- the blimp didn't kill everybody at the Super Bowl(though maybe it crushed a FEW fans) -- and the heroes saved the day. But there was something unsettling about the REALITY of the plot, the who, the why...and the fact that this COULD happen. And it did. 24 years later.
A pleasure you dropped by telegonus.
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telegonus
7 years ago
Thanks, as always, EC .
Black Sunday had all the the makings of a blockbuster but it just didn't make it. Maybe there were too many juxtapositions as to casting. Offbeat casting can surely work, and some of the best movies of all feature a lot of it, but as with a certain kind of food, an exotic dish, something that takes hours, maybe days, to get just right, so does a movie that hits what might appear on the surface to be discordant notes have to look and sound grand when it's on the big screen.
Our old friend Mr. Hitchcock was masterful at this, with his odd mixing of types, especially in his American films. Think of different the players,--all of the principal ones, not just the stars--of Saboteur, Shadow Of A Doubt and Lifeboat! Yet in each case the casting works, and it works beautifully. Hitchcock's 50s films got more consistent, mostly due to his growing prestige. The casts of Rear Window and Vertigo don't strike any discordant notes.
Psycho is a bit different, with Perkins, Leigh, Miles and Gavin more or less cut from the same cloth generationally if not as types; and yet the players they interact with are more "old Hollywood" or central casting for television, whether it's Vaughn Taylor or John Anderson, Lurene Tuttle or Simon Oakland. Nearly all of them would turn up on either Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone or both.
Black Sunday had maybe too much of this for one movie to handle. Some might view it as Zionist propaganda. On the surface, ridiculous, but Jews and Israel figure in the story, so there you have it. Robert Shaw was a good fit with Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider in Jaws, maybe not so good with Fritz Weaver and Marthe Keller and Bruce Dern. The offbeat casting of Marathon Man worked, however that one, while it featured a few scenes set abroad, was centered on New York City, was almost old-fashioned that way, while Black Sunday moves around more, is more jumpy. Also, it's difficult to feel much for its characters, who serve the plot, seem to have less in the way of lives of their own than those of Marathon Man, or Jaws, for that matter.
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ecarle
7 years ago
Black Sunday had all the the makings of a blockbuster
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As I noted, Robert Evans had been told by some theater distributors that he had the next "Jaws" on his hands. I can certainly vouch that its final half hour is massively exciting and exhilarating -- right up until the blimp actually crashes into the stadium and much is lost in "cheater" shots of nothing much happening.
--- but it just didn't make it.
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Nope. One of the most exciting climaxes I've ever seen in my life at the movies -- and all for naught.
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Maybe there were too many juxtapositions as to casting. Offbeat casting can surely work, and some of the best movies of all feature a lot of it, but as with a certain kind of food, an exotic dish, something that takes hours, maybe days, to get just right, so does a movie that hits what might appear on the surface to be discordant notes have to look and sound grand when it's on the big screen.
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That's a sophisticated paragraph that takes us, I think beyond the solid statement (made by Coppola, Kubrick, Hitchcock and Huston, to name a few) that the right casting is key to a great movie. But "right" casting can be its own tricky mix.
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Our old friend Mr. Hitchcock
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WE know him from other boards, and those visiting a Black Sunday board should get to know him. Though indeed, the screenwriter of North by Northwest and Family Plot(Ernest Lehman) co-wrote this baby.
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was masterful at this, with his odd mixing of types, especially in his American films. Think of different the players,--all of the principal ones, not just the stars--of Saboteur, Shadow Of A Doubt and Lifeboat!
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Your noting of those films reminds me that Hitchocck said, somewhere, "You don't get much latitude in casting your leading man or woman, so I try to make the difference in the casting of the supporting character players."
Intriguingly, the three films you picked above weren't much dominated by "major stars." No Cary Grant or James Stewart here. To some extent, the entire CASTS were character players, with folks like Bob Cummings, John Hodiak, Teresa Wright, and even the wild Tallulah Bankhead elevated to star positions when they were not yet stars. And perhaps thus, Hitchcock could surround them with all those other interestingly cast players and types (Hitchcock was big on "ensemble movies" when he could be. Grant and Bergman dominate Notorious; but Lifeboat and The Trouble With Harry and Psycho and Topaz and Frenzy split the star parts among everybody.)
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Yet in each case the casting works, and it works beautifully. Hitchcock's 50s films got more consistent, mostly due to his growing prestige. The casts of Rear Window and Vertigo don't strike any discordant notes.
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Part of what happened for Hitchcock is that as he got more famous, he could get more actors to say "yes." For awhile. When he declined, they were hard to find.
I am intrigued that three films in a row -- Torn Curtain, Topaz, and Frenzy -- eschewed "the usual American support players" and filled in with German, British, French and Scandinavian actors. These were almost "foreign films," even though Paul Newman and Julie Andrews were in one.
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Psycho is a bit different, with Perkins, Leigh, Miles and Gavin more or less cut from the same cloth generationally if not as types; and yet the players they interact with are more "old Hollywood" or central casting for television, whether it's Vaughn Taylor or John Anderson, Lurene Tuttle or Simon Oakland. Nearly all of them would turn up on either Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone or both.
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Well said, but what of My Man Martin Balsam? Well, he certainly showed up on The Twilight Zone and other fifties/sixties TV , but he rather "split between the generations" in Psycho. Balsam was 40 when he played Arbogast, older than the four young leads and at least ACTING younger than John Anderson(who was, I think 39!) and legitimately older actors like John McIntire and Frank Albertson. I'm mashing things up here a bit. Balsam and Simon Oakland were contemporaries, and you mention Oakland. Perhaps I should say "never mind," but you maybe get my point. Between the old-timers in support and the young us in the leads, Balsam and Oakland carried the ball for middle-age.
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Black Sunday had maybe too much of this for one movie to handle.
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Well -- and this was in the novel too -- here we have a movie where the Palestinan terrorists enlist an AMERICAN Viet Nam vet psychopath(Bruce Dern, more on him anon) for the "bad guy team." It took some heavy lifting to convince us that Dern could crack and join the terrorists (its the sexual seductions of Marthe Keller that do it, I guess, but we never see the whacked out Dern have sex with her, so we have to take it on faith.)
Meanwhile, we have Robert Shaw his sidekick as Israelis on American soil, and a villainous Japanese ship captain...its a tricky cast to get right, and geopolitics are dangerous to portray.
--
Some might view it as Zionist propaganda. On the surface, ridiculous, but Jews and Israel figure in the story, so there you have it.
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Well, this board gets into these issues and as for me, I can't.
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Robert Shaw was a good fit with Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider in Jaws, maybe not so good with Fritz Weaver and Marthe Keller and Bruce Dern.
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I think Robert Evans felt that Black Sunday needed too much budget for the big action and globe-trotting to assemble too many all-stars. He said at the time, "the entire main cast of Black Sunday cost less than just Dustin Hoffman on Marathon Man." Robert Shaw had some stardom from Jaws, and a little from The STing, but he'd been around a long time, and superstardom was a tough fit for him(and a short one, he died of a heart attack just a few years after Black Sunday made him run all over the place.)
As for Bruce Dern. Well, that poor guy. He'd fought his way up, movie by movie, credit by credit, role by role, to FINALLY be considered an "above the title movie star," but it just didn't hold. Hitchcock's Family Plot felt too low budget and minor for Dern to shine as a star(and he was, relatively, the good guy in that one.) "Black Sunday" was probably his biggest movie, budget wise, and Dern looks great in it, and his performance as "a psycho you could feel sad for" was good and well-reviewed.
But Dern had little real "star power." One year later, he got his Oscar-nominated role(as a bad guy of sorts) in the Vietnam War homefront film "Coming Home"(stars Fonda and Voight won; Dern did not) and..the star career was pretty much over. Nice to see Dern honored I recent years though, as a crack character guy , in "Nebraska" and "The Hateful Eight."
Marthe Keller seemed an afterthought, leftover from "Marathon Man" and here playing a Palestinian with a German accent. Huh?
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The offbeat casting of Marathon Man worked, however that one, while it featured a few scenes set abroad, was centered on New York City, was almost old-fashioned that way, while Black Sunday moves around more, is more jumpy. Also, it's difficult to feel much for its characters, who serve the plot, seem to have less in the way of lives of their own than those of Marathon Man, or Jaws, for that matter.
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Well, ultimately Black Sunday is about that final half hour of action excitement and the story in front of that climax really just builds to it. Marathon Man has other, episodic things to do(like torture Hoffman with dental tools) -- and it is heading for a so-so (and compromised) fight between Lil' ol' Laurence Oliver and mumbling Dustin Hoffman --- so it relies on plot and character to get there. "Thinks I."
Its rather the same with Jaws. The climactic scenes of Jaws are actually rather "small scale" compared to the blimp attack in Black Sunday. We got crucial time to get to know Scheider and his family, Shaw(his great USS Indinapolis speech) and, somewhat Dreyfuss(from a rich family, made his own fortune.) Its the "shock suspense killings" in the first half of Jaws that set up the excitements of the second half. The ocean becomes a "zone of danger": jump in or fall in, you're in mortal danger the second you GO in...
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telegonus
7 years ago
Thanks for the response, EC. What you wrote about Marathon Man and Black Sunday: what more can I add? Well, a few things: Marathon Man was a primarily Eurocentric film, concerned with European issues as they pertain to Americans and as such it had a kind of built in,--not sure trope is the right word for it, maybe groove--that the more international feeling Black Sunday didn't have. There was an "old familiar song" aspect to the picture, not in the way it was made, which was very angst-laden 1970s, but in the kinds of people it was about, even the Americans; in the jewelry district, the Blacklist back story.
Black Sunday was also I think maybe more "mass marketed", and I'm using those words as they pertain more to publishing and the book trade, which I've worked in, in its being pitched to a broader audience. One might say that Marathon Man was like a hot hardcover best seller, Black Sunday a literally mass market paperback, the same size as books by Danielle Steele, Stephen King and Len Deighton when they go paperback. It may have been, indeed was, a big budgeted movie, but it had a kind of exploitation style marketing closer to that of a disaster picture like The Towering Inferno and Earthquake.
Grand as its ending was, that's how it was set up. The blimp was the earthquake, the raging fire, thus the blimp at the stadium near the end may well have been too little too late as to being the movie's "payoff". The appeal of Jaws was more amorphous, full of "ominous unease", it held the attention of the average moviegoer. Marathon Man was smartly written, well cast and also was an intelligent, well made movie, and was marketed as such. Assuming that Black Sunday got at least some of its intended disaster flick happy audience I think that it could be that word of mouth killed it, or hurt it anyway. That the advertising, what I remember of it, was more "visceral" than that for Marathon Man may well have kept away more sophisticated moviegoers who may well have enjoyed it and whose word of mouth might have saved it.
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ecarle
7 years ago
Thanks for the response, EC. What you wrote about Marathon Man and Black Sunday: what more can I add?
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Belatedly, I return to say: a lot!
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Well, a few things: Marathon Man was a primarily Eurocentric film, concerned with European issues as they pertain to Americans and as such it had a kind of built in,--not sure trope is the right word for it, maybe groove--that the more international feeling Black Sunday didn't have. There was an "old familiar song" aspect to the picture, not in the way it was made, which was very angst-laden 1970s, but in the kinds of people it was about, even the Americans; in the jewelry district, the Blacklist back story.
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Marathon Man benefitted from being "about something" -- the coming to roost of Nazi-era conflicts (and one REAL, old Nazi) in modern-day 70's America, with the issues of Jewish identity and the side-trip to a Blacklist back story(which had its own Jewish-elements -- many Jewish actors and writers were blacklisted.)
The film even opens with Nazi/Jewish conflict, as two old men commit to a drag race through NYC streets that kills them both. Turns out one man was a Nazi and the other a Concentration camp survivor -- and we're off.
In the story, Jewish Dustin Hoffman's Jewish father committed suicide because of the Blacklist, and his Jewish brother(macho Roy Scheider) is a spy who is killed by Old Nazi Laurence Olivier. Which leads to this climactic insult of Hoffman by Olivier even as Hoffman is holding a gun ON Olivier:
"Your father was weak in his way, your brother in his -- and now you in yours."
None of this is true, but in the eyes of the hardened Old Nazi Olivier, it is his way to try to goad Hoffman into a fight and kill him with a hidden spring-knife(Marathon Man postulates that even a frail old man can be deadly with the right secret weapon.)
Now, Marathon Man had other things to sell -- principally the horrifying (but not graphic) central "torture by dental tools" of Hoffman by Olivier (my theater had walk-outs) -- and its "North by Northwest meets Psycho" spy chase framework with brutal violence interspersed.
But the Jewish issues within Marathon Man -- including that great scene where Nazi Olivier must enter the Jewish jewelry district among his former victims -- kept it important. (In that scene, Olivier uses his spring-blade knife to kill the guy who played the Nazi butler in Hitchcock's "Saboteur," btw.)
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Black Sunday was also I think maybe more "mass marketed", and I'm using those words as they pertain more to publishing and the book trade, which I've worked in,
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You are no doubt good in that trade, telegonus. I can sense it.
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in its being pitched to a broader audience. One might say that Marathon Man was like a hot hardcover best seller, Black Sunday a literally mass market paperback, the same size as books by Danielle Steele, Stephen King and Len Deighton when they go paperback. It may have been, indeed was, a big budgeted movie, but it had a kind of exploitation style marketing closer to that of a disaster picture like The Towering Inferno and Earthquake.
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I thought the trailer for "Black Sunday" was very exciting, moving the story along to the climax of the blimp entering the stadium and then "cutting off." But I must admit a heard a few laughs at the blimp, and I do recall that "Black Sunday" got lumped in with the disaster movie craze, which was bad for it because...there's no disaster until the very end, and since the blimp DOESN'T explode its lethal steel dart bomb, there isn't much of a disaster.
The excitement is really in the cross-cutting between Dern and Keller in the blimp and Shaw and Weaver in the pursuing helicopter, which reaches a Hitchcock/Perils of Pauline climax with the dying Dern desperately trying to light the bomb fuse as Shaw (hanging onto the side of the blimp) desperately tries to attach a skyhook to the blimp to carry it away.
But that's not disaster movie excitement.
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Grand as its ending was, that's how it was set up. The blimp was the earthquake, the raging fire, thus the blimp at the stadium near the end may well have been too little too late as to being the movie's "payoff".
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Agreed. I felt so when I saw the film. But as an action thriller, the movie had some set-pieces en route: the opening raid on a Palestinan camp; a speedboat chase; and -- most memorably -- a scene in which a terrorist was pursued on foot through the streets of Miami Beach as he shot and killed his way through FBI agents and innocent bystander hostages in a chilling "terror comes to US shores" sequence.
None of which had disaster movie fantasy appeal.
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The appeal of Jaws was more amorphous, full of "ominous unease", it held the attention of the average moviegoer.
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I have two takes on Jaws as a suspense blockbuster.
TAKE ONE: Like Psycho 15 years before it, the film established a "zone of danger" within which victims MIGHT die, and sometimes DID die, but the suspense was in which would happen. In Psycho, that's the Bates Mansion. In Jaws, its...the ocean.
TAKE TWO: Jaws splits right in half. Part One is a Hitchcock Movie about innocent victims getting sudden-death killed(and eaten) by the shark. Part Two is a Hawksian sea-faring adventure about Three Men in a Boat chasing the shark and facing it down to death.
Add in the great characterizations of the three men hunting the shark and slather it all in John Williams spectacular scare movie score(the second most famous to Psycho) and...success. Even WITHOUT disaster movie tropes (though some critics did include Jaws in that genre -- The Towering Inferno had come out only six months before.)
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Marathon Man was smartly written, well cast and also was an intelligent, well made movie, and was marketed as such.
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All true. In Dustin Hoffman, the film had one of the highly-sought "prestige stars" (Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino were others, with DeNiro on their tail) whose very casting told us: "This is an important movie." Then they threw in Laurence Olivier, the greatest stage actor of...modern times?..and a respected film actor as well. Then they added a freshly minted new star from Jaws(Roy Scheider.) Then they brought in a "hot" guy named William Devane(he'd just played JFK in The Missiles of October) who had star potential. And a pretty girl (Marthe Keller.) Hah.
The director was John Schlesinger, an Oscar winner for "Midnight Cowboy."
Screenwriter William Goldman had an Oscar for "Butch Cassidy" and would get one for his OTHER Dustin Hoffman 1976 movie "All the President's Men."
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Assuming that Black Sunday got at least some of its intended disaster flick happy audience I think that it could be that word of mouth killed it, or hurt it anyway.
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Probably. Its a long way to that blimp ride.
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That the advertising, what I remember of it, was more "visceral" than that for Marathon Man may well have kept away more sophisticated moviegoers who may well have enjoyed it and whose word of mouth might have saved it.
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I guess there is irony there. "Black Sunday" was really just as literate and "issue-oriented" as Marathon Man. But if it was sold as a disaster movie/cum Charles Bronson action film...ooops.
In any event, I see Robert Evans as a "producer-auteur of seventies thrillers": Chinatown is the big one, but Marathon Man and Black Sunday ain't chopped liver. Together, they are three of the best-written, best-cast, and best-made thrillers of all time.
And we never quite got their type of movie back again...
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M_Lane
7 years ago
Man did this thread go places.
It sure did, hahah!
I still think it is the unsung great movie of 1977.
While I'll keep my reservations about the movie, the book was certainly a milestone. I only wish more of its spirit had been reflected on screen.
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nickm2
10 years ago
of course of course...not ONE of those 2000 people killed by Israel were rocket firing tangos, right? Nope not one; And given the Izzies flew more sorties & dropped more tonnage that hit Dresden...well, that tells me a lot about 'pulling their punches'.
Oh and I noticed the other poster didn't mention the following things:
The Ottoman Empire-the guys who ran the region nearly four centuries & actually "imported" people into 'The Holy Land' to actually have somebody to 'rule' because the Romans were VERY thorough in exterminating & exiling those troublesome locals;
The Jordanians (who won their part of the 1948 War--not surprising given they had a competent army--conquered a section of the State of Israel. They basically kicked out all the thousands of Jewish settlers in the area they occupied & did not let them back in-no wailing wall for them; AND keeping it classy, The Jordanians used the tombstones from the Jewish graveyards to build their latrines)
I wouldn't give much credence to Al Jazeera, given the breathless hysteria RE: flechette rounds.
Finally:
The fact that The Palestinians LOST! Like The Jewish Settlers in Sammaria lost & got the boot, like the Greeks from Asia Minor lost & got the boot; However, you'll take note that the Israelis WON the 1967 'go round'. I see no reason for Israel to negotiate themselves out of existence.
I do have a lot of Palestinians in my family tree too; my advice to them varies from serious (As Students/Women/Christians you have no value or influence to the "guys with the guns"; You need to forget about going back, cuz it ain't happening unless you win your war) to humorous (Marry off your daughters to Jewish boys cuz like they say in Big Fat Greek Wedding, "Man might be head of the house but woman is the 'neck' & can turn the head anyway she wants"):
Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?
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M_Lane
10 years ago
not ONE of those 2000 people killed by Israel were rocket firing tangos, right? Nope not one
About 70-80% of the deaths were civilians, not members of the resistance. That may be acceptable to you (?). The world fortunately shows some humanity and disagrees.
The Jordanians (who won their part of the 1948 War--not surprising given they had a competent army--conquered a section of the State of Israel.
If you’re referring to the events in 1948, both the Jordanians and the ALA (Arab Liberation Army) only defended – or tried to defend – the areas of historic Palestine that had been allotted by the UN to the Palestinian state. Israel occupied as much of those territories as it could, which resulted in Israel stretching over 80% of Palestine at the end of the war, as opposed to the 56% that had been given to the Zionists in the UN partition plan. And Jordan administered the West Bank (while Egypt administered Gaza). Let’s stick to facts.
AND keeping it classy, The Jordanians used the tombstones from the Jewish graveyards to build their latrines
And keeping it just as classy, the Israelis allowed for a porn movie to be shot on the ruins of an old Palestinian town they had destroyed back in the day and turned a mosque into a pub – and that’s not an isolated incident that happened a long time ago, mind you. It’s the norm.
There have been so many abuses that we could sit here for months merely listing them, but it would be very tedious, tbh. If you want to do that, though, go ahead.
I wouldn't give much credence to Al Jazeera
It’s always a good idea to double or triple check everything. Al Jazeera has proven a reliable source for me, at least so far (not sure what the problem is about the flechettes, as it was widely reported, but I will say this: if Israel had committed no war crimes, it would have no problems allowing investigations from the UN and human rights groups and even launch investigations of its own. Predictably, Israel has so far refused to do so).
Do you have any go-to news websites that have proved reliable more often than not?
The fact that The Palestinians LOST! Like The Jewish Settlers in Sammaria lost & got the boot, like the Greeks from Asia Minor lost & got the boot; However, you'll take note that the Israelis WON the 1967 'go round'.
Contextualisation of events within historical period and political climate is important. Following WWI, countries started to realise the importance of international relations and maintaining an international society. There has been an increase in how much importance is placed on diplomacy, particularly after WWII. So we have international law and institutions such as the League of Nations, UN, EU, the International Criminal Court. And according to international law, it is inadmissible to acquire land by force (which is what Israel did at the end of the 1967 Six-Day War, which is why the UN passed Resolution 242).
I see no reason for Israel to negotiate themselves out of existence.
Neither does Israel, which is perhaps just as well, because they are in effect arguing themselves out of existence and legitimacy through their unlawful behaviour and the contempt and disdain they’ve shown to the international community and even their closest allies (such as the US).
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