Look Not At The Mountains!
Production Begins
"If I abandon this project I would be a man without dreams and I don't want to live like that: I live my life or I end my life with this project. "-Werner Herzog, said while making Fitzcarraldo
HUD
"Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire. You're just going to have to make up your own mind one day about what's right and wrong. "
Directed by Martin Ritt. Music by Elmer Bernstein
Libyan Hero
GREENOCK, Scotland (CNN) -- The man convicted of murdering 270 people by blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, two decades ago received a boisterous welcome when he landed in his native Libya on Thursday. Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, suffering from terminal prostate cancer, was freed from prison in Scotland, with Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill citing compassionate grounds for the release and saying al Megrahi was "going home to die."
A large crowd, waving flags and honking horns, greeted al Megrahi at the military airport in Tripoli.
The 57-year-old has three months to live, according to Scottish authorities.
"Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed but compassion available," MacAskill said. "Our beliefs dictate that justice be served but mercy be shown."
CNN August 20, 2009
THE PIANIST
For us Poles, Chopin symbolizes revolution. It is not surprising that his monument in Warsaw was pulled down during World War II, nor that the wartime struggles led to his music being banned in Poland.
His music is our music -- it's like mother's milk.
-- Roman Polanski
CNN's Headline Article
Muslim Women Uncover Myths About the Hijab
By John Blake, CNN, 8/12/09
(CNN) -- Rowaida Abdelaziz doesn't want your pity. She doesn't want your frosty public stares; the whispers behind her back; the lament that she's been degraded by her father.
What the Muslim high school senior wants you to understand is that she doesn't wear the hijab, the head scarf worn by Muslim women, because she is submissive.
"It represents beauty to me," says Abdelaziz, the 17-year-old daughter of two Egyptian parents living in Old Bridge, New Jersey. "My mom says a girl is like a jewel," Abdelaziz says. "When you have something precious, you usually hide it. You want to make sure you keep it safe until that treasure is ready to be found."
Some women say the hijab makes them feel like they're locked in a cage. But others say it leads to personal freedom.
"It really feels good," she says. "It felt like I was missing something and now I'm complete. I finally understand my purpose."
By John Blake, CNN, 8/12/09
(CNN) -- Rowaida Abdelaziz doesn't want your pity. She doesn't want your frosty public stares; the whispers behind her back; the lament that she's been degraded by her father.
What the Muslim high school senior wants you to understand is that she doesn't wear the hijab, the head scarf worn by Muslim women, because she is submissive.
"It represents beauty to me," says Abdelaziz, the 17-year-old daughter of two Egyptian parents living in Old Bridge, New Jersey. "My mom says a girl is like a jewel," Abdelaziz says. "When you have something precious, you usually hide it. You want to make sure you keep it safe until that treasure is ready to be found."
Some women say the hijab makes them feel like they're locked in a cage. But others say it leads to personal freedom.
"It really feels good," she says. "It felt like I was missing something and now I'm complete. I finally understand my purpose."
Dean Acheson
McCarthy loathed Acheson the most, perhaps because the latter, in McCarthy's eyes, looked the part of an aristocratic traitor. Acheson's elegant clothing, groomed moustache, and manner, which emulated the style of the British upper class, reflected in part the influence of his English mother and in part the Anglophiliac grooming he received at Groton, Harvard College, and Harvard Law School. McCarthy regarded Acheson's demeanor as an act and hated every bit of it; Acheson, he charged, was nothing but a "pompous diplomat in striped pants, with a phony British accent."
excerpt from American Crucible by Gary Gerstle
Censorship and Cinema
"This isn't about politics, but about the right of artists to have their work distributed. This is a shame; its censorship in the most blatant way. I'm not vouching for its accuracy -- it's a dramatization -- but it's an important work and needs to be seen."
LA Times
September 5, 2007
Filmmaker Oliver Stone on the ABC mini-series The Path to 9/11 after the studio decided not to release the DVD due to mounting political pressure from the left
Vision
"One should make movies innocently — the way Adam and Eve named the animals, their first day in the garden…Learn from your own interior vision of things, as if there had never been a D.W.Griffith, or an Eisenstein, or a Ford, or a Renoir, or anybody. "-Welles
Gommorah by Roberto Saviano
Everything that exists passes through here. Through the port of Naples. There's not a product, fabric, piece of plastic, toy, hammer, shoe, screwdriver, bolt, video game, jacket, pair of pants, drill, or watch that doesn't come through here. The port of Naples is an open wound. The end point for the interminable voyage that merchandise makes. Ships enter the gulf and come to the dock like babies to the breast, except that they're here to be milked; not fed.
The port of Naples is the hole in the earth out of which what's made in China comes. The Far East, as reporters still like to cal it. Far. Extremely far. Practically unimaginable. Closing my eyes, I see kimonos, Marco Polo's beard, Bruce Lee kicking in midair. But in fact this East is more closely linked to the port of Naples than to any other place. There's nothing far about the East here. It should be called the extremly near East. the least East. Everything made in China is poured out here. Like a bucket of water dumped into a hole in the sand. The water eats the sand, and the hole gets bigger and deeper.
above Saviano with his personal bodyguards
Sergio Vieira de Mello
Vieira de Mello knew he would have to figure out a way to work with, through, and around the United States. In his speeches he chipped away at notions of American exceptionalism, arguing that the tendency to violate rights was as universal as the rights themselves. "There does not exist on this earth a paradise for human rights," he said. "It is too tempting to divide the world into zones of light and zones of shadows, but the truth is that we all sail between the two."
He sought to balance respect for a country's right to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks with efforts to make sure that it respected international rules in the process. He thought human rights organizations that condemned Bush at times sounded as though they were defending terrorism. In his public remarks he stressed that it was important to delve into "root causes" but asked, "Are there not justifications for every crime and every atrocity?" He continued, "The sadist has his reasons just like he who is pushed by madness. There were economic motivations for slavery," he said. "We have the right to live without this fear of dying, no matter where, at any moment." He urged his staff to remember to denounce terrorist acts with every bit the fervor with which they criticized human rights violations by states. He did not want to alienate the United States before he had a chance to influence it behind the scenes."
Chasing The Flame by Samantha Power
Thus Have We Made the World
Scene 1ALTAMARINO: What did the boy say?
FATHER GABRIEL: He said he will not return to the jungle. The devil lives there.
ALTAMARINO: (delayed)...And what did you say?
FATHER GABRIEL: I said I will stay with him.
Father Gabriel turns and walks away, leaving His Excellency alone by the mission.
Scene 2
HONTAR: You have no choice, your excellency. We work in the world. The world is thus.
ALTAMARINO: No, Sir Hontar. Thus have we made the world. Thus have I made it.
--From "The Mission"
Written by Robert Bolt
Directed by Roland Joffe
Word
"Anyone seriously interested in making film should find as much money as he can as quickly as he can and go out and do it."-Kubrick
Steven Spielberg's MUNICH
INT. INSIDE THE FARMHOUSE - DAY
At a counter near the stove, Louis's Papa, in his vigorous 60's is chopping vegetables. He glances up, gives Avner a quick, appraising glance, waves him over and continues with his cooking.
PAPA
Louis says you're a cook.
AVNER
I... I know how to cook.
PAPA
You'll help me. You bring these...
He hands Avner a big metal bowl filled with kidneys. He points to the sink.
PAPA (CONT'D)
There.
Avner brings the bowl to the sink, turns on the tap. Papa hurries over, nudges Avner out of the way, turns off the tap. He gestures with the large knife he's holding.
PAPA (CONT'D)
No!. Don't wash! It will taste like boiled sponge.
AVNER
Then why put them in the sink?
PAPA
If the juice spurts out, it's big mess, the whole
kitchen smells like piss. Peel off the fat.
He dexterously peels of a kidney's thin membrance of fat.
PAPA (CONT'D)
Let me see your hands.
Avner shows Papa his hands.
PAPA (CONT'D)
Too big for a good cook! That was my problem
too.
Papa holds his right hand up, flat against Avner's.
PAPA (CONT'D)
I'd have been a master, but I have thick stupid
butcher's hands, like yours. We are tragic men.
Butcher's hands, gentle souls.
He tousle's Avner's hair, gently, affectionately slaps his face.
Across the room, Louis is watching their exchange.
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