The moral failures of 'Django Unchained' and 'Zero Dark Thirty'

BY ADAM PARKER

Two Oscar-nominated movies this season simultaneously have garnered critical acclaim and sparked controversy. Both films raise important moral questions, and both ultimately fail to answer those questions adequately.

Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” is an immensely entertaining takeoff on the Spaghetti Western, set partly in the wild west of the 1850s and partly in the Deep South. A German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) enlists a black slave (Jamie Foxx) to help him identify three criminals and claim the prize money. The two men form a sympathetic bond. Dr. King Schultz is smart, appealing and very much opposed to the institution of slavery; he views Django as a fellow human being, an equal, a partner. And the sentiment is returned. Django quickly comes to trust and esteem Schultz, and the two have a grand time shooting white outlaws and exchanging the corpses for cash.

After a lucrative winter, they decide to find Django’s stolen wife and rescue her, a joint mission that takes them to Candyland, a large plantation in Mississippi owned by a certain Monsieur Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Candie is a brutal psychopath — indeed, all the white plantation men are portrayed without nuance: they are thugs, sadists and murderers.

Of course the slaves on the plantation are exploited for their labor, but Candie goes much further. The pretty women are abused; the strong men are paired to fight to the death for the entertainment of their master and his guests; and runaway slaves are permitted to be torn apart by dogs.

Schultz and Django devise a plan to rescue Django’s wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), a gorgeous, terrorized and tortured slave who happens to speak German. Tarantino casts all subtlety aside. He is not interested in enveloping his story in layers of significance or asking the essential questions of human existence. He does not pretend to plumb the depths of the psyche or portray ambivalence and doubt.

Instead he uses humor, cartoon violence (often extreme), caricature and simple storytelling to create his entertainments. In “Django Unchained,” he explicitly refers to the Nordic legend of Siegfried and Brunnhilde, which is a hero myth. Siegfried slays a dragon and breaches a ring of fire to rescue the exiled Brunnhilde because, as Schultz tells Django in the movie, “she’s worth it.”

Tarantino presents the story, Italian references and all, with the ardor of a film scholar obsessed with pulp genres. He dutifully and expertly quotes the original “Django,” even casting its aging star, Franco Nero, in a cameo role.

When discussing Tarantino, critics tend to focus on the excessive violence, accusing the filmmaker of encouraging social acclimation to extreme visual displays of gore, but I think this complaint is misplaced. Is Tarantino desensitizing audiences to violence, or is his violence a result of desensitization? I vote for the latter.

Tarantino is less shocking than cringe-provoking. We don’t really recoil from his visual exploits; we squint or cover our eyes. We have learned to expect them. We know that violence for him is part of the pulp nature of his post-modern assemblages, a repackaging of something old. Plenty of movies shock better, and violence, even gory violence, is hardly unique to Tarantino.

 No, the real problem with “Django Unchained” (and “Inglorious Basterds” before it) is its conceit. I left the theater wondering if I had learned anything (about slavery, revenge, fraternity, love, loyalty), if I had benefited in some way. True, it was fun to revel in the revenge fantasy, to see the proponents of slavery gunned down one after another, and to enjoy the ultimate victory of the lead character. But to what purpose?

Tarantino has argued that he makes no claim to be manufacturing high art and has no intention to produce historically accurate movies. He bristles when asked about his portrayal of violence. He insists that he’s merely an entertainer. That’s fine, as far as it goes. The thing is, once an artist released his product into the free marketplace of ideas, he no longer has control over it.

Tarantino might present himself as only an entertainer, but that doesn’t stop us from analyzing and contextualizing his work, from scrutinizing its messages and implications (intended or not).

And the context of “Django Unchained” is not some invention, it’s slavery, actual slavery, a terrible history of brutality and suffering that produced a persistent legacy of injustice. Slavery in the U.S. raised numerous moral questions, many of which remain unresolved to this day. A filmmaker cannot simply leapfrog over that history into a fantasy land where revenge is sweet and fun to watch. He is obligated to deal with the reality on which he relies, to raise necessary questions and possibly suggest answers.

The whole nation continues to cope with the consequences of that peculiar institution — we all are asked to come to terms with our collective past. Avoiding that requirement may be possible for some, but not an artist who is leveraging that history for his own purposes.

Ultimately, Tarantino is guilty of a cop-out. Indulgence in revenge fantasy scenarios might be temporarily satisfying, but in the long run it does no one any good.

The misuse of history is at the root of the problem in another critically-acclaimed but controversial film, “Zero Dark Thirty,” director Kathryn Bigelow’s intense and exciting representation of the search for and ultimate killing of Osama bin Laden.

Here the conceit is inverted. If “Django” is a fantasy creation dependent upon a historical epoch, “Zero” is a journalistic, real-life, documentary-like rendition of history presented in the broad context of entertainment.

The first thing seen on screen is this claim: The movie is “based on first-hand accounts of actual events.” It is, we have learned, partly the result of unusual access to CIA officials and government documentation, officially granted to the filmmakers by the Obama Administration.

“I don’t want to play fast and loose with history,” its screenwriter and former journalist Mark Boal told The New York Times.

But then he does.

The film begins with voices from the burning Twin Towers, victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks whose desperate calls to 911 shocked operators and proved futile. The human cost of terrorism, therefore, is explicitly set forth from the get-go.

The following scenes depict the torture of detainees at black sites, including brutal threats by the interrogator, water boarding, the playing of loud rock and roll music, food deprivation, chaining to the ceiling and isolation in a tiny wooden box.

“I am not your friend,” the CIA operative tells the prisoners. “I will hurt you.”

Maya, the CIA agent played sympathetically by Jessica Chastain, is a witness to this early torture, ambivalent about it and even rendered queasy by what she sees. But she comes to terms with her distress and, later, is shown in the leading role of interrogator.

The film pretends to portray torture neutrally. We see Maya’s distress. We question torture's effect. We witness its brutality. But, ultimately, the movie makes an extraordinary claim: Torture works, and it led to the discovery of bin Laden. “In the end, everybody breaks, bro,” agent Dan says. “It’s biology.”

This is a back-handed endorsement, and it’s disturbing on three levels. First, to suggest that torture can be effective is to give the lie to the filmmaker’s claim of neutrality. Bigelow says she neither endorses the use of torture nor condemns it. She says that, since torture was employed in real life, she is merely being true to real life. But this argument fails because of the explicit message delivered by the film: Tortured detainees provided necessary information that led to the discover of bin Laden’s whereabouts.

Second, that message is itself a distortion of the facts. It is not true that torture prompted detainees to spill any useful beans about the identity of bin Laden’s courier or the location of the compound in Abbottabad, according to CIA chief Leon Panetta. On the contrary, several government officials, including CIA interrogators, have publicly questioned the use of torture as a means of extracting reliable information from prisoners.

Finally, the pretense of neutrality is itself a moral failure. To imply that, under certain circumstances, torture, whatever its practical or tactical uses, might be legitimate on moral grounds is to deny a fundamental truth. In moral terms, torture is never justified. It’s also illegal. Failing to make this clear is, in my view, to shirk one's responsibility as an artist.

From an aesthetic and entertainment perspective, both “Django Unchained” and “Zero Dark Thirty” are riveting, visually compelling, well-made examples of storytelling. Nothing in my critique is meant to blunt their successes on this score. Both deserve the recognition they have received. Both are interesting works of art — in their different ways — and well worth seeing.

But both fail their respective moral tests. History is important. To claim it as a basis for entertainment is to obligate the artist to uphold a higher standard, one that respects not only the facts, but history’s human toll.

When real events are in play, events that involved human suffering and continue to reverberate across time, the artistic stakes are bigger, like it or not.

From the Holy Land to the Holy City

2 Israeli scholars teach courses to widen views on culture, history

BY ADAM PARKER

The Post and Courier

The Israeli political narrative, especially the way it’s conveyed in the U.S., tends to be overly simplistic, expressed as a history of conflict, a face-off between Arabs and Jews, a biblical claim to a contested land. Each side, we’re told, perceives the other as the enemy.

For Israelis, their opponents are terrorists or terrorist-sympathizers who want to push all the Jews into the sea. For Palestinians, their opponents are oppressive colonists stealing the land and denying basic rights.

As with most such popular narratives, there is a grain of truth but also a lot of detail that’s skimmed over or ignored. The Mideast is nothing if not a very complicated place populated by complicated people waging a complicated theological, political and social debate that too often devolves into violence and acrimony.

Two Israelis have purposefully come to town to complicate things further. They are visiting professors teaching courses in the College of Charleston’s Jewish Studies Program, and both are emphasizing, in their own way, the social and religious nuances of the region, the rich cultural inheritance, the many examples of cooperation and mutual respect, the various historical perspectives and, ultimately, the disconnect between American conceptions of the Middle East and reality.

Naomi Gale is an Iraqi-born Israeli and scholar who has joined with Ghazi Abuhakema, a Palestinian professor at the college, to teach a course called Cultures of the Middle East. The chance to learn from this unlikely pair prompted nearly 40 people, some auditors, to sign up for the class.

Gershom Gorenberg is an American-born Israeli and journalist who has contributed articles to important magazines and written three books, the latest called “The Unmaking of Israel.” Gorenberg is teaching a course called “Writing Israel’s History.”

Their subject matter might be different, but their message is the same: To understand Israel and the Middle East, open your mind.

Drinking the same water

The idea to offer the course Cultures of the Middle East was inspired by a small film festival at the college, which was to feature a couple Israeli-made and a couple Arab-made movies. Abuhakema was asked to help make the selections, he said.

One thing led to another, and soon he, Jewish Studies Director Martin Perlmutter and others were talking about developing a course. Movie clips could be shown, ethnicities discussed, interfaith cooperation highlighted and cultural practices shared.

Abuhakema got together with Gale, who had been invited to teach at the college for the 2012-13 academic year, and the two of them worked out a plan.

“It’s an ongoing process,” Abuhakema said. “The course develops as we are doing it.”

Gale said students are assigned regular readings, asked to study some aspect of Middle Eastern culture and offer a presentation, expected to engage in dialogue and required to write papers.

James Green was the first to make a presentation. He discussed the variety of music instruments that originate in the region: the oud, tambur, doumbek, riq, finger cymbals, baglama.

Green spoke of string and wind instruments, projecting images on the screen and passing around photocopies.

Some questions followed, along with praise. Then Abuhakema touched on the differences between religion and culture and explained the Sunni-Shia schism. The course continued with a discussion of the Prophet Muhammad’s humanism.

Gale, who also teaches a course called “Israeli Law and Politics,” emphasized the need to temper current assumptions with an appreciation for the many contributions of Islamic and pre-Islamic culture: Algebra, poetry, scientific study, backgammon and chess.

“It is very important where we come from,” she said.

So Gale is all about widening horizons, filling in the very large gaps in knowledge, drawing connections between cultures and ideas. In an interview she compared the beignets she recently ate in New Orleans to the doughnuts she grew up with in Iraq. She pointed out how falafel is more a regional food than an ethnic one, since it’s ubiquitous throughout the Middle East, from North Africa to Iran.

She emphasized how the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have cohabited for centuries, often peacefully.

“If we speak about culture, we must talk about the common denominators,” she said. “If we drink the same water, I cannot poison it or I will kill myself.”

Human perceptions

Gorenberg takes another approach. His course examines how history is recorded, interpreted and understood, especially when conflicting experiences and ideologies create divergent narratives. A writer’s perspective, sources and style shape the presentation of information, and it is incumbent upon the reader to take these factors into account, he said.

As an orthodox Jew who supports liberal democracy and separation of synagogue and state, Gorenberg is viewed as something of an anomaly. People see his yarmulke and bushy beard and assume he is hawkish on the Palestinian question. In fact, he is a vocal advocate of a two-state solution which, he says, is the only way to keep Israel both a Jewish and a democratic state.

His writings are far from radical, however. He goes to some lengths to acknowledge and explain the differing points of view. In his latest book, “The Unmaking of Israel,” he writes:

“There are two common ways of portraying Israel. The first stresses its successes. It has given Jews refuge and sovereignty in their own country. Six decades after its establishment, Israel is a rarity among countries that gained their independence in the era of decolonization. It is a parliamentary democracy. …

“The second portrait is of conflict — of terror attacks against Israelis, but also of roadblocks, walls, settlements, and Israeli offensives in Gaza and Lebanon.” The focus in the media and the academy is on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, sometimes referred to as a neo-colonial version of apartheid. “The most concise criticism is that Israel is an ‘ethnocracy’” that promotes the expansion of Jewish society under the guise of democracy.

This fair-minded approach is characteristic of Gorenberg’s attitudes about history: it’s complicated. In class recently he engaged students in an animated discussion not only of the various perspectives that have generated Israel’s historical narrative, but of the many nuances that often go overlooked.

Gorenberg encouraged students to consider Amos Oz’s important 2002 memoir, “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” which recount’s the author’s childhood in 1940s Jerusalem; and he talked about the revolts and military responses, illegal immigration, conflict with the British and some of the contradictory documentation describing the founding of the state.

“We are limited by human perceptions,” he said, and dependent on other people and sources. The writing of history, therefore, is an exercise in interpretation. “Can accuracy include an emotional reaction? Some history asks for empathy and that one withholds the verdict.”

History is not a courtroom in which judgment is passed and issues are painted in black and white. History, Gorenberg said, is the product of human endeavor.

Ted Levin, a retiree living in Charleston and auditor of Gorenberg’s class, said the experience has been eye-opening.

“He makes you think,” Levin said.

Building bridges

On a recent afternoon, Gorenberg stood in his kitchen preparing food for the coming week and talking about his interests and concerns.

At 20, he bought a one-way ticket to Israel to study at a yeshiva, learned Hebrew and decided to stay.

“I enjoyed being in a place where Jewish issues and public issues were the same thing,” he said.

In Israel the connections made between people often are more intense. Soon he was employed by the Jerusalem Report where he could pursue his interests at the intersection of religion and politics, two subjects he doesn’t avoid talking about.

He wrote a book called “End of Days,” which was about Christian Zionism in America and millennial theology.  Then he wrote a book called “The Accidental Empire,” which considered the history of Israeli settlements.

His latest, “The Unmaking of Israel,” is a thoughtful indictment of current Israeli policies that mingle religious doctrine with secular ideals, compromising democracy in the process. Israel, he contends, is on a dangerous path that could lead to the end of the Zionist experiment.

“I make this critique not as an opponent of religion, but as a religious Jew,” he writes, citing Genesis and Exodus and the fundamental biblical principle of freedom and equality. “The purpose of Jews living together in their land, and the condition for them to do so, is to ‘pursue justice’ as a society, and not just as individuals.”

Perlmutter, the director of the Jewish Studies Program, said it was important to present a range of views on culture, politics and history, especially concerning Israel.

“To my mind, it really is a testimony to the power of a university, where we can build bridges and have a dialogue,” he said.

Increasingly, Jewish Studies looks to Israel as a resource, Perlmutter added.

“We want to bring Israelis over here to interact with students and faculty. It’s important to provide students with a diversity of views that’s commonplace in the Middle East, but not so common here.”

* * *

Naomi Gale

Naomi Gale was one of 10 siblings, born in Baghdad where there was once a thriving Jewish community. With the rise of the Baath party and Saddam Hussein, those who didn’t tow the party line were persecuted or worse. The communist and Zionist undergrounds, which were intermingled, became a target, and Jews began to leave the country, especially beginning in 1951, when a bureaucratic door opened permitting emigration and the state of Israel launched an organized effort to bring Iraqi Jews to the Holy Land via Cyprus.

As a child, Gale lived in a tent for almost five years, then in a wooden hut, she said. At 13, she moved with her family into a proper flat.

After serving in the Israeli Defense Forces, she pursued her university education, specializing in sociology, anthropology, social work and, eventually, law. She traveled to London (where she met her former husband) and then settled for a spell in Sydney, where she studied Jewish emigration.

She earned a law degree from the Herzliya Interdisciplinary College of Law and is a member of the Israeli Bar.

Gershom Gorenberg

Gershom Gorenberg was born in St. Louis, raised and schooled in Los Angeles, then transported to the Middle East where he has made his home, in Jerusalem, since 1977. He works as a journalist, book writer and, lately, historian. He has taught classes at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and, most recently, at the College of Charleston.

He’s married to a journalist, Myra Noveck, with whom he has three children.

Gorenberg said he has been shocked by the gulf that separates discourse about Israel in the Middle East and in the U.S.

“Ideas expressed every day in the Knesset by mainstream parties are screamed at when published in American newspapers,” he said. “Accepted opinions get treated as if they were some radical anti-Israel views.”

He’s also a bit mystified as what he calls “the Jurassic Park of the mind” — American arguments about Israel that have long disappeared from the landscape back home.

Culturally, significant differences exist between American and Israeli society.

“Americans still view Israel in European terms,” even though “Zionism is very basically a rejection of that old country” and an embrace of a new Jewish identity, he said.

Ghazi Abuhakema

Ghazi Abuhakema was born in a Palestinian refugee camp called Jalazone in the West Bank, several kilometers north of Ramallah. It was a mid-sized camp with a population of about 12,000, established in 1949 on land leased by the United Nations after Israeli independence.

Escaping the camp is difficult, Abuhakema said. It requires the ownership of land, and that requires money. The people living in Jalazone are mostly poor. Today, many work for the Palestinian Authority, some are employed by the U.N. (which continues to provide basic services).

“In the old days, when the borders were open, laborers worked in Israel, mainly in construction,” Abuhakema said.

He went to Jordan to get his bachelor’s degree, then came to the U.S. in 1997 on a scholarship to earn his master’s and doctorate in foreign language education, attending University of Texas in Austin.

He taught at Montclair State University in New Jersey before coming to Charleston five years ago, he said.