Thirteen Days [2000)

I almost didn’t watch this.

Because of arch-cocksucker Philip Zelikow.

But I was curious.

Biden is no JFK.

And Milley is just a woke version of LeMay.

Or Maxwell Taylor.

Biden wants war.

He desperately wants war.

Milley wants war.

He went and did a photo op on the Polish-Ukrainian border as 14 “wide-body aircraft” (per day…the average) behind him were unloading military gear bound for Ukraine.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220304-near-ukraine-border-western-arms-arrive-quickly-and-discreetly

Gee.

That certainly gives the impression that NATO supports Ukraine.

And why would NATO do that?

Ukraine is not in NATO.

Can it then be extrapolated (when joined with the fact that NATO has continuously expanded eastward since the end of the Cold War to now include not just one member that borders Russia [Norway], but five members [Norway, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania]) that it is indeed NATO, and not Russia, that is the root cause of this current conflagration in Ukraine?

This is the Cuban Missile Crisis all over again, except this time we are REALLY in Russia’s backyard (at their fucking door, you might say).

I support U.S. troops.

I pledge allegiance to the USA.

Not to NATO.

The USA needs to swiftly exit NATO.

Because doing so would be in the best interest of the USA.

Doing so would be in the best interest of those men and women who serve our country in our armed forces.

So what is happening in Ukraine?

Is Russia “losing”?

Is Russia withdrawing from Kiev?

Did they ever even really make it into Kiev?

Was it a goal to make it in?

If so, why?

Was/is Zelensky the problem?

Z seems to stand for something other than Zelensky.

Unless Z represents the Westernization of Зеленский (or зеленський).

Would it surprise you to learn that Zelensky’s native language is Russian (and not Ukrainian)?

https://www.france24.com/en/20190416-russian-speakers-ukraine-candidate-talking-language

Does he not even speak Ukrainian fluently?

That would be rather embarrassing if he didn’t.

The operation (Operation Z) is now switching its focus solely to Donbass?

Why?

Was it a poorly-planned operation?

Or did it achieve what Putin hoped it would achieve?

Whose idea was the invasion?

Putin’s?

In what way (and by whom) was he advised?

Have any of his advisors been reprimanded or fired?

I have seen a marked change in the reporting from Pravda over the past 12-24 hours.

It appears (according to that site [which indeed does seem to have a liberal/communist slant {makes sense considering the history of the publication}]) that some rather huge breakthroughs have been made in the Ukraine-Russia negotiations in Turkey.

Strangely, other Russian sources (RT, TASS, and Sputnik) are not exactly echoing this messaging.

So to read Pravda tonight, you would think that we are out of the woods.

I don’t quite believe that yet.

But I hope that it is true.

Russia has made their point.

Putin is a man of action.

Far more so than any American leader (including, especially, Donald Trump).

There is a lack of leadership in the USA.

Trump has ceased to be that leader for some time.

His moronic position on the COVID vaccines made him irrelevant.

And his estimation of Zelensky as a “hero” has continued Trump’s plunge into near-absolute irrelevance.

Trump could rescue his political career.

But he would have to do two things:

A.  Call out the COVID vaccines as being bullshit (#NeitherSafeNorEffective [which they most certainly are])

https://open.spotify.com/track/3VXsCvRbs1B6BmsVoeAvrQ?si=78fb9343ac9c4f02

B.  Call for the USA to leave NATO

Short of that, Trump is just a washed-up has-been.

We looked to him to call out the bullshit.

And then he BECAME the bullshit.

It’s not good enough.

Putin is a man of action.

Trump left us hanging.

And just about every position he is taking (vaccines, Ukraine…) verifies that he is full of shit.

America is in deep, deep trouble if he is our best politician/leader.

Maybe Tulsi Gabbard is the answer.

At least she has the balls to call out NATO (the ONLY American politician that I’ve heard do so in a LONG time).

But I haven’t heard her say shit about the killer vaccines.

-PD

 

Nuit et brouillard [1955)

A propaganda film by the very talented Alain Resnais.

I wonder, for instance, if Olga Wormser’s script can be tied to David Wurmser’s script?

Wormser and her husband Henri Michel were “historical advisors” for Nuit et brouillard.

“…elle a été conseillère historique”…a historical counselor.

Like Philip Zelikow, perhaps?

Or like Edward Bernays.  The father of “public relations”…author of the 1928 book Propaganda. 

But I have totally skipped over dear Mr. Wurmser.  Nay, Dr. Wurmser.  Mr. Dr.  We’ll get to Ms. Dr. soon enough.

David Wurmser would seem related in spirit to Olga Wormser.

One of the principal authors of A Clean Break:  A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.

Such language…”the Realm”.

Only neoconservatives would dream up the projection of Israeli terror on neighboring countries (and Palestine) in terms fit for The Legend of Zelda.

But let’s not forget Ms. Dr.  David’s wife, Meyrav Wurmser.

Also a Ph.D., she’s a doozy.

Why take this tack?

Me.

Because I know too much of Godard.

I know that the greatest film of all time (Histoire(s) du cinema) takes as its focus “the camps”, but also takes issue with history as it has been handed down.

And so let us turn to CODOH.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, CODOH is a “hate group” or some such term.

More terrifying is that, if the SPLC is to be believed, nearly everything is a hate group.

So thanks for nothing, you punks!

(See, now I’m marked too.  It’s as easy as that.)

We must remember the yellow stars that the Jews were made to wear during deportation to the camps.

Resnais makes this all very clear.

But Resnais makes a disingenuous oopsy (in the spirit of faux documentarian Robert Flaherty):  real color footage of the camps (circa 1955…sappy, but at least with no pretense) is intercut with footage which, in context, seems to be from inside the camps during the war.

Resnais can be slightly forgiven…because (supposedly) no such footage exists.

And so he cobbles together replacement footage.

It would, by necessity, largely be from after the liberation of the camps.

Some is perhaps prewar.  Deportation.

Some appears “Hollywood” (i.e. the dramatized becomes real because real footage in this regard is absent).

Even though this film is a classic (a “chestnut”, so to speak), I take issue with the entire thing.

It is not a good film.

The film is neither less vague nor less misleading than my review.

I am vague only because I cannot tell you the exact Hollywood movie.

I cannot tell you exactly what Chris Marker did as an assistant director (though he be naturally drawn to still images [of which several figure prominently within]).

But I can tell you about a very strange and potentially important article on CODOH (that would be, Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust).

It is by a “Franco-British…holocaust denier” named Robert Faurisson (as if that is his profession).

“Hi, my name is Robert.  Oh, what do I do for a living?  Well, a little of this and a little of that.  My real bread and butter is in my capacity as a professional holocaust denier, but I also make some dough on the side as an Egyptologist.”

Main point…being “Franco-” (French), his work would be banned in his home country.  Yes, denying the Holocaust (which is not at all what he does) is a crime in France.  Also in Switzerland too, I think.  Surely in Germany, yes?

[N.B.  Holocaust denial is illegal in 14 of the 28 EU member countries…plus Switzerland…and, of course, Israel.  What a disgusting misuse of police power.]

Why criminalize a thought or opinion?

Because “denying” something as horrible as the Holocaust is somehow evil.  However, in today’s legalistic nightmare world, “denial” IS (among other things) a river in Africa.

Denial could be anything.

Five million Jews died instead of six million?  Holocaust denier!

Seven million Jews died?  Ok, we’ll give you a pass…because you have the right spirit.  But remember:  6 million.  Six, ok?  Six!

And so Faurisson, a very articulate man, tipped many sacred cows in 1980 with his piece “The ‘Problem of the Gas Chambers'” (published in the Journal of Historical Review).

It might be said that Faurisson was the James Tracy of his time.  For me, James Tracy is an American hero.

Faurisson, born in England, was an important part of French society and academia until a witch hunt occasioned by the repugnant Gayssot Act (Loi Gayssot).

Faurisson has his doctorate from the Sorbonne.  He taught there and in Lyon for 21 years at the collegiate level.  But the French are all anti-Semites, right?  Dreyfus?  Zola?  Dream on!

Well, my friends…I’m afraid the “problem with the gas chambers” is also the problem with Resnais’ Nuit et brouillard.

You can judge for yourself here:

http://codoh.com/library/document/868/

Really, that’s what is at issue here.  Read and study and judge for yourself.

The Holocaust was an immensely sad event.

But we must know it in detail.

My ignorance is inexcusable.

And, likewise, any misleading, cynical use of ANYONE’S death (from the Holocaust to 9/11) is the worst sin of all:  knowingly cashing in…perhaps even for geopolitical chips.

Question what you’ve always known.

Learn everything again for the first time.

Be free to speak.

Exercise thought.

Be humble, but don’t grovel.

Do your best.

One of the few things I can be proud of in America today…Gayssot thoughtcrime is not quite here.

But Sandy Hook is censored by Amazon.com, Inc. (Nobody Died at Sandy Hook).

9/11 coverage was/is a joke in the USA (Public Enemy was right).

And with kudos to Mike Adams of Natural News for noticing, Amazon still sells Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

For the five Ph.D.s and one J.D./Ph.D. who contributed to Nobody Died at Sandy Hook, I salute you!

Allors…d’accord.

 

-PD

 

Pickpocket [1959)

Writing about film makes you appreciate the film.

You think.

What will I say about this picture?

This succession of pictures.

Sounds.

And so silently you ponder the ways to express true genius.

And how lucky we are to witness true genius.

It’s true.

The Criterion Collection has brought us many films which otherwise might have been forgotten.

Film didn’t begin with The Godfather.

It doesn’t end with Citizen Kane.

And so we need to see the other stuff.

We need to hear voices from outside of America.

Hollywood is international, to be sure, yet everything which enters there leaves marked.

It is a sentiment which Godard expressed in his magnum opus Histoire(s) du cinema.

And this is the other stuff.

Robert Bresson.

You might only know Henri-Cartier Bresson.  Don’t stop there.

Robert Bresson was the master of taking non-actors and capturing their vitality on film.

Pickpocket does justice to Uruguay as much as did Isidore Ducasse (which is to say, completely).

Martin LaSalle, a young Urugayan-French actor in his film debut, plays the lead role here of the pickpocket Michel.

LaSalle’s eggshell acting is essential to this masterpiece.

Yet, it is director Bresson who brings the ballet of crime to life.

Yes, it is like Orson Wells doing his magic tricks in F for Fake (his magnum opus).

Indeed, everything has an art.  Even crime.

And as paper currency disappears from the industrialized world we see the migration of subway thieves to the ether in an attempt to pilfer Apple Pay “money”.

Yes, I’m afraid that soon everything will need quotes around it.

Perhaps I just don’t understand.

But, there is an art to everything.

Take accounting, for instance:  the most boring subject invented by human beings.

And yet, there is an “art” to it…I’m sure…somewhere…deep, deep down inside.

But Pickpocket is of a different era.

Perhaps computer hacking and financial calculator operations require a certain finger dexterity, but nothing like the prestidigitation which Bresson brings to life in this film.

It is a noiseless ballet of lifts, drops, catches, exchanges, etc.  Buttons flicked.  Buckles finessed in one motion.

It reminds me of the one true line in Goldfinger…perhaps the only genuinely cinematic moment in that film (though I love the other 99% pulp)…

Delivered by the title character, as played by Gert Fröbe, it goes a little something like this:

“Man has climbed Mount Everest, gone to the bottom of the ocean. He’s fired rockets at the Moon, split the atom, achieved miracles in every field of human endeavor… except crime!”

Ahhh…the rolled Rrrrs of that final word.  Like H.W.’s brief year at Langley.  Like Kissinger at Iron Mountain.  Ah!  But here we run into a problem.

Hoaxes.  Like Sandy Hook.  Like Hani Hanjour.

And will Donald Trump have the balls to read a book?  Perhaps Webster Griffin Tarpley’s 9/11 Synthetic Terror:  Made in USA?

I doubt it.

Is Trump a provocateur or merely provocative?

Because if he shot his mouth off a little more pointedly he’d have my vote.

And I would stand with my immigrant brothers and sisters every day to see Dick Cheney take the stand.  Under oath.

And Philip Zelikow.  Under oath.

And Donald Rumsfeld.  Under oath.

And Larry Silverstein.  And Rudy Giuliani.  And Richard Myers.

Somebody else did it?  Then you got nothing to worry about.

Unravel unravel unravel.

Because Trump is wrong about immigration.

And Bernie Sanders is right about Snowden.

And I don’t like Trump or Sanders.

But Trump is the only one even tangentially touching on the real issue:  truth.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Off the rails. Film review.

C’est la vie.

Conspiracy.

Don’t mind me.

I will just go back to watching films.

Go back to sleep.

Nothing to see here.

-PD