Argo
JustAlice
1,308 Posts
Now Completely Fascinated by this Story, Enough to spend hours combing through this:
http://archive.org/details/DocumentsFromTheU.s.EspionageDen
Obviously based on an article I read courtesy of OW:
http://longform.org/the-great-escape/
......The Dramatization of Hollywood could not be avoided.
Regardless of Afflecks Narcissism in his portrayal as the Hero, Lead Role and Director,
I found the movie was very well done and appreciated the thoughtful details down to the period Warner Logo at the opening.
What this story has brought to me is a sudden interest in US / Soviet / Middle East relations of the last 70+ years or so.
I guess I have some catching up to do.
Its funny- I had a teacher in High School whose entire curriculum was based on
the Middle East in the early to mid-90s. I hated her. Her name was Mrs. Hatch.
I hated her so much I got another teacher. I couldn't understand how anyone
was supposed to pass a class based on a book that only existed in her head.
Now, in hindsight, I see where she was going AND that She knew what was coming.
Kind of wish I would have paid more attention back then so this all wouldn't be such a surprise now.
Pardon my ignorance but I had no idea how fucked shit really was.
Don't get me wrong, Its not as though I lived under a rock or anything.
I just didn't realize how deeply infiltrated the whole system is.
Anyways, I am not a film buff by any means but it gave me a path to follow.
Plus its just a great story no matter how you cut it up.
Thoughts?
http://archive.org/details/DocumentsFromTheU.s.EspionageDen
Obviously based on an article I read courtesy of OW:
http://longform.org/the-great-escape/
......The Dramatization of Hollywood could not be avoided.
Regardless of Afflecks Narcissism in his portrayal as the Hero, Lead Role and Director,
I found the movie was very well done and appreciated the thoughtful details down to the period Warner Logo at the opening.
What this story has brought to me is a sudden interest in US / Soviet / Middle East relations of the last 70+ years or so.
I guess I have some catching up to do.
Its funny- I had a teacher in High School whose entire curriculum was based on
the Middle East in the early to mid-90s. I hated her. Her name was Mrs. Hatch.
I hated her so much I got another teacher. I couldn't understand how anyone
was supposed to pass a class based on a book that only existed in her head.
Now, in hindsight, I see where she was going AND that She knew what was coming.
Kind of wish I would have paid more attention back then so this all wouldn't be such a surprise now.
Pardon my ignorance but I had no idea how fucked shit really was.
Don't get me wrong, Its not as though I lived under a rock or anything.
I just didn't realize how deeply infiltrated the whole system is.
Anyways, I am not a film buff by any means but it gave me a path to follow.
Plus its just a great story no matter how you cut it up.
Thoughts?
Comments
another example of hollywood taking another country's achievements to bolster the flag waving effort during a time of national insecurity.
But I saw Ben on Maher Friday.
"My boy's wicked smart"
1) As a piece of cinema, I thought "Argo" was very good. Well acted, well written, well edited, blah blah blah. As technical craft, it executed really well. I saw another film compare it to Sidney Lumet's classic 1970s films - which I do think "Argo" wants to evoke - but more in a "post-Spielberg-'Munich'" sort of way vs. wanting the film to actually feel like it was shot in the '70s. Big difference between the two but again, this is cinematic nit-picking. "Argo" is a good movie.
2) The main criticisms I have of the film really arise over the adaptation element and that's inevitable with any film that's drawn from historic events and then tweaks them to fit the kind of narrative the screenwriter and director want. My wife works for the Academy so we attended the Academy members' screening on Saturday ??? which was crazy...shit was standing room only ??? and both Affleck and Terio were there to talk about the film after and they freely copped to taking "creative license" with certain elements to make the film work better, from their perspective.
On one hand, it's easy for me to read the historical record and compare with how it lines up with the film and keep noting, "yeah, but this didn't happen and you left that out." And in the end, a film - like any creative effort - is about the choices you make and it's impossible to make something that's invulnerable to criticism from all sides. So I'm willing to say, "hey, I would have really liked that you left certain things in or left other things alone" but it was more like small disappointments rather than anything I could be remotely outraged over.
The only "false" moment was really the part of the literal escape. I mean, this isn't a spoiler - we know they get out - and in order to heighten the drama, they kind of go with all the conventions we've seen in Hollywood around last-minute-thriller-escapes. And as I was watching it, I was thinking, "ok, this is fun and all but this seems invented and therefore forced" but it did produce the kind of emotional affect that the scene was meant to invoke. The audience - most of whom were older - spontaneously began clapping at the culmination of the scene. I was mildly surprised they got that into it, especially as a room full of Hollywood people, but hey, there you go.
Is the film jingoistic or over-credit 'Mericans and under-credit others? Or demonize the Iranians?
I'd say "no" to all of the above.
For one, it's very clear throughout that it's the CANADIANS protecting "the houseguests" (i.e. the six embassy officials who fled the compound). I don't know if it's, in fact true, that the British and Australian embassies refused to take in the houseguests but the film says they refused, thus making the Canadians seem even more sympathetic and "honorable" (though they don't flog you over the head with this).
The culture of the U.S. in that moment is handled, in my opinion, with far more nuance than a cynic might expect. For one, the prologue to the movie sets up the U.S. and British as victims of their own scheming (i.e. in terms of overthrowing the democratically elected leader of Iran in the 1960s and setting up the corrupt Shah) and thus,lending context to why the Iranian Revolution happened in the 1970s. They don't soft-pedeal that the uprising had elements of violence and vigilantism but it very rarely has moments where you'd come off thinking, "wow, the Iranians are all a bunch of psycho extremists." I can almost guarantee you that any right-winger watching this film will be furious at it for seeming so left-leaning in its perspectives. It's really not terribly kind to an American-centric point of view about the Iranian hostage crisis and basically, subtly, has some "chickens coming home to roost" angle.
My point being: this film absolutely doesn't adhere to a "America = good, Iran = bad" characterization. What would be more accurate would be "America = inept, Iran = dangerous."
The State department, CIA and White House are, almost uniformly, seen as a bunch of ass-protecting, political poll watching types: pretty common archetype for this kind of movie, and of course, the CIA officer (played by Affleck) is some lone wolf hero, going against orders, blah blah blah. In real life, that's not how it went down but again: it's certainly not doing any favors to the apparatus of the American government.
The film, as you may imagine, is exceedingly generous to Hollywood however, in making them out as a side hero in all this and hey, that's partially why this film got made to begin with: it's an incredible part of the larger story. And this was an area where, once I read the historical details, I wish the film had actually done more with. Maybe it's in the DVD extras or something.
The challenge with "Argo" is that you really could have made three or four separate films from the basic source material. There's the Hollywood angle. There's the government/CIA angle. There's the experience of the houseguests. There's the Iranian angle. "Argo" absolutely cuts corners to shoe-horn all these into one movie and as noted, I think it does a pretty good job with it even if I didn't think it as perfect or certainly, as inclusive as possible.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scifilandmovie/science-fiction-land-a-stranger-than-fiction-doc
Local-scifi-argo-rosiegrier related
I forgot to add that the film also really simplifies the Hollywood/sci-fi angle, basically taking several characters and compositing them into fewer, for the sake of efficiency. I like that there's other projects seeking to restore some of that balance.
The CIA-backed coup of Mossadegh was in 1953.
I'm sure the film did NOT get that detail wrong; that was my err.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic? Canada is portrayed very favorably in this film. But it was ultimately the US that set the extraction plan in motion.
Oliver's poast sums things up nicely. It's a film, not a documentary. And it's a pretty damn entertaining one.
NOT sarcastic by the way. im not protective of Canada's military history, it's the 'oh yeeeaaaah, that's what we WANTED you to believe' attitude that got adopted after the win was already on te table. classique americaine.
Uh yeah
;-)
i don't want to believe that bon jovi WASN'T on that sub.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/jian-ghomeshi-argo-is-crowd-pleasing-entertaining-and-unfair-to-iranians/article4855769/
"This is to say nothing of the more incendiary moments, such as that of a barking flock of Iranians stomping on an American flag. Scenes like that are clearly meant to arouse the emotions of a Western audience. And in a fiction-meets-reality kind of kismet, here???s a Hollywood movie that finds convenient kinship ??? and symbiotic validation ??? in today???s news cycle, as American politicians hammer away at the message that Iran and its people represent the greatest threat to global peace."
....
"Would it be instructive to learn more about why young Iranian people were resentful of the United States housing the dictatorial Shah they???d worked to overthrow? Might it be helpful to explain that not all Iranians were Islamic formalists who supported Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini? Or that the revolution was a popular one that originally included liberal democrats, feminists, nationalists, socialists and workers ??? a revolution that was co-opted by the mullahs and extremists to lead to the Islamic Republic that we know today? Even if the film???s scope is reductive in its treatment of the revolution, the individual Iranian characters themselves might have been written with a lighter hand, leaving room for nuance. But Argo is a popcorn thriller that doesn???t sweat these details. If there???s any attention to nuance, it???s not about Iranians."
Not wanting to get into 40 posts back and forth, what he says is not completely wrong. It captures the reality for many people who wanted change and went from one set of shackles to another. Khomeini flipped the script once in power. Talk to people who lived through it.
Shiias were out front because that is the dominant religion in the country. It is possible to be a feminist and Shiia. It is possible to be a student, an artist, gay and Shiia.
As well, demonstrations that sparked the revolution were initiated by students, secular and religious groups.
No where in the article does he use the word Islamist.
No, but he says "extremists and mullahs"
I will say, though, what goes through my mind whenever threads about non-Western history, etc. start - I hope no one is using SStrut as their only reference and assuming well-written posts are indicative or proof of "truth".
what you're trying to say here is that the reviewer doesn't know the history of the Iranian revolution AS WELL AS YOU. that doesn't make him wrong.
It is a Hollywood movie.
Anyone walking into the theater expecting history or balance in a Hollywood movie...
I remember reading an interview with Khomeini in Rolling Stone Magazine, back in the late 70s.
This was 30+ years ago, and I don't remember any details.
The impression that I still have is that Khomeini was in exile in France when the interview occurred.
Khomeini seemed like a reasonable and liberal freedom fighter who wanted to end the oppression his country was suffering.
He did not seem like a religious extremist who hated America and wanted oppress his country.
I'm sure someone who cared could google the interview.
No doubt people who were in Iran, and not in France, who were opposing the Shah did not see him as their leader.
More likely they looked to people who were standing with them as the people leading the revolution.
I don't know that for a fact, but it seems logical to me that those in midst of the fight are more impressed with those who are fighting with them than those who are eating at cafes in Paris.
Do you offer this as evidence of how he styled himself in the Western press, and why certain of the more liberal elements in the Iranian opposition were duped into riding with him? Or do you offer this as your actual opinion of the man? Just curious whether I should bother to read any more of your contributions on this subject.