Quote of the Week: Spielberg on Films, Activism & Israel

"I just feel that filmmakers are much more proactive since the second Bush administration. I think that everybody is trying to declare their independence and state their case for the things that we believe in. No one is really representing us, so we're now representing our own feelings, and we're trying to strike back.....

I knew we were going to receive a volley from the right. I was surprised that we received a much smaller, but no less painful, volley from the left. It made me feel a little more aware of the dogma, and the Luddite position people take any time the Middle East is up for discussion.

So many fundamentalists in my own community, the Jewish community, have grown very angry at me for allowing the Palestinians simply to have dialogue....

'Munich' never once attacks Israel, and barely criticizes Israel's policy of counterviolence against violence. It simply asks a plethora of questions.....For that, we were accused of the sin of moral equivocation. Which, of course, we didn't intend—and we're not guilty of."

----- Film director Steven Spielberg in this week's Newsweek magazine, discussing his new, controversial film Munich.
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I saw the Spielberg film Munich last week, and I have to confess...it haunts me. It's brilliant and nuanced, and puts forth an unexpected, heartfelt plea for an end to violence in the Middle East.

Trust me on this: Go see it.
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