Citizenfour: The Most Important Movie You Will Ever See
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Citizenfour: The Most Important Movie You Will Ever See

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I recently finished a WWII novel, and I’m still researching the era for another, very different novel set during the same time period. Since one of my closest friends is a Bavarian woman whom I know to be a person of integrity, heart, courage, compassion, and grace, I was curious: how did the NSDAP come to control Germany so completely that its citizens would commit atrocities? So that atrocities would be legalized?

Part of the answer lies in the fact that the NSDAP under Adolf Hitler legalized the illegal. They made laws to force their citizens to participate in the killing of Jews, Poles, the Romany, Socialists, Communists, and anyone who disagreed with the Nazi party. They made laws to enforce the killing and sterilization of children and adults with physical “imperfections” such as mental retardation.

So the Nazi party in Germany created a legal system based on hatred and killing. To enforce this legal system, they instituted a series of Party overseers, one in every community, to make sure that people remained “Loyal” to the party. This was the state police, the Gestapo. The Gestapo surveilled every German citizen, collecting vast files of information about German individuals. There was no “privacy” because the German State was everything.

Every dictatorship surveilles its population as a method of controlling its subjects. This is pointed out in CITIZENFOUR, Laura Poitras’ film about Ed Snowden.

Admittedly, from the beginning, I have considered Snowden a hero. There is no justification for the massive, George-Orwell-1984-Big-Brother spying on citizens in which the United States intelligence services participate. It is an outright breach and invasion of privacy, ethics, and all things good and true.

Our government, the United States government under Barack Obama, is participating in–perhaps perfecting–the exact same tactics employed by Hitler and the Nazi party: Watch every citizen. Scrutinize every private individual. Know what every single person in the State is thinking, saying, and doing. It’s all about information linking, you see.

I know this because I have been researching the Gestapo.

I happened to be at a showing of Citizenfour at Lincoln Plaza after which Poitras appeared for a Q & A. No, she doesn’t know if she’s been followed, but she expects that the US Government would use skilled personnel to follow her. She has been told that all her electronic communication “lights up like a Christmas tree” in the offices where electronic communication is collected and followed.

Poitras was composed, articulate, and expressive. She said that Snowden was exactly as portrayed in the movie: articulate and collected, trying to teach her, Glenn, and Ewan what was most important in the information he gave them.

Some people consider Snowden a traitor. Consider the White Rose in Germany, which consisted of students at the University of Munich and their professor. They had an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign to inform the German public of what was actually being done to Jews and to call the Nazi government to question.

Here is what Wikipedia says of them:

White Rose survivor Jürgen Wittenstein described what it was like to live in Hitler’s Germany: “The government – or rather, the party – controlled everything: the news media, arms, police, the armed forces, the judiciary system, communications, travel, all levels of education from kindergarten to universities, all cultural and religious institutions. Political indoctrination started at a very early age, and continued by means of the Hitler Youth with the ultimate goal of complete mind control. Children were exhorted in school to denounce even their own parents for derogatory remarks about Hitler or Nazi ideology.”

The White Rose was considered traitorous, too. So they were executed.

And “Ultimate goal of mind control” can only be the reason for the NSA’s total surveillance of the American population, including hundreds of millions of completely loyal American citizens.

How long before the US government insists on the same kind of control? All in the name of “protecting” American citizens from terrorists?

Just as the Gestapo was protecting German citizens from Judeo-Bolshevik enemies.

The most important concept in the movie was one that Snowden articulated: that the NSA’s actions change the balance of power so that it’s not elected-officials and electorate, it’s now rulers and those who are ruled.

See the movie. Think about the United States government, which is acting like a bully and a dictatorship.

Citizenfour

 

 

Guardians of the Galaxy: Great Flick
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Guardians of the Galaxy: Great Flick

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So, ok, it’s true, I admit at the outset, I like movies that are set in outer space, feature extraterrestrials and laser fights, and show things blowing up. Those are qualities I seek in excellent film entertainment.

Guardians of the Galaxy delivers. It’s set in outer space and things blow up. There’s a gee-whiz spaceship fight. Chris Pratt is adorable and hot, both at the same time. The characters are cute and quippy.  The plot moves along quickly and has a few moments that are almost touching.

This flick is great fun. It is what it is, and it is enjoyable.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Review of ELYSIUM with Matt Damon
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Review of ELYSIUM with Matt Damon

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ELYSIUM with Matt Damon

I like science fiction. I write science fiction, so there you have it. This is my disclaimer, so the gentle reader knows going in that I am wildly biased in favor of good sci fi.

ELYSIUM is good sci fi. In fact, it’s quite good. B+ good.

Matt Damon is an inherently likable, imperfect hero who harbors shadows in his past. He’s on probation. Right away we see him as a child, being tender with a lovely girl his own age. And then we see him as a tattooed man, getting creamed by a grotesquely unfair system.

Did I mention how hot Damon is? I’m biased that way, too, because he reminds me of a hot guy I dated in college. There weren’t a lot of those, so I tend to prize them.

The movie was fast-paced and visually interesting. It didn’t break new ground but it did tightly hold my attention. The characters were well drawn–Jodie Foster was an excellent evil rich protector–and the movie was well structured.

I have three rules for writing novels which I discuss openly: 1, story is how your protagonist does NOT get what he or she wants; 2, every story is an argument for a specific value; and 3, what are the stakes?

This movie sinuously answers all three of my rules. Matt Damon never gets all of what he wants. I don’t want to include a spoiler here, so I won’t say what that means. I will simply say that I admire the movie creators for not letting go of the story for a Hollywood ending. The value that is being argued for is an excellent one: the value of all human beings regardless of their net worth. And the stakes in the plot were always well defined.

I enjoyed this movie. I recommend it. It was a fun flick to see in the theater, and it would be an awesome rent at home.

 

FILM ABOUT SCULPTOR SABIN HOWARD BY ROBERT HORVATH
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FILM ABOUT SCULPTOR SABIN HOWARD BY ROBERT HORVATH

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International filmmaker ROBERT HORVATH, who has won many prizes and awards, has created a short documentary about sculptor Sabin Howard’s work.

SABIN HOWARD

and

Gallery 300 (22nd St and 8th Ave)

Present

APOLLO

(A documentary film)

 

THE CREATION OF THE SCULPTURE APOLLO

by

ROBERT HORVATH

 

DEVA

FRIDAY, MARCH 11 @ 6:30 pm

300 w 22nd st @ Eighth Ave

 

 

 

 

Hereafter: Compelling, heartwarming
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Hereafter: Compelling, heartwarming

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At some point, during the birth of my last child, I passed.

My now 5 year old munchkin’s head was too big for my pelvis, something my doctor and I only reluctantly concluded after a long span of fruitless pushing. I’d delivered two babies properly, after all. We were confident I’d be able to do it again.

It was supposed to be a 1 hour c-section. It turned into a whole night affair. After my daughter was pulled out, the doctors brusquely hustled her and my husband out of the operating room. I don’t remember much after that. I woke up once when I wasn’t supposed to, asked a question, and watched a group of doctors jump, startled. In retrospect, that was funny.

I was told that there was a lot of bleeding that couldn’t be stopped. A surgical team was called in, not once, but twice. I was given a transfusion. Later, a few times, I asked my doctor what really happened. All she would say is, “There was more blood than I’d ever seen before.”
How do you know when a medical procedure has gone terribly wrong? When doctors clam up with a sick expression on their faces. They don’t want to say a word because they fear litigation. I wouldn’t have sued. I had a healthy baby. I like and trust this doctor, she delivered my older girls, too.
On some level, I know what happened, and not because a team of surgeons showed up the next morning, demanding to operate because they’d never found the bleeder. I refused. I intended to nurse my infant. Another operation jeopardized that. They got pushy and I pushed back, and we called in my OBS, who brokered a deal: if my blood pressure didn’t drop over the next several hours, there’d be no operation.
My blood pressure remained stable, as I’d known it would. During the worst part of the previous night, when the doctors wouldn’t tell my husband what was going on and then he suddenly felt my absence, he phoned my healer friend Thomas. “I need your help,” Sabin said. “I don’t want to raise this baby by myself.” Thomas called Gerda, she called someone, and a healing circle was set up. And not just any healing circle: my friends are powerful, long time healers–healers of healers. And I was lucky they were.
Before the circle worked its magic–and the surgeons and transfusion worked theirs–I experienced something. I haven’t spoken of it much because it wasn’t the classic tunnel-and-white-light experience that gets a lot of airtime. Also because I didn’t know what to say about it. Even I, who have spent serious time and effort researching the far bounds of mysticism and consciousness, I didn’t know what to say about it. Also because it was a deep thing. It’s hard to discuss.
But my experience is clearly alluded to in Clint Eastwood’s new movie HEREAFTER. I listened with shock and relief as the Swiss doctor described exactly what I experienced. It was an electrifying and humbling moment.
But I wouldn’t have needed the personal validation to enjoy the movie. HEREAFTER is poignant, sweet, intense. Three people deal with death and the afterlife in ways that are somber, human, and deeply affecting. There are some funny moments; the boy Marcus’ journey to make contact with his dead twin has some painful comedy to it. There’s a rumor about Matt Damon and an Oscar run. I think he deserves it. His reluctant psychic is pitch perfect. The French journalist Marie is extremely appealing, and the French language scenes work exactly right.
I liked the brief mention that researchers into the afterlife face pressure and even censorship by religious groups. That rings true to me. What I experienced the night my daughter was born–and what I’ve experienced in altered states during meditation–has nothing to do with any religion. I mean, I don’t mind religion, mostly, except when one religion is persecuting another. I just think that Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. have almost nothing to do with the life and existence of the soul. They’re just taxonomy seeking expression.
The screenplay feels classically screenplay-ish, by which I mean that it’s well structured, follows all the rules, and will be analyzed to death by screenwriting classes. But that’s not a bad thing. I like structure. When it works, it gives a story its power. The interweaving of these three arcs, and the redemption that the three protagonists experience because they come together, is cathartic, transformative. I was deeply moved. Everyone in the audience seemed to be, also. Perhaps my husband Sabin said it best, when we walked out: “At last, a Hollywood movie that’s not for retards.”