The Corner's John Podhoretz gets cranky with Spielberg

The New York Times has an article today on the next Steven Spielberg project, his long rumored take on the assassinations that followed the 1972 Munich Olympic hostage situation. The Times describes the story like this:

The film, which is being written by the playwright Tony Kushner - it is his first feature screenplay - begins with the killing of 11 Israeli athletes in Munich. But it focuses on the Israeli retaliation: the assassinations, ordered by Prime Minister Golda Meir, of Palestinians identified by Israeli intelligence as terrorists, including some who were not directly implicated in the Olympic massacre.

Coming directly after War of the Worlds, which is dominated by post 9/11 fears of terrorism and catastrophe, this is another bold move for Spielberg as he ventures more heavily into the current political climate. Kushner, a gay Jew with an eye for Brechtian moral dilemma, is a smart choice to give the assassinations an emotional and moral underpinning as the Israelli hit squad comes to terms with their assignment.

The Corner’s John Podhoretz, however, doesn’t think so.

Needless to say, the movie won't be a celebration of Israel's determination to hunt down the monsters who killed 11 kids solely for the crime of being Jewish and Israelis, but will rather be about how the assassins suffered and felt remorse and don't know if they did the right thing blah blah blah. Why tell this story now?

Podhoretz, a normally quick-witted man of intellectual precision, doesn’t seem to think it’s valid to make a movie that examines the moral uneasiness of even the most righteous violence. He wants a vengeful shoot-‘em-up in which killing the bad guys is an easy decision carried out with assurance and moral authority. In a word (or two), he wants Die Hard.

Now, with all due respect to John McTernan’s gleeful, exuberant action fest, that’s a cheap, insulting choice to make. Why would anyone want to “celebrate” Israel’s decision to carry out a series of murders? Even if we think they were necessary (I suspect they were), there’s no need to attach that sort of chest-puffing bravado to the act of murder.

The best stories are the ones that understand that even the right decision are fraught with moral potholes and ambiguities. Podhoretz, for some unknown reason, wants Spielberg and Kushner to ignore those uncertainties and paint a picture of good old fashioned unquestioning heroes who kill without remorse, utterly certain of their moral superiority. State sanctioned murder may be a political necessity, but it’s not one we should celebrate. Recognizing the need for violence is a difficult thing to do; what Spielberg wants to do is even more difficult – recognize its cost.