Carnegie at the Movies (Part 2)

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, directed by Stanley Kubrick (1964).

A nuclear weapons expert nominates Dr. Strangelove—what a cliché! Well, fair enough, but pause for a moment to consider Kubrick’s achievement in making a movie that is loved by the experts it mercilessly mocks. I’m pretty certain that White House staffers don’t go round quoting The American President and that, after a hard day protecting the president, Secret Service agents don’t kick off their shoes, crack open a beer, and sit down to watch In the Line of Fire—and those professions are portrayed positively in those movies.

In discussing nuclear war, however, it’s hardly unusual for a nuclear strategist to acknowledge that “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed.” And, as for relaxing with a beer in front of Dr. Strangelove after work, well, yes, most of us have done that more than once. Dr. Strangelove’s genius isn’t just the script or the acting or the continual laughs. It’s that the film crystalizes fundamental debates about nuclear strategy—notably, the question of whether it is worth trying to win a nuclear war—that continue to this day.

City of Sadness, directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien (1989).

This movie is about the Taiwanese interregnum between the end of Japanese rule in 1945 and the consolidation of the Republic of China in 1947. The film shatters some myths. The Japanese were in fact “good” colonizers of Taiwan, as exemplified in the movie by a Japanese hospital doctor. They have to wait by the quay—in impeccable uniforms—to “surrender” to an arriving ragtag army assembled by the Republic of China. The power of the Shanghai mafia among the new arrivals is clear to see.

Like all movies by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, this film is a manifesto for the importance of local customs and relationships over formal and modern authority. For Hou, all culture is local. Yet, because the film shows multiple layers of identity (Taiwanese, Shanghainese, Chinese, and Japanese), it is also a good primer of Chinese culture—so full of conflicts and contradictions, yet so open. And it makes the viewer think beyond the global story of the Pacific War.

Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg (2005).

Though it may be argued that terrorist attacks and subversive operations lie beyond the realm of foreign policy, the line is not easy to draw. The horrific attack at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, in which eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team were killed, was rooted in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For many countries that conflict has been a burning foreign policy issue for decades.

Terrorist attacks often make thrilling—if not necessarily artistic—movies. Munich is both, and more. As tough, brave, and highly committed Israeli special agents embark on an operation aimed at assassinating the perpetrators of the Munich massacre, the viewer can’t help sympathizing with their cause. Yet gradually the chief Mossad agent—and the audience with him—come to realize that his mission is a dead end: both morally, as it robs him of a human life, and politically, as it evolves as a vicious circle of revenge and retaliation. In the closing scene, the camera focuses on New York’s World Trade Center—a clear suggestion that the monstrous 9/11 attack was a link in the same murderous chain.

The Great Dictator, directed by Charlie Chaplin (1940).

As we approach the third anniversary of the start of the Arab Spring, I can only think of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, an all-time classic and a must-see. The movie, made before the breakout of war between the United States and Nazi Germany, tells the story of the legendary Chaplin playing two roles: the Little Tramp (this time a Jewish barber) and Adenoid Hynkel (a parody of Hitler), the dictator of Tomania. Chaplin was always haunted by parallels between Hitler and himself—one made millions weep, the other made millions laugh. Hitler was the madman, Chaplin was the comic. In his famous speech at the end of the film, Chaplin delivers one of the most powerful speeches in Hollywood history.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes—men who despise you—enslave you—who regiment your lives—tell you what to do, what to think, or what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate—the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott (1982).

Aside from being one of my favorite movies, based on a novel by one of my favorite science fiction writers (Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), I love how Scott manages to turn Los Angeles into a strange, exotic, multicultural amalgam. As Asia and the developing world grow in importance, the United States will retain its cultural and economic centrality—at least in part—as a function of its ability and willingness to absorb more of the world outside the traditional “West” into its own cultural fabric.

When most Americans can move seamlessly from one world into another—rich and poor, racially diverse, multilingual and seemingly mutually incompatible—without leaving their homes, their already astonishing creativity and flexibility will only be enhanced. This is what the future should look like, and I bet the food and music are great.

The Shawshank Redemption, directed by Frank Darabont (1994).

This film takes place in mid-twentieth-century Maine, but the themes it explores—notably friendship, justice, perseverance, and a yearning for freedom—are universal to all humankind. The movie’s dramatic ending aptly parallels the monumental shifts taking place in today’s Middle East, where long-repressed populations are attempting—with mixed success—to unshackle themselves from autocratic rule. To paraphrase Lenin: “Sometimes decades pass and nothing changes; And then sometimes hours pass and everything changes.”

Thirteen Days, directed by Roger Donaldson (2000).

My understanding from people involved in the Cuban missile crisis is that this movie is relatively accurate in its portrayal of many of the events and personalities (albeit with plenty of liberties and editorializing, of course). The film conveys a subtle message about how high-stakes diplomacy changed due to technological innovations—in terms of weaponry, communications, and mass media. The interaction of different offices and people within the U.S. government is fun to watch, as is the tension between the president’s team and the institutional military and bureaucratic players.

Babel, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (2006).

This movie is about the world’s interconnectedness, an idea often forgotten in international relations. Four stories from the United States, Mexico, Morocco, and Japan seem to run in parallel but are in reality closely intertwined.

At the top level is a Japanese man who sells a gun that was used by a Moroccan boy to accidentally shoot an American woman. Her children become lost in the desert when their babysitter takes them to her son’s wedding in Mexico.

Digging deeper, the viewer finds another layer of tragedies: a Mexican woman pushed to sacrifice her family for a buck in the United States; a Japanese father and daughter struggling to connect because of their culture; a perfect American family losing it all yet finding each other as a couple; and young Moroccan boys with no bright future because of their birthplace.

And at the bottom are human emotions and pain, a lack of understanding within families and intolerance between cultures, the unexpected kindness of strangers, the cruelty of one’s own tribe, breakup and reconciliation, and finally death.

The Big Lebowski, directed by Joel Coen (1998).

Nothing illustrates the true nature of post-9/11 transatlantic relations better than the weirdly symbiotic relationship between The Dude and Walter Sobchak. Walter is wounded, angry America—armed, trigger-happy, and ready to act on the basis of half-baked plans. He has some healthy instincts about self-preservation, but sadly only gets half of the story right, which regularly leads to the tragicomic failure of his battle plans. The Dude is lazy, panic-suppressing Europe, trying to stay out of everything and longing for the good old days when things were still in order (“I just want my rug back”). He hates Walter’s simplistic quick-fix schemes, but can’t help following him for a lack of energy and a better alternative. Together they are the free West’s last best hope against fascists, nihilists, capitalists, art snobs, porno tycoons, child molestors, The Eagles, and amphibious rodents.

No Man’s Land, directed by Danis Tanović (2001).

This movie is about the Bosnian war of the 1990s, but I found incredible similarities between the situation depicted in the film and today’s international climate politics. The poor Bosnian man lying on a mine can be compared with China or the emerging economies, whose “rise” will detonate the mine (read: the climate bomb), which is later found to be impossible to defuse (the global community’s inability to wean itself off fossil fuels). Then, the Bosniak soldier may be likened to a developing country and the Serbian soldier to an industrialized country. The two soldiers argue about who is responsible for the war (climate change), and no one is able to help.

The UN was involved in the Bosnian war thanks to pressure from the media, but as soon as the UN realized it was out of its depth, its only option was to ensure a swift exit (as at the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen). Yet the media only care about their sales, and no one tries to solve the fundamental problem. At the end of the movie, the poor man is left alone on the mine. Unfortunately, in reality, the climate change bomb is so big that no one would survive if it went off.