Tag Archives: truth

Knight Without Armour [1937)

First, my apologies.

My apologies to every Jewish person I may have offended.

There is no good explanation other than to say that the Internet is rife with anti-Jewish sentiment.

I have experienced this irrational wave of nastiness and tried to fight against it.

But I am just a human.

A human with no friends.

And so I ask world Jewry to forgive my failings.

My mission is to speak peace.  It is sometimes not easy to speak peace with a tongue of fire.

Many things I have posted over the years.

What I post is my opinion.

But let it be known that I am just as ignorant as anyone.

And so I ask God to send me Jewish friends.

I have long had my arms open to Muslims worldwide.

My spirit is one of acceptance.

I am no genius.

I accept the Christians of the world.

I have no grudge.

I understand the immortal things no better than any man.

I ask Scientologists to forgive me.

I don’t understand your beliefs.

There is no reason for me to denigrate you.

I ask Lenny Pozner to forgive me.

I don’t know what happened at Sandy Hook.

I know it seems very strange, but I am not a chorus boy for a wave of anger.

I ask the state of Israel and Israelis to forgive me.

I don’t know your country.  I can’t pretend I do.

I ask everyone who has depended on me to forgive me.

I have only tried to tell the truth about 9/11.

Maybe I am wrong.

Maybe the truth is just as it was written by the 9/11 commission.

I don’t think so, but I’m willing to admit that I don’t really understand it.

I don’t understand physics.

I don’t understand intelligence agencies.

I would ask the CIA to please forgive me.

You are probably risking your lives and doing very honorable things.

I just don’t understand.  I don’t know.

I haven’t been there.  I have no idea what you do.

I ask the New World Order (which may or may not exist) to forgive me.

I know you’re probably just a bunch of well-meaning rich people.

I don’t know what your aims are.

I don’t hate you.

I don’t even know you.

But most of all I ask Jacques Feyder to forgive me.

Here I have taken the film review form as a way to ask forgiveness.

I have not talked about his film.

I haven’t talked about Marlene Dietrich.  Or Robert Donat.

Or even the very interesting Frances Marion.

I’m sorry.

I hope only that by speaking candidly I can do justice to this wonderful film.

I always stand up for Muslims.  And Palestinians.

But today I don’t have the right words.

Please forgive me, comrades.

And to my socialist brothers and sisters.

Please accept my apology.  I don’t know what your philosophy really is.

I cannot criticize what I do not know.

I only know film.  And my gut.  And music.

In a word:  art.

I stand with anyone who loves art.

My politics don’t make any sense.

Don’t mind me.

I’m trying to do the best I can, but it’s not good enough.

I’m a bundle of contradictions.

I can only press onwards and hope for the salvation of film and love.

Please forgive me Meir Kahane.  I did not know you.

Please forgive me Jewish Defense League and Mossad.

And the Anti-Defamation League.

I don’t know what you’re up against.  I don’t see what you see.

Please forgive me AIPAC and Southern Poverty Law Center.

I’m not sure if I ever insulted you, but I probably did.  At least one of you.

Please forgive me George Soros.

I don’t think I ever insulted you, but I wanted to.

And that’s wrong.  Because I don’t know anything about you.

I live in Texas where there are very few Jews.

I don’t know about Judaism.

I don’t understand.

But I don’t want to insult your tradition.

I don’t understand the Holocaust.

I don’t know what to say.

I can only tell the truth the best I can.

Please join me in a new effort of forgiveness and openness.

We can make a better world with wisdom.

I pray to you God for wisdom.

My words are impure.

I have tried.  And yet my words are hollow.

Please breathe your life into my words and make them real.

Make me a decent person.

Thank you.

 

-PD

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Les Enfants terribles [1950)

The past is hidden.

My friend.

You must find the magical words.

Which fit like teeth in combs.

A lock clicks with greasy precision.

A marvel of craftsmanship.

Two siblings in love.

A prolonged insult.

From the start it is as a homoerotic phantasm.

But that is the illusion of bent gender.

And genre.

What genre?

No, once again sui generis.

We would expect nothing less from Jean Cocteau.

The history of cinema.

Begins with luminaries.

Trying their hands.

Not yet taboo.

The world has not yet grown up.

Cynically, it could be said Cocteau had enjoyed the green hour a few too many evenings by 1950.

Crepuscule with absinthe.

But the truth is more beautiful.

Play the game…everybody play the game.

Just a Queen lyric haunting the childhood dreams of Paul and Lise.

It sounds like Liz, but looks better in the French.

Americans, take note!

You must love French cinema.

It is not for everyone.

John Milton.

Not for everyone.

Even Shaky William is acquired like marmite.

Or green olives.

Foie gras.

This train is the height of luxury.

Bound for glory.

Such concision of expression from Cocteau.

And such economy of means from director Jean-Pierre Melville.

Don’t worry about mispronouncing.

Here’s a French bloke who named himself after an American author (Herman).

Really!

It was the postwar influence on France.

The death of French cinema.

Slowly, as in a car crash.

Now they worship Tarantino.

Quel dommage!

Mais…what’s the damage?

It is Villon come full-circle.

The ladies of Paris.

And on through Baudelaire’s lady:  Paris.

Man becomes woman.

Voila!

It is a tricky story.

As when Lise is drenched in milk.

Not even for Technicolor Singin’ in the Rain.

Just for the texture.

Not color.

Renée Cosima.

Real name:  Boudin.

Like a sausage cased in a condom.

And Cosima Wagner.

Real name:  Liszt.

And Franz Liszt.

Real name:  Liszt Ferencz.

And Ferenc Fricsay.

Well, you get the point…

Renée with her beautiful, wide jaw.

And Nicole Stéphane trying to perfect her Greek profile.

A clothespin on the bridge of her nose.

[Which I call ghetto acupuncture.  Works great!]

And Édouard Dermit is not bad.

But the real star is Stéphane.

She.

Haggard from the world-weary beginning.

Funny and annoying.

Continuous repartee with Dermit.

All slang and no manners.

She is unlovably lovable until she does the expected.

She was no hero.

All along.

An antiheroine.

And it is anticlimax which we should feel.

When, like a cinder-smeared Gilda, she spits at the world one last time.

You can say they didn’t know.

Any better.

But their dream was more real than our reality.

 

-PD

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The Life of Adam [2015)

Back again with another installment from the talented Independent Media Solidarity group.

This is a sort of follow-up to We Need to Talk About Sandy Hook (which I previously reviewed).

Our producers are Peter Klein (famously described by Lenny Pozner [ostensibly a grieving parent] as “Evil” [sic]), TNN (presumably TyrannyNewsNetwork [a YouTube “handle”]), and MrStosh (previously identified by his [?] YT handle MrStosh314 in the aforementioned film).

Our narrators are SwanSong (another YouTube handle [whose voice sounds strikingly like that of David Knight from infowars.com]), Insanemedia (the name of the site Swan Song edits…another YouTube name?), and the previously mentioned producers (minus Klein).

I have to admit…

The first time I heard Steve Shine’s opening song (about Adam Lanza) I wasn’t overly impressed.

But it has grown on me.

It employs echo delay rather effectively.

But let’s clear the air.

Just what is it to which this film’s title refers?

It is, if I am not mistaken, a bit of police radio activity from Dec. 14, 2012 which sounds like the phrase “end the life of Adam”.

I have been familiar with that thread of inquiry for awhile.

I initially didn’t put much stock into those elusive words.

It’s almost like something you’d hear on a ghost-hunting program.

But it makes some sense…

Was it a garbled phrase?

A twisted transmission?

Or did some official from some U.S. government agency (FEMA?) actually utter the words “end the life of Adam”?

Because, you see, within the Sandy Hook research “community” (hey, if our 16 intel agencies can be a community, then fuck off!) it is not firmly established whether Adam Lanza even existed.

This emaciated superhuman of murderous efficiency seems to be a prime candidate for fictional personage.

In the opening credits of our film, you can also see a graphic symbolizing the theory that Adam Lanza (who may have only existed in a handful of photographs) was actually his brother Ryan Lanza at an earlier age.

To simplify (Mr. Ockham), there was no Adam.

There was only Ryan.

And to borrow a phase from another brave bunch of auteurs (aside from this IMS crew), it is quite possible (perhaps even probable) that “nobody died at Sandy Hook”.

The consensus from Dr. Fetzer and others seems to be that it was a drill which was passed off as the real thing.

I have not had the pleasure of reading Nobody Died at Sandy Hook, but the fact that Amazon.com, Inc. banned the book (after it had done brisk sales for about a month) while continuing to sell Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf is really a case of the world having been turned on its head (to paraphrase Guy Debord).

But we press on…

The story of Adam Lanza seems to be about more than just gun control.

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree that the primary purpose of the event was to take another Fabian socialist baby-step towards disarming the American public, but there’s a little more to it.

IMS do a great job of highlighting this.

Adam Lanza is Tim McVeigh updated for 2012.

It had been about 17 years.

It was time for another unbelievable domestic terrorist to emerge.

Now, I’m no expert on the OKC bombing, but from what I’ve seen it looks like McVeigh was a patsy in the mold of Oswald.

Adam Lanza seems to be a whole new level of government duplicity:  a virtual killer.

Sandy Hook seems to be a “kinder, gentler” form of state-sponsored (you read right) terror.

My guess is that some of our leaders in the U.S. fancy themselves to be quite humane now that they’ve marginally figured out how to kill without killing.

All they wanted were the effects.

“Never let a good tragedy go to waste.”  –Rahm Emanuel?

If true, this would be a new systemic trend.

It goes along laughably with the “pinpoint precision” of drone attacks.

We know that is not true.

Ask the residents in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.

Or I might have it all wrong…

Because the truth is on CNN, right?

Remember Desert Storm?

Ooohhh…Ahhhhh…

Cameras on bombs.

Look, ma!  We’re killing the “right” people.

Yay!!!

Look how humane war has become 🙂

The Gulf War…1990/1991.

An in-and-out burger war.

“Kinder, gentler” bombing.

At least it was marginally “prudent” (though completely duplicitous).

You can take the Hill & Knowlton campaign…Kuwaiti babies ripped from incubators.

[As witnessed by the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S….who (she) was not in Kuwait…and was not advertised for who she really was…because she was acting…in front of the U.S. Congress…in a public relations campaign to shore up public sentiment that war (the Gulf War) was necessary.]

But you can also dig deep…into the State Department…and know that Saddam was given a promise that we would not interfere if he invaded Kuwait.

Whoops…  Sounds like a cynical stratagem FOR WAR to me.

Just itching to get their war on (as the inimitable Wayne Madsen says)…

So back to Adam Lanza.

No.  Wait a minute.

Let’s not forget the United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade (1999).

In eight years (since our techno-war, our “smart bomb” Gulf War) we hadn’t learned how to read a map.  Fucking ridiculous!

We “see” Adam Lanza from the back.  Playing Dance Dance Revolution (not to be confused with East Germany…the other white DDR).

“Adam Lanza” with his Beatle haircut.

So what is this “other” agenda to which I referred?

Other than gun control.

It is that WEIRD = BAD.

If someone is shy or out of the ordinary, then they are your next shoot-’em-up rampage candidate.

Who benefits?

Cui bono?

The system.  The spectacle (to again reference Guy Debord).

If you don’t look the part.

If you aren’t in style.

God forbid you’re as dorky as Napoleon Dynamite.

Then everyone should fear you.

You are a virus.  A stain.

What did they focus on?

Autism.

The purported acts of Adam Lanza have nothing to do with autism or Asperger’s syndrome.

But that was one of the insidious messages which the DUMB public was to receive.

Yet some are not buying it.

Even if I was a proponent of gun control (which I am not…rather, quite the opposite), I wouldn’t feel good about the hollow (ineffective) victory achieved by the national security state through Sandy Hook.

It’s worse than Realpolitik.  It’s the consummation of our simulation culture.

We should get around to dragging Baudrillard into this at some point.

So, you ask:  who’s fighting for you?

Well, in addition to Independent Media Solidarity, there is Sheila Matthews of ablechild.org.  You can hear her story in The Life of Adam about the quest to make Lanza’s psychiatric treatment history public.

It’s not public.

Almost nothing about this weird Sandy Hook case is public.

It’s all secret.

It’s all in line with the limits of reality.

If the reality was that it was merely a drill (passed off as real) to sway public opinion, then it would have the limits of reality placed upon it.

The fraud could only be as convincing as its budget (and the devious professionalism of those running this operation).

The unnecessary secrecy is in line with the potential truth.  There are no pictures of the crime scene because there was no crime scene.

Rather, the crime scene was the scene of a far different crime.

The crime was fraud, not murder.

I can’t help bringing up Anderson Cooper again…because his whole role in this shenanigan is really revolting.

It is no stretch of the imagination to say that he and CNN are responsible for an extremely articulate, tenured professor losing his job.

That is the misfortune of Dr. James Tracy.

You will hear his story in The Life of Adam.

You’ll see the fumbling, bumbling police Sgt. Paul Vance (who threatens people like me for spreading rumors).  This is the same authority who couldn’t make up his mind where the supposed shooter (Lanza) shot himself.  Was it in the hall?  Room 10?  There’s a difference.  How could you forget that?  It’s fresh on your mind.

Better have a look at your FEMA script one more time…

Of particular interest is the story of Sabrina Phillips.

I must admit that her line of inquiry sometimes loses me.  In other words, she is deeper into this than me.

But I really respect what she is trying to do.

Dig up the truth.  Damn it!

Not only does television suck (sorry all you network addicts), but the news is blatantly fake.

Anderson Cooper needs to march right back to Langley and demand better acting lessons.

As James Mason said, perhaps the “Actors Studio”.

You are no Cary Grant, Mr. Cooper.  You’re no Murrow.

You’re nothing.  You’re just a well-dressed sellout.

The Internet will reveal your grave error in getting Tracy fired.

You’re no journalist.  You’re no better than the “evil empire” over at Fox News.

You know that.  Deep down inside.

You are truly a gigantic nothing.

There’s no Edelman to PR you out of this one.

You lose.  Your network loses.  CNN is not your network.  Seems pure CIA to me.

Ok, mini-diatribe over.

I hope you will take the time to watch The Life of Adam and its equally-brilliant predecessor We Need to Talk About Sandy Hook.

The sad fact is that conspiracies are ruling our lives.  We can ignore them, but they are the main political tool of the 21st century.  They get somewhat more sophisticated each time, but they are still false flags…still just kids with their hands in the cookie jar pointing at an uninvolved sibling.

 

-PD

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کلوزآپ ، نمای نزدیک‎‎ [1990)

[CLOSE-UP (1990)]

In the name of Allah…

We enter the courtroom of the world.

Cinema.

To be judged on our veracity.

But also to be judged for our passion.

Hossain Sabzian had passion.

Here.

And his story is so similar to mine.

Maybe you feel it too?

Dear cinema friend.

Because I will have to invent a new category for this movie.

Loneliness.

Hardship.

Woody Guthrie woe.

Hossain Sabzian plays himself in this story.

It is the truth.

At least as truthful as the novels of Henry Miller.

Real life.

کلوزآپ ، نمای نزدیک‎‎

The world is under the microscope.

How would Debord start his bible about the spectacle?

With that quote from Feuerbach.

A preface as preface.

From Das Wesen des Christentums.

It deserves to be repeated in its entirety.

“But certainly for THE PRESENT AGE, which PREFERS THE SIGN to the thing signified, the COPY to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence…ILLUSION ONLY IS SACRED, TRUTH PROFANE.  Nay, sacredness is be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that [*] the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness. [*]”

Those are my notes.

My copy.

My marginalia.

I could autograph it for you.

But the words are by Ludwig Feuerbach.

Having gone through translation from German to English by Donald Nicholson-Smith.

So what?

I haven’t even named the film yet.

Or the director.

Rather, I haven’t named the film in English.

Substance has been subjected to style.

Style has no translation.

Close-Up.

By Abbas Kiarostami.

One of the few geniuses in the world.

You will find on my site the review for طعم گيلاس

Who’s reading?

Taste of Cherry.

I thought that surely no film by this auteur could top that, but I was wrong.

The depth of Close-Up completely defies what I thought was possible with cinema.

It is a shock.

I am at a loss for words regarding how much this film affected me.

It is as beautiful as a bus stop.

As poor as a paper bag.

The roses from the leaf pile are a good start.

All over the world.

We play “kick the can”.

Don’t ever let people lie to you about Iran.

What is the truth?

The truth is that there is a genius there who speaks directly to my heart…like no other.

That genius is Abbas Kiarostami.

But we must mention Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

He is perfect.

It is unbelievable.

Do you know how I would feel to meet Jean-Luc Godard?

Hossain Sabzian knows.

To meet the person who gave us hope…who depicted our suffering.

Bicycleran.

بايسيكلران

Or the blessed marriage promised long ago.

We, are on the outside looking in.

Farsi mocks us.

With its beauty.

There is a lump in my throat like a piece of coal.

Do we really care about Oriana Fallaci?

Or rather Peter Bogdanovich?

Interesting that you should ask.

At first we see Haj Ali Reza Ahmadi annoyed, but later we see him as remarkably humane.

This is the Iranian legal system.

We are told it is a civil law system.

In the name of Allah.

How does a country produce such beauty?

Hossain Farazmand.

Everyone wants to be on TV.

It must be difficult to read my writing.

Who cares if you listen?

Now that IS a quote (or misquote).

Milton Babbitt.

Twelve-tone prose.

My beloved concision.

Fighting my windbag tendencies.

It is supposed to be funny.

Like Mauricio Kagel.  Or Francis Poulenc.  Or Conlon Nancarrow.

Must I mention Satie?

Yes, I must.

In the name of Hossain Sabzian.

détournement

Making the job of the DGSE almost impossible.

Ever since the Place de la Contrescarpe.

Les moineaux?  Chez Moineaux?

Trouble makers.

Like the glorious Kiarostami.

But he left us this document.

And he lives at the young age of 75.

Yet, the Situationist is Hossain Sabzian.

Like Arthur Cravan.

But more like Erik Satie.

Life?

Life is hard.

Is it like Film International?

Or like Massoud Mehrabi?

I don’t know.

But I know someone was on the same page mentally.

Because F for Fake (my second most favorite film of all time).

That is the language of cinephiles.

We’ve lost the sound.

Fifteen years ago.

-PD

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I fidanzati [1963)

This is a fucking depressing film.

I don’t think I’ve ever started like that before.

Because it matters.  How you start.

But maybe it’s just a mirror.

This film.

I can imagine few pieces of cinema summing up my life at this moment quite as well as I fidanzati does.

I’m sure there’s a dangling modifier in there somewhere.

But what about the welder?

The man adrift.

Sent to some godforsaken place for the company.

I made the right decision.  But I went to the wrong place.

Unfortunately, there is no separating the two.

Work.

Too much work.

All of our thoughts occupied with work.

And what do we get out of the equation?

Nothing.

Almost nothing.

Might as well be nothing.

It is a particularly Italian version of hell on display in I fidanzati.

Ermanno Olmi was a brilliant director here.

And he lives.  84 years young.

Sure.

Some things end well.

Young girls like happy endings.

But this one is hard to get over.

It’s really harrowing having nothing to live for.

And how would I know that?

You have a phone.  It doesn’t ring.

In fact, you sometimes wonder whether your messages get delivered at all.

You have a heart.

When is the last time someone spoke to your heart?

I understand.

We are shackled.  Paralyzed.  Crippled.

Life is sucked out of us like a lemon peel in the Sicilian heat.

No, I don’t understand.

Is this how karma works?

Surely this jungle will spare me.

I can think of Anna Canzi.

Her face is a melody.

And I relate to those sad cheeks.

You keep writing because you haven’t yet expressed it.

It.

That which you need to get off your soul.

Soul.

That living feeling inside you.

Primitive man suffering with his superstitions.

Poor man paying for his ignorance.

Not all are willfully unprepared.

What could have prepared you for this situation?

Other than this situation?

That is Situationism.

Science and humanities will argue that metaphor…or rather analogy.

That this will teach you.

It is like this.  And like that.  But unlike the other thing.

No.

I disagree.

It is unlike anything I’ve ever known.

Youth was lonely.

This is vicious.

There is.

A bar down the street.

But only in the movies.

Yet here it is exposed for what it really would be.

Empty.

Loud music and louder lights.  Life!  Vitality!  Excitement!

Inside is an old woman at a cash register.

There is a little metal display tree with ballpoint pens on one side.

The rest of the lopsided taunt is vacant.

And then the little boy.

Getting ahead in life.

Like Michele Sindona.

Making the espresso.  Quicker!  Faster!

Washing the dishes…

And hauling the fruit back and forth…

The citrus.

The service.

The difference in price from one location to another.

Goldfinger.

They Drive by Night

Good god…

It doesn’t get much more depressing.

And there should be some positive message to end it off.

And there is.

Which makes it even more sad.

Because the film was running long.

And maybe it won’t win shit at Cannes.

Did you ever think about that?

So then you have a depressing film on your hands for domestic audiences.

And they spend their hard-earned cash.

And what the fuck is this shit?

Oh…Anna, Monica…don’t go see this film.

It is so depressing!

But there’s the answer.

I fidanzati succeeds because it shows a side of life we don’t want to see.

What?

It succeeds…53 years later.

Because it was true.

It stuck to its guns.

It was meaningful.

So many other films from that year…

Utterly pointless.

Diversions.

Sad candy.

But here…

Yeah.  It’s a bummer.

But it’s real.

You can stare up at it and wonder how Signor Olmi painted such color in black and white.

How he lovingly distinguished gray from grey…and Juan from Gris.

Is it the same?

From language to language?

Gray?

Even within the Commonwealth…

We damned Americans.

No.

And yes.

This.

Sadness transcends.

No explanation needed.

The machines rule us.

Time is our master.

Money mocks our fragility.

On every continent.

An indispensable story.

 

-PD

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Salvatore Giuliano [1962)

When we dig into history we must wade through many boring reams of paper.

If, for instance, your FOIA request is granted, you might be inundated with a fecundity of information which makes comprehension initially prohibitive.

But we dig anyway…because we are human.

Once in awhile, a decent man or woman will tell us we have the right to know the truth.

If we find their ethics convincing, we might respect them for such a statement.

And so such is the milieu surrounding the story conveyed in Francesco Rosi’s Salvatore Giuliano.

I was tired.

And so I watched and watched and watched…and things became slower.

Nothing seemed to be happening.

It was like a particularly painful silent film.

But the sound eventually makes itself indispensable.

It is the sound of strange relationships.

Like the Mafia and the CIA.

Like the Cubans and the CIA.

Like the Mafia and the Vatican.

Like the P2 Masonic lodge and Operation Gladio.

These strange relationships.

What can we prove?

Should we cower forever beneath the hulking torts of libel and slander?

What balance of justice is there between the free speech of the impoverished and defamation?

I have nothing worth taking.

There’s a reason Palsgraf sued the Long Island Railroad Co. and not the man with the newspaper-wrapped box of fireworks.

Money.

Seeking a remedy at law (as opposed to a remedy in equity).

Such a strange language.

We don’t speak this way other than in legal circumstances.

Today, when Scalia strangely bites the dust…we remember his own supposed connection to the Propaganda Due lodge.

Strange bedfellows.

Blowback.

And Salvatore Giuliano.  A real personage.

It all seems so reminiscent of the “strategy of tension”…Operation Gladio…the “anni di piombo” (Years of Lead)…

And I’m sorry to say that Wikipedia seems pruned and poised to mislead on these subjects.  While the contributors have made certain that Daniele Ganser is profusely maligned, I find Mr. Ganser’s research and writing on the above subjects far superior to the damage-control tone of Wikipedia.

It is the same sort of failure (this damage-control tone) which pervades the potentially groundbreaking Wikipedia page on “9/11 conspiracy theories”.  Some very important (rich) people have much at stake in keeping the (false) narrative constrained to a very tight frame.

Compare, for instance, the Wikipedia articles on “9/11 conspiracy theories” (don’t even bother reading the whitewashed main article on 9/11) and “flat earth”.  There is no urgency to conceal in the flat earth article. The same, sadly, cannot be said for the “9/11 conspiracy theories” travesty.

And what does all of this have to do with Salvatore Giuliano?

Well, my friends, sometimes our enemies have very colorful histories.

Consider, for instance, Osama bin Laden.

The U.S. Republican presidential candidates (particularly the deplorably daft Marco Rubio) are (while no worse than their opposing party) willfully ignorant concerning 9/11.

Rubio and company (the six remaining Republican presidential candidates) have bought hook-line-and-sinker every bit of repugnant narrative which has emanated from the U.S. federal government since day one:  9/11/01.

How closely did we work with Osama during Operation Cyclone?

Charlie Wilson’s War doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.

And what was the nature of the relationship between the CIA and the Pakistani ISI?

The much-maligned Michael Ruppert seems to have been right on the money in describing a confluence of oil, drugs (opium), and geopolitical chess when tracing the cui bono of 9/11 to the bonanza of Afghanistan.  Of course, Iraq would soon follow.

And so what of Thierry Meyssan’s claims regarding the translation of the words al-Qaeda from the Arabic to the English as “the base” or “the database”?  Such a translation seems entirely plausible when considering Osama’s coursework of business administration at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia.  It is, therefore, a strange mesh of false jihad (for show) and organizational acumen.  It seems that the billions (before adjusting for inflation) which flowed from the CIA to the mujahideen were, at least to some significant extent, used to fund Osama’s organization in Afghanistan during the Soviet war (1979-1989).

This is usually the place at which the spin doctors attempt to interpolate the concept of blowback.  The idea that we “abandoned” Osama after we were done with him.  But I don’t buy that for a second.  He was too valuable.  He was, literally, an investment.

Michael Ruppert said in his excellent tome Crossing the Rubicon that (to paraphrase) “the CIA is Wall Street”.

Ah, but I keep leaving Salvatore Giuliano in the dust.

Mostly because I don’t want to spoil it.

This is an essential film, but it is a lot of work for the piece of meat.

I can’t say on first viewing that it is little.

To truly appreciate this film one would need a significant knowledge of Italian history in the 20th century.  I barely caught the Garibaldi reference (and he died in 1882).

Strange alliances.  Corruption.  Italy.  Sicily.

And the Communists who peacefully organized on May Day to petition the government for assistance with running water and electricity (in 1947).  (!)

The century would go badly for socialists in Italy.  And that was no accident.  They have NATO to thank for many problems.  But they also have their own security services to blame as well.

Such a fear of communism.  Like today.  Such a fear of Islam.

And sadly, covert operations done in the coldly-utilitarian spirit of “the ends justify the means”…

But pay particular attention to the effort needed by the police (or was it the carbinieri?) to place the body (habeas corpus) in a convincing sprawl for a chalk outline.  Yeah…whoops!  Once again, the “death” of bin Laden is instructive.

It takes great lengths to hold no one accountable for internal weaknesses in such massive crimes.

And so perhaps with Salvatore Giuliano, the more apt metaphor is Lee Harvey Oswald (or, closer still, Jack Ruby).

 

-PD

 

2 Comments

Pépé le Moko [1937)

I was alive.

Really alive.

I thought about one way, but took another.

Because the unpredictable had become routine.

We write until we die.

Romantic outlaws.

My crime?

Thirst.

It is a masterpiece from Julien Duvivier.

Jean Gabin is trapped in the Casbah.

Like the digital ghetto known as Facebook.

I didn’t coin the phrase.

But it is not my primary impetus.

It comes secondary.

Pépé from Toulon.  It’s been too long.

Not long enough.

Just as Yves Montand dreamed of Pigalle in Le salaire de la peur.

Here Jean Gabin dreams of Le Métro.

Like Baudelaire’s “La Chevelure”…

Gabin inhales the perfume of freedom.

Sick of his life.

Running.

Hiding.

Sick of life.

But Fréhel teaches the most poignant lesson.

“Où est-il mon moulin de la Place Blanche?
Mon tabac et mon bistrot du coin?
Tous les jours pour moi c’était dimanche!
Où sont-ils les amis, les copains?”

 

Where’s my tobacco shop and my corner bistro?

I dreamt of France for ten years.  Finally I made it there.

And Paris?  I was there for an hour or two.  In the back of a van.  Gazing out the windows.

And like Fréhel I had my day of glory.

The very name of this website.  Pauly Deathwish.  My stage name.

And so, for us, a picture from our youth becomes a mirror.

And we wind the phonograph like the engine of a Ford Model T (pre-1919).

But I have my memories of Doc.

Of the thatched roof.

I thought only Debussy hung the moon.

But it was also dear Ravel who made the birds sing and the flowers bloom.

And so perhaps Ravel’s Piano Concerto…middle movement…in the hands of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.

Perhaps this is my “Où Est–il Donc?”

Algiers.  Alger.  Algeria.  Kabyle.

ⵟⴰⴳⴷⵓⴷⴰ ⵜⴰⵎⴻⴳⴷⴰⵢⵜ ⵜⴰⵖⴻⵔⴼⴰⵏⵜ ⵜⴰⵣⵣⴰⵢⵔⵉⵜ

Berber or Tamazight in the Maghreb.

Yes, there are no English words to sum up the emotion I have for this film.

The secret of the world can be found in French films.

 

-PD

 

 

8 Comments

La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc [1928)

For this one I should really write a good piece.

Because this is a miracle of cinema.

Carl Th. Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc.

You might cue it up on Hulu (good luck with Netflix) as part of the Criterion Collection.

You might put your headphones on.

But the Criterion Collection presents this as a truly silent film.

We know that that wasn’t the case most of the time with “silent” films.

They had live piano accompaniment.  Perhaps an orchestra.

In some countries (Japan?) they had sound effects performed live.

But watching La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc today is truly a lonely experience. 

You might keep the headphones on out of habit (as if a sound might finally emerge…but it never does).

It takes a valiant effort to watch this film in its totality and not cry when the famous scene comes.

“The famous scene” I refer to is the one made famous by Godard’s best “movie”:  Vivre sa vie.

Anna Karina sits in a movie theater and watches this very film.  And we join her just in time to see the tears roll down her cheeks.

Joan of Arc.

She stood for something.

And somehow, a “religious” court found her guilty.  She is labeled for all time, by this panel of judges, an “apostate” and an “idolater”.

What a tragedy!

It very plainly shows us the error of religion.

Joan’s religion is pure.  Her dedication is personal.

And who ever gave “the Church” the power to kill?

There is no part of the New Testament which even suggests such a power should emanate from Jesus through the Apostles (his “descendants”) and on down the ages to “the Church”.

And so Christianity failed.  There are a lot of apologies to be handed out.  The Inquisition, etc.

[It should be pointed out that the Catholic Church rectified this mistake made by a regional element which was allied with the English against the French.]

But the important thing is that Joan stood.

She stood for something.  Even if she was a fiery mystic like Hildegard von Bingen.

And who do we have to look to today?

I would say Snowden.  Is Snowden the real article?

He is certainly filling the needed role.

The great evil now is the surveillance state.

It is plain and simple.

And Will Smith should win the Oscar for Best Actor in Concussion even if for one line:  “Tell the truth!”

But there are far more important things on which we need the truth.

9/11, the War “on” Terror, ISIS…

Who is standing for those nearly 3000 who died horrible deaths in New York City?

When you wave a false flag, your soldiers don’t mete out justice.

When you wave a false flag, you get the wrong people.

No wonder Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had to be waterboarded 183 times.

And Guantanamo is full of goat farmers.

Therefore (q.e.d.), the 19 hijackers story (being impossible without the assistance of highly-placed “moles” in both the FBI and CIA) is the deadliest “Once upon a time…” ever written.

As much sympathy as I have for all those who died on 9/11 (and it is substantial), we must recognize the web of death which emanated from that lie…that “Once upon a time…”.  Try reading the 9/11 Commission Report without vomiting.  Why, because it is graphic?  No.  Because it reads like “My Pet Goat” (which George W. Bush was busy reading in Florida while he should have been rushing for cover = fake terror [w/ real death]).

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria…

It is disgusting.  There is not a “dictator” or “warlord” in the world who has wrought the needless destruction which the United States of America (by way of lies) has visited upon the Muslim world in the past 15 years.

But let’s be fair.  Our soldiers have been tricked.  Their lives have been ruined in the course of fighting this imperial war.  I am an American.  I pity our military.  They did not join up to fight shadow wars.  They did not join up to be the tools of imperialists.  They wanted to protect the United States.  Their generals have only succeeded in making the world a more dangerous place.

And that brings us to ISIS.  ISIS typifies everything fake about the War “on” Terror.  From the bastards who brought you the self-inflicted wound known as 9/11 comes a new comedy starring those wild and crazy terrorists who sprang up from nowhere.

Just like al-Qaeda.  Sprang up from nowhere.  Of course, there was the Operation Cyclone-era groundwork laid (that would be, CIA funding), but in general the “roll-out” of al-Qaeda was fairly quick.  But ISIS took the cake.  The confectioners of fake terror (that would be, the U.S., U.K., NATO countries, Israel, Five Eyes, take your pick, etc.) really outdid themselves with their speed to market in introducing ISIS.  In doing so, the New World Order (let’s call them) cannibalized their own product (al-Qaeda) just as Apple does each time it rolls out a new iPhone.

And so it has been transparent all along.  The catchy name has incriminated ISIS (no fundamentalist terrorist group from the Middle East would ever name themselves after an Egyptian pagan god) from the beginning.

ISIS is like a water cooler joke at Langley.  The spooks can’t believe how dumb we are.

And so it has been the U.S. airdrops which have sustained ISIS.  Yes, Turkey has provided a good bit of sustenance (under the aegis of NATO).

And the aerial campaign against ISIS’ formidable Toyota (!) trucks?  Nonexistent.

WE have been ISIS’ air force.  We haven’t been bombing ISIS.  At all.  Ever.

Russia has made this clear.

Make no mistake, Russia entered the Syrian theater because of the insanity of NATO along her borders.

Since Russia has entered:

-Russian passenger jumbo jet blown up over the Sinai Peninsula

-sabotage operation of explosions which have knocked out a considerable amount of power in Crimea (in the winter)

– Turkish (NATO) shootdown of Russian fighter/bomber

These are not pleasant things.

It is hard to tell exactly what role the Paris attacks played.

I think they were an American operation which backfired when France leaned towards Russia.  It is, however, possible that it was a French-engineered false-flag to allow France a pretext for joining Russia.  Perhaps the DGSE saw no other solution than sacrificing a hundred or so Parisians to stop the American war of insanity in Syria.

What is most obvious is the general arc of this farce:  9/11 (absolutely false narrative regarding the guilty party), the War “on” Terror (more lies lies lies…never ending war…profits for Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, United Technologies, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum ad nauseam), and ISIS (as fake as the Kuwaiti babies being ripped out of incubators which was foisted upon the U.S. Congress thanks to Hill & Knowlton PR firm).

And so we stand.  Each in our own little ways.

The panopticon is already constructed.

The camps are empty.

The data vacuumed up thus far will be mined from now till eternity.

Thus, Snowden needs to be eclipsed.

Who will be the next great human to take the world stage?

 

-PD

7 Comments

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

4 Comments

.سنگسار ثريا م‎‎ [2008)

[THE STONING OF SORAYA M. (2008)]

Every time I write a political post I take my life in my own hands.

Because I let everyone have it.

Out into the ether.

An equal opportunity whistle-blower.

And so I must let you know that this is almost a great movie.

Yet, I’m not even sure if it’s a good movie.

Let me explain.

The Stoning of Soraya M. was released at a very suspicious time.

By a very suspicious (and talented) director.

All through the George W. Bush presidency there was a pervasive itch…a green tide of bile just waiting to drown the country of Iran.

First we reduced one of the poorest countries on Earth (Afghanistan) to rubble.  It was mostly rubble to begin with.

Our military had trouble finding high-value targets to hit.  There were none.

Then our trumped-up intelligence hit the big stage:  the U.N. General Assembly.

Colin Powell knowingly lied.  The U.S. intelligence community was used as a pawn.

The intel was being propped beneath a faulty case like a gratis jack beneath a compact car.

Remember?  The Downing Street memo?

And so we knocked off another country.  Iraq.  The neo-con wargasm really kicked in.  No doubt the poet Ed Sanders was unsurprised.  He coined the phrase wargasm and had been documenting the demented drive of American bloodlust for decades.

And then the steamroller sputtered.

Iran was always next.

Always.  Always.  Next month.  This fall.  Imminent.

Praise be to God that the neo-con luck ran out.  Like the serial killers they are, their ability to trick and deceive abated.

And what the hell does any of this have to do with the film I’m reviewing?

Quite simply, the film I’m reviewing is perfect propaganda to bomb the hell out of Iran.

It was premiered in the final months of the Bush junta.

Perhaps the director and producers had dragged their heels a bit.

Perhaps they realized they were being used?

Perhaps…

But the story goes deeper.

Director Cyrus Nowrasteh is best known for directing a two-part ABC miniseries called The Path to 9/11.  It is “controversial”…which is to say, it is critical of the U.S. government…but only in the most kid-gloves, “oh they should have killed more Muslims” kind of way.  To reframe my argument, Cyrus Nowrasteh was already a propagandist whether he knew it or not.

And that’s where this film comes in.

Let me start by saying that the acting in this film is fantastic.  The direction is stellar (yes, the guy I was just insulting has world-class talent).

What we must ask ourselves is this:  was this film merely meant to pull on the heartstrings like a flippant Laura Bush quote about the Taliban or was Nowrasteh sincere in this unfortunately-timed release?

I believe the director was sincere.

In fact, I believe the director is the parallel of the character Ebrahim in this film.

Ebrahim is the mayor of a small town in Iran.

Ebrahim wants to do the right thing, but he is tricked.

Even so, Ebrahim is a victim of dogma.  Ebrahim’s a dumb-ass.

And yet, we respect him somewhat.

The same goes for Nowrasteh.

If my reading of The Path to 9/11 is correct, then Nowrasteh has never considered the possibility that the United States attacked itself on 9/11.  Adding further color to that false-flag would be the involvement of Israel.

One thing is certain:  it seems that Nowrasteh showed a shocking lack of curiosity when making The Path to 9/11.

Fool me once, Cyrus…shame on…

And so then Nowrasteh gets to direct this piece of cinema.  It is cinema.  But how much can we invest our hearts in a story told by a facilitator of untruths?

It pains me to discount the amazing acting of Mozhan Marnò.

And I do not discount it.

She is one of the most talented actresses I have witnessed in a long time.

The same goes for Shohreh Aghdashloo.  Tremendous thespian skills!

And Nowrasteh (whom I’ve spent “paragraphs” berating)…what a talent!

But is that talent misdirected?  [no pun intended]

I’m not cowing to Iran.

I have nothing to gain.  I have everything to lose.

This film, on its own merits, is extremely remarkable.

But taken in the context of Hollywood propaganda, it becomes suspect.

The Mullah in the film is a scumbag.

The husband is a scumbag.

The town mayor is essentially a scumbag (dupe).

There are very few subtle shadings of character here.

We end up with an unfortunate equation.

Iran = bad.

Islam = bad.

Islamic men = bad.

Islamic women = good.

The equation is begging for some stealth bombers to fill the gap and vaporize those Muslim men.  “Liberate” those Muslim women.

Come on:  we’re pros at it!  Look at our resume!!  Afghanistan?  Check.  Iraq?  Check.  This is our line of work!

We’ll give it a snappy name like Enduring Freedom (how much of our “freedom” can they endure?) and it’ll be over in a few weeks.

We’ll be greeted as saviors.

Let me point out one final detail.

There are some sub-equations here.

Shah = good/bad.

Ayatollah = bad.

And so, mathematicians of ethics, how does the SAVAK compute?

What was Mosaddegh’s good/bad rating?

All we ask in cinema is for a real story.  If you don’t pimp yourself out to the bomb boys, then the Palme d’Or is yours.

Perhaps I am wrong.

I am willing to admit that I may be wrong.

If you can’t tell by the title of this film how it ends (don’t see Titanic), Soraya gets stoned.  As in murdered. As in disgusting.

But what is most disgusting?

Hypocrisy.  The film starts with a quote by Hafez.

The corrupt Mullah is no worse than the military-industrial director.

And for those of immense talent (like Nowrasteh), there is always redemption in the next film.

Tell the real story.  Read a book.

The path to 9/11 almost certainly started in Langley and Herzliya.

One or the other.

Perhaps both.

Or was it the old boys network of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Poppy Bush?

Somebody better get it straight or this world ain’t going nowhere good.

Help us out Cyrus!  The truth will free both our countries.

-PD

11 Comments