posted
Saw it a couple nights a go and enjoyed it. A movie that spans continents and cultures, the plot was a bit hard to follow sometimes in terms of who fit in where, but the main gist of the story was that 'big oil' was responsible for a lot of the misery at home and abroad.
The film points no fingers at any political party, and purports to be based on 'facts' given in a book by former CIA agent Robert Baer titled See No Evil. If anyone runs across links that refute Syriana or the book, I'd enjoy seeing them. Thanks.
I hope you all will take a break from the large amount of light entertainment that's out this holiday season to give this movie a chance and at least think about the story it presents.
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posted
I haven't seen Syriana yet, but I want to. I have read See No Evil and another book by Baer (the name of which escapes me at the moment), and they seemed fairly credible to me.
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I saw it a couple weeks ago-maybe it was last week-and I enjoyed it. It was up in the air in my opinion if the film would have a "happy" (or at least hopeful) ending or not, and it definitely didn't.
You have to be somewhat of a history and current events geek to follow some little things, for instance: in one of the opening scenes of the movie, George Clooney's character is stationed in Iran, and is taking part in an arms deal of some sort, to whom he thinks are Iranians. But one of the guys looks a bit suspicious to him, and so he says to the man in Farsi, "You don't speak a word of Farsi, do you?" and the guy doesn't reply, because he doesn't speak Farsi. Many people think the language of Iran is Arabic, but Farsi is more commonplace, I think.
That would've made no sense at all if I didn't already know that, and it was never explained. Other little things like that. They flip scenes a lot, spanning the world, from Iran, to an Arabic nation, to the USA, to the Meditteranean, back to the USA. You'd have to have some idea of what a madrasa is to be able to pick up on where two of the people are, and you'd have to have at least a cursory knowledge of how mergers between huge international companies are scrutinized to just fit it right into your head and not have to ask, "What the heck is going on?"
I think the film is a bit too free in doling out blame in some areas and not enough in others. It's quite heavy in doling out blame for all sorts of things to Big Oil and the CIA "top brass", so to speak, but not to anyone else, really. One of the Big Oil Bad Guys gives a speech akin to Jack Nicholson's rant in A Few Good Men, and I think it was intended to be like that...but it didn't come close enough to the truth for me. The movie seemed to say, "This is Big Oil's fault," rather than the more accurate, "This is our fault, because we give money to Big Oil."
I also have difficulty believing that the big bosses at CIA are so nakedly...careerist? There was no shame, it was all, "Stay on message and (literally) to hell with what the truth is." That strained credulity a bit and to my knowledge there has been no evidence presented that synchs up with that level of toadying in the CIA. They didn't even show the bosses being coached, they showed the bosses already knowing the playbook and sticking to it, even if the playbook said the geopolitical equivalent of 2+2=5.
But I enjoyed the film a lot, despite those mostly minor nitpicks. It's a rare film about anything remotely historical that I can't b*$%h about something, and this is no exception. It makes you think, but I hope the people who see it take the film's message one step further than it actually goes. The film's message seems to be, "Big Oil is bad. It's screwing up the Middle East, and us. I think it should be, "Big Oil is bad. It's screwing up the Middle East, and us. So carpool sometimes."
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posted
I haven't been too interested in seeing it, because it seems too self-consciously "edgy," and because it doesn't seem to explore an issue, it seems to answer it. It seems more preachy than thought-provoking.
Maybe when it gets to video . . .
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posted
It actually didn't preach that much either really. It seemed to me to just take it as a given that the way it showed things was a reflection of reality. There weren't really many instances of people disagreeing and getting put in their place by the heroes (or villains).
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posted
I agree with what you said about more background behind the oil consumption and what it means to the first world being needed, Rakeesh; that its less 'big oil' and more us.
The movie isn't preachy, really, anymore than any movie is, and a lot less than many. Everyone has elements of good and bad in them and help create the problem the film explores, mostly by showing what is. It is a direct descendant of Traffic, which was written by the director.
It's interesting to me that you hesitate to see the film for the reasons you gave, Icarus, when it is an example of the problem that you were very concerned about when we were discussing Latin American countries and Wilson at the turn of the century. You were much more focused on painting business/the U.S. as the bad guy in that discussion than the movie is. If it's true then, why not now? Why not like the answer now when it supports what you were saying about Latin American countries then and is a direct descendant of the world view that bred a lot of the problems in Latin America.
*spoilers*
One thing I am really curious about is whether or not the U.S. really did assassinate a pro-democracy Saudi Arabian prince just to keep SA in our pocket. I wonder who was behind that? If it's true, it's something that really needs to be looked into, I think.
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posted
My problem is not that it paints business/the US as a bad guy and that I oppose portraying them that way. My problem with that is on artistic grounds.
I believe that movies that aspire to Make Me Think--but that are, nevertheless, works of art and not documentaries--should explore issues in their moral complexity. I think when you have already decided who the (real-life) bad guys are, then you are being manipulative rather than thought-provoking, because as the film-maker or as the writer, you can stack the deck to "prove" your point.
I don't mind a stacked deck when something doesn't aspire to be thought-provoking. In James Bond movies the bad guys are unrepentantly evil and insane to boot, and that's okay, because there's no pretention that this movie should make you think about deeper issues.
I'll give you an example of something that does it just right: Ender's Game. Whether Card meant it the way I read it doesn't matter, because I'm describing the effect it has on me.
*spoilers, in case you, you know, haven't read Ender's Game. O_O *
On the one hand, we see the military as people who use up and destroy whatever/whoever they need to in order to achieve their ends. Any claim that this is all in the name of preserving humanity is belied by the fact that they are the third invasion, and that we learn, though Ender, all about the nobility of the Hive Queen and how it was all just a misunderstanding. Plenty of people in the novel, in the short run and in the long run, find their actions reprehensible. Including Ender.
On the other hand, they felt that in the name of protecting our own existence, all bets were off. We had no way of knowing the buggers would not attack again other than to wipe them out. We had no way of communicating with them, and our only hope against this superior force was to throw everything we had at it. Only those that survive have the luxury of second-guessing.
So who is right? You and I could debate it, but in the novel, Card never gives us that answer. He shows us both sides honestly, including their opinoins of each other, and leaves that to us.
When you start from the premise that the CIA and the oil companies are evil, well, if you're Michael Moore you can pretend it's a documentary and set out to prove your case. I may well be receptive to that argument. But if you call it a work of fiction, don't try to market it as this super-intelligent, super-relevant thought-provoking thing, because laying out the answers for us is manipulative and dishonest.
(Now, once again, I have not seen the movie, so my criticism may be unmerited. I am basing this on how the film has been presented to me through marketing, etc: A thoughtful, intellectual work of fiction that shows us how the CIA and big oil are the bad guys. I say, no such thing.)
((And even when the James Bond movies pick a politically trendy villain, like an oil conglomerate, I roll my eyes, because I see it as pandering.))
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quote: My problem is not that it paints business/the US as a bad guy and that I oppose portraying them that way. My problem with that is on artistic grounds.
I believe that movies that aspire to Make Me Think--but that are, nevertheless, works of art and not documentaries--should explore issues in their moral complexity. I think when you have already decided who the (real-life) bad guys are, then you are being manipulative rather than thought-provoking, because as the film-maker or as the writer, you can stack the deck to "prove" your point.
I understand and agree with this point. It actually echoes some of what we were talking about in our previous conversation regarding U.S. colonialism at the turn of the century. I don't think that the movie is as nakedly partisan and simplistically moralistic as you have heard it is. Both Rakeesh and I aren't saying that it is, and we've seen it.
quote: A thoughtful, intellectual work of fiction that shows us how the CIA and big oil are the bad guys. I say, no such thing.
No such thing that they could be the 'bad guys'? I don't understand this comment, taken in conjunction with the quoted material of yours above.
I understand your concerns. As I said before, the movie is actually not preachy. It's more, here's what happened to get to this point. Here are the characters involved. It actually makes everyone involved pretty human, I think.
I would really love for you to see the movie and tell me what else you would have liked to have seen that could make the movie more nuanced. I think the main question is, are these events accurate? Accepting for the moment that events did happen as they did in the movie, I would be interested to hear what else you think the movie should have potrayed. I repeat my request to the forum at large to put up any links that refute what the movie has said has happened.
It also occurs to me to wonder what movie does a good job at exploring moral complexities. This goes back to another thread we had a while back about potraying evil in movies, specifically Hitler. Most movies are pretty straightforward as potraying Nazis as Bad People. Yet, anyone who's read a little about that time, I think, understands that the Nazis and fascism were just an outgrowth of events than some kind of moral failing on the part of Germans or Italians or the Japanese.
Movies are a two hour or so visual treatment of a subject. How much nuance can you really have in a visual medium that is confined to what is really a very short period of time? I think when compared to 99.9% of other films out there that purport to be retellings of reality, Syriana does as well if not better than any of them. Comparing it to a book isn't fair, as a book has *much* longer time to explore issues than a two hour movie, and is a different medium altogether that facilitates that exploration of ideas.
I think this touches on one of my concerns about the treatment of this movie. I think it's being held to a higher standard than other movies like Traffic, or The Killing Fields, or Schindler's List. It seems like there are some subjects that people are willing to see in movies and not think about the things surrounding what happens because of social pressures, or expectations or something.
Is it really possible for a movie to be nuanced about something that happens over several continents and involves many cultures and ideologies? I can't really think of a movie that doesn't heavilly lean on one side or another as being, if not bad, at least responsible for the bad things shown in the movie.
I'm down with what you are saying. As I said above, I agree with Rakeesh that a little background in the movie, a scene at the beginning that perhaps shows long lines of cars, big cities lit at night, appliances being turned on and off, and then cuts into the movie would have been good. I just don't think the movie should be held to an unattainable standard that no movie can achieve.
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quote: A thoughtful, intellectual work of fiction that shows us how the CIA and big oil are the bad guys. I say, no such thing.
No such thing that they could be the 'bad guys'? I don't understand this comment, taken in conjunction with the quoted material of yours above.
No, they certainly could be the bad guys. In fact, I lean toward seeing them that way. What I mean in the statement quoted above is that if it's a foregone conclusion that these (fictional stand-ins for real people whose private lives we don't know) are the bad guys, then this isn't an intelligent and thoughtful work of fiction.
quote: I don't think that the movie is as nakedly partisan and simplistically moralistic as you have heard it is. Both Rakeesh and I aren't saying that it is, and we've seen it.
Okay. I've repeatedly said that this is just based on how the movie has been promoted to me. It could be that they're doing a lousy job of promoting it. (It comes across as a movie for liberals to feel smug about. I don't consider myself liberal, and in any case, I can feel smug just fine without any movies to help me. )
-o-
quote: I would really love for you to see the movie and tell me what else you would have liked to have seen that could make the movie more nuanced. I
Well, this is definitely not my wife's sort of movie, nor my father's. So I'll tell you what: if either of you guys (or Zan or Chris) wants to get together one night this week and see it, then I'm game. Otherwise, it probably waits till video.
-o-
Movies that do a good job with moral complexity (not moral relativism) . . . does it have to be a movie? How about a broadway show? I think Wicked does one of the most amazing jobs I have ever seen with this. Madame Morrible is pretty much a villain, but nobody else, including Galinda and the WIzard, really is. And, conversely, Elpheba is not purely good or purely victim.
I'm sure there are other examples. Gimme time and I'll list some.
-o-
quote: I think when compared to 99.9% of other films out there that purport to be retellings of reality, . . .
I'm unclear as to what extent this purports to be a retelling of reality. Do you mean simply in the generic sense of people like this did things like these? Or do you mean in terms of this character is based on so-and-so, a real person who did-such-and such, for this reason . . . ?
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quote: No, they certainly could be the bad guys. In fact, I lean toward seeing them that way. What I mean in the statement quoted above is that if it's a foregone conclusion that these (fictional stand-ins for real people whose private lives we don't know) are the bad guys, then this isn't an intelligent and thoughtful work of fiction.
It's not a foregone conclusion. Again, the movie is more or less just saying, here's what happened. No one is innocent or good in the movie. Most of the major players in the movie do bad things, with one possible exception.
quote: It comes across as a movie for liberals to feel smug about.
I've seen the t.v. commercials, so I'm not sure how they came across like that. I do understand why the conclusion of the movie can be seen to be biased towards liberals, since they are the ones that are typically taking an anti-big business stance, but I think it can be argued that if what hte movie potrays is true, it's something that we should all be concerned about, or at least think about whether or not our country should be doing it. This is what I meant when I said that people should see the movie and at least think about what it was saying.
I would also like to point out again that you as a not-liberal came to the same general conclusion the movie did, basically, regarding Latin America, so maybe the movie is less liberal than you think it is. Or maybe you're more liberal than you think you are.
quote: I'm unclear as to what extent this purports to be a retelling of reality. Do you mean simply in the generic sense of people like this did things like these? Or do you mean in terms of this character is based on so-and-so, a real person who did-such-and such, for this reason . . . ?
The movie says that it is based on the non-fiction book I mentioned in my first post, not that it is a strict retelling of it. I'm assuming liberties were taken such that some kind of story could be put on screen. However, the things the movie depicts are things that, I think, the book says really happened. I think. Not totally positive here.
I think Wicked is something people are open to being nuanced because the characters are fictional and fantastic. I think with real life, biographical type works of art, it is almost damn near impossible not to leave something out and short some viewpoint.
quote: So I'll tell you what: if either of you guys (or Zan or Chris) wants to get together one night this week and see it, then I'm game. Otherwise, it probably waits till video.
*ponder* I can't do it this week and it's probably not going to be showing after the first or so. I do kind of hope that more people see these kinds of movies that make a stab at Saying Something, but if you just see the video, that's cool. I myself am going to read the book it's based on.
On a related note, things are progressing such that I might be able to do stuff with the CFC in the next few months. We'll see. Not, I'm sure, that you're waiting with bated breath. Just letting you know.
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You wanna try to get on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
quote:I've seen the t.v. commercials, so I'm not sure how they came across like that.
Okay, it may come to to my media for information then. I have not seen a TV commercial--I watch extremely little TV. I have heard radio commercials, heard an interview with Matt Damon, and seen print ads for it, including, I think, in Rolling Stone--a propaganda mag if ever there was one.
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posted
I think propaganda is a bit harsh for R.S.. I think very biased would be better(I still think it's better, journalistically speaking, than 90% of the conservative media out there, though ), but I can see how all that adds up to your impression.
quote: You wanna try to get on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
It's not really been a dream of mine, but who knows what the future might hold?
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posted
While I don't think the film is preachy Storm, I do think it's designed to be very obvious who the bad guys are. It's taken basically as a given. Big Oil is bad, top-level management at the CIA is bad, terrorists are bad but mostly forced into it due to socio-economic circumstances, and lots of Saudi Arabians are kind of crass but still good. And the ones that are bad are actually bought off by Big Oil.
I guess when I said that it wasn't preachy I meant that it wasn't really trying to convince me of those things, it behaved as though what it was saying was obvious. Now I happen to think that it hewed pretty close to reality in general, but at the same time it was...selective...about which realities to which it hewed. There was a paradigm in the beginning of the film, a bit of hope for changing the paradigm in the middle, and in the end that hope was dashed, and the paradigm remained the same.
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quote: but at the same time it was...selective...about which realities to which it hewed. There was a paradigm in the beginning of the film, a bit of hope for changing the paradigm in the middle, and in the end that hope was dashed, and the paradigm remained the same.
Again, the film is based on a non-fiction book. If this is what actually happened, according to the author of that book, then how could the film be otherwise? How could the film have ended other than it did if that's what happened?
This is why in my first post I asked for refutation of the film and the book. Either the film is lying about what generally happened in the film, about reality, or it isn't. If the U.S.-- American citizens, the military-- really did what the film says they did, what else would you like to have seen added on that actually occured? Is there anything that would excuse the ending? Furhter, aren't there examples of the U.S.'s history of it doing what hte film accuses it of doing? Of screwing around with other cuontries strictly out of its own self interest? Again, from conversations Icarus and I had about Latin America, it seems like it has. If then, why not now?
Everyone in the film was acting in their own self-interest. Everyone. This is why I say there were really no bad guys or good guys in that film. If someone is a bad guy, then maybe it's less what the film shows than what the audience brings to the film?
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posted
I haven't read the book yet, but it's on my list. But those are two of the dirtiest words to come out of Hollywood in regards to historical films, "...based on..."
In the film, yes, everyone was acting in their own self-interest. But the self-interest of the USA in that film was ambitious politics and greed, and the self-interest of others was either outrage at that, or noble desire for self-improvement.
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posted
I disagree. Everyone in that movie was acting out of greed and self-interest. Who was acting out of a desire for self-improvement, or outrage? The 'good' prince? No. He was acting out of interest for *his* country, and a desire for the throne. The oil flunky who was assisting him? No, he was getting paid very well by the prince and was only helping him by chance. He only came in contact with the prince because of his son, remember? The rogue CIA agent? No way. He was an arms dealer who had been hung out to dry. His motivation was that he was trying to save his skin. The lawyer? No.
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), but I can see how all that adds up to your impression.
