Spielberg Should Stop Making Movies

Emmet Tyrell believes that the man behind a string of hit movies, including Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Arc, E.T., Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Minority Report, and so on, namely Steven Spielberg, should take up sculpting rather than movie making.

I get the impression Tyrell thinks movie making should cease altogether. What is one to make of this sort of passage, for example.

Actually it is just another example of the camera's lies. Aided and abetted by sound effects, it jolts the senses with huge hands or other appendages thrust across the screen, towering men and women filmed from the ground up, from other weird angles, all to convey impressions that are dramatic but very unreal. Colors are brighter than real or darker than real. Sounds shriek, howl, and explode at the viewer. My friend from law enforcement has covered crime scenes and crimes themselves. She assures me the real thing is much less entertaining.

The problem is that movies are more interesting than real life?

Of course the centerpiece of this discussion is the movie Munich, which is about robots beating people up for no good reason. No wait, it's really about a terrorist strike at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich and Israel's response to that attack. Tyrell's big problem with the movie is that it isn't a boring documentary, but he also disagrees with the suggestion that Israel might bear even the slightest responsibility for the problems their nation faces. "Those who know the history of this conflict understand that the Israelis are defenders. The terrorists are aggressors and particularly brutal aggressors at that."

For a more reasoned look at Munich and the controversy surrounding the movie, you might check out this examination by Michelle Goldberg at Salon (warning, you'll have to watch an ad).