Since Steven Spielberg put so much of himself into his recent film, Munich, let us see what it really says about him rather than about Israel and terrorism.
First let’s break the story down to its elements.
Central to the film, running like a dream throughout is the situation of the terrorists and hostages. One group is murdered, the other group murders but dies, too. Evil vanquishes good, but evil is also vanquished (by an outside agency).
The main plot centers on a man and his team who set out to kill evil people, but who gradually are worn down, lose conviction and passion, and die one by one until two are left, who fail to achieve their final action, and then one is left in despair. Evil has won. There is no defeating it. It defeats you.
Jungian analysis suggests that every thing in a dream represents something of the dreamer. The same is true in art we create. It’s a definite projection of the Self. Men deny it, but it’s inescapably true.
Spielberg is not a particularly intelligent or wise individual, but he is an exceptionally driven and egotistical one. He has a great gift for staging action sequences, but no gift at all for human complexity and social realities. Spielberg has won all the accolades he needs in terms of creating popular entertainment. Now he also wants to be hailed as a genius for the deep, serious art which he attempts in movies like Schindler’s List, Amistad, and now Munich.
(That desire for auteur status is exemplified by the insane scene at the end of Munich between Avner’s orgasm and the violent murder of the Israelis. Nothing else can explain the ludicrous presumptions of Spielberg other than that he thought that such a pairing was somehow very, very deep; would resonate in some primeval way with humans: sex and death, sex and blood; but he went off the Freudian deep-end in a post-Freud world.)
So, we have a popular entertainer who finds that being loved by the hoi polloi isn’t satisfying. After all, his energy and ambition were expressly driven by an overwhelming rage yelling to the world, “Look at me! Look at me! Love me, love me, love me!” Well, they did, and that wasn’t what he wanted. It didn’t satisfy enough. Nothing ever can, but Spielberg changed his tack, and decided that serious movies would do the trick and make him happy with himself and feel loved in the way he wants.
Ever since Schindler’s List he’s been muddling through. Not making any great commercial movies (repeating his success in Jaws with Jurassic Park [twice] and the misguided sci-fi films Minority Report, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, War of the Worlds) not making any great serious ones (Amistad, Saving Private Ryan [great opening lousy follow through on the story], Munich) or serio-comic ones (The Terminal, Catch Me If You Can).
We are seeing his midlife crisis playing out in his films. They aren’t great. They aren’t horrible. They mark time, but they aren’t accomplishing what he wants. He wants to be the greatest filmmaker of all time, but he keeps coming up short. Particularly now when he should he at his prime in terms of mastery and artistic judgment.
Let’s go back to the movie as dream work, though (pun intended). The most obvious tale in it is that that which is truly good and innocent in him gets slaughtered by that which is evil, bad, or weak. And when he sends out his forces to redeem the loss of his goodness or innocence by attempting to strike down (or discipline and control) those parts of himself which kill his goodness, his virtues fail miserably and give in to despair.
He cannot overcome himself. He cannot redeem himself. He cannot fix himself and acquire that love which would put him at peace and triumphant over the winter of his discontent. Why? Because he cannot submit to the help of an outside agency.
That bizarre sex scene amidst violent murder? William Blake would have noticed that Generation is Death.
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