An American tourist in Russia
Yesterday we watched the 1970 Sophia Loren wartime drama Sunflower which I had high hopes for, but found myself just as disappointed as the characters in the movie itself. Sunflower is a story about reconciliation, both between people and nations, but meanders to the finish line with no reconciliation at either level. While I was … Read more
The biopic about Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir premiered at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival and is scheduled for release in the USA later this month. I of course cannot render full judgement until seeing the full movie, but the theatrical trailer is crammed with every Biden 2024 talking point, so let’s start with those.
After the end of history, everything becomes a self-referential blob, losing all association with the fading worlds of the past. Perhaps the most obvious example of this increasingly context-less meta is the “promotion” of Carrie Fisher’s “Leia” from the Star Wars. In the original trilogy, she was a princess. In the Disneyfied Star Wars universe … Read more
Why is All Quiet on the Western Front parroted as a great anti-war message when it didn’t even work on its original audience? It didn’t work on the second, third, or fourth audiences either. What do you call a person who tries the same thing over and over again expecting a different result?
My guess is that All Quiet on the Western Front isn’t really about the futility of war, regardless of how the author tried for that to be the message. Unfortunately, in the real world, an artist’s intended message doesn’t matter. All that matters is what the audience interprets the message to be. The interpreted lesson, the real lesson, of All Quiet on the Western Front is not that war is bad. It is losing a war that is bad.
