The 5 Cardinal Sins of Pretension in MUNICH:

To kick off our "Why Good Movies Are Lame" feature, let's deal with Munich. Munich provides an archetype for how good movies get swaddled by pretension masquerading as art. It contains the 5 Cardinal Sins of Pretension:

1) Preachy: This is the great lodestone of every supposedly 'important' film of our time. Let's clear something up: having a weighty policy rant or ankle-deep philosophical musing from an otherwise interesting if one-dimensional character a) dilutes the character b) dilutes the plot and c) usually tells us something we could figure out just by watching the movie sans preaching. No one likes a lecture - simply attend one, or better yet, give one, and observe the audience around you. Hollywood writers are seldom as wise as they think they are, and the actors delivering the speeches are far from likely to do anything other than deadpan the speech. They're too dim or humorless to ape the tripe they're forced to deliver.

2) Political: Politics is not art. The lowest form of art is the political cartoon.

3) Psychosexual: The figures aren't in front of me, but the 60's happened nearly a half-century ago or so. The intellectual academy, always thinking it's ten years ahead when it's really 20 years behind, has now caught up and, thanks to an over-abundance of lackluster PhD students and a dirth of decent PhD topics, has thrown its force behind sex research as a viable intellectual avenue. Come off it. To quote my grandmother, "Why does every generation think they reinvented sex?" Art does not need to be avante garde to be good. And bizarre sex is no longer avante garde. So all we're left with is bizarre sex and a series of critics who pretend to be 'with it' by nodding approvingly that bizarre sex is a master stroke. And Munich is the worst of them all. I thought A History of Violence had the most bizarre and impromptu sex scene in reputable film history, but at least one could construe an artistic point from the scene, and it didn't rely on being too shocking, more just on being impromptu.

But Munich took the cake...twice!! It stole the cake from itself!

(Spoiler alert) I thought the pregnant sex scene at the beginning was the new champ. I mean, she's really got a bun half-baked in the oven. Well then, at the end, her husband has sex with her while thinking about Israeli hostages getting killed. His climax is supposedly the film's climax, and he lets out a giggle-inducing roar of triumph to tell us all that he's done, and so are the hostages. Is there an artistic reason for this? Perhaps it is 'exploring the psychosexual connection between male dominance and violence?' So let's explore. Was the purpose to show that sex with his wife would have released the revenge that spurred him rather than killing? (Make love not war) Or perhaps he killed so that he could have sex, which is really what life is all about. (Make war to make love). I certainly don't know the answer. None of these answers are insightful or moving because a) none of us thinks about hostage killings while otherwise engaged and b) none of those above listed insights are all that deep. So who knows? Certainly not Spielberg, because it doesn't have a meaning - the sex is inherently artistic. And toady critics will say, "well, it's a meditation on sex and violence" or some such claptrap, codewords for, "I don't know what it means, but I get that he's trying to be artistic, and it's bizarre sex, and Spielberg, so I approve."

Imagine being Eric Bana. Steve comes up to you one day and says, "In this scene, you have sex with your wife and grunt audibly while shaking your hair back when you finish." So being a pretentious actor you say, "Great, so what's my motivation?" And Steve says, "Well, you're trying to get these feelings of vengeance off your chest, and you're thinking about Israeli hostages getting shot." Does he try out different grunts and hair shakes before he gets the right one to fit the moment? What would Olivier do?

Worse, where else is there to go? Big screen bestiality while the human partner is thinking about a downhill skiing accident?

4) Too Long. This sin especially comes in the ending. The movie could have ended with a brusque no. Instead, we get, "I'm disillusioned, young man...I'm disillusioned, boss...I'm disillusioned, wife...I'm disillusioned, vague father figure...I'm disillusioned, audience...I'm having sex with you, wife, while thinking about hostage killings...I'm disillusioned, random consulate official...I'm still disillusioned, boss. Let's have dinner." On and on it goes. Did someone watch the 3rd Lord of the Rings and say, "Yes, 15 minutes of knowing looks and slow motion hugs is a brilliant way to end a movie!"

Some doctors did some study. It showed that in some particularly unpleasant medical procedure which required continual follow-up, patients frequently didn't come back because of the pain involved. They found that the patient averaged the worst pain during the procedure with the level of pain when it ended and that produced their opinion on how uncomfortable the procedure was. So the doctors figured out that if they just fiddled around for a while after doing the procedure, pretending to do something, the lack of pain at the end would balance out the discomfort of the procedure itself and patients would come back.

The lesson I'd take is that perhaps pleasure works the same way? Shouldn't we end movies well and quickly then?

Instead, it seems directors are figuring, "Well, our movie is really painful, but if we fiddle around for a while at the end, it won't hurt as much."

I imagine Spielberg was moved by the catastrophically wretched, yet abrupt, ending to War of the Worlds, and decided to respond to his critics with a tedious, let's-end-the-movie-3-times, style ending.

5) Whiny Hero. The first rule of screenwriting, or at least one of the first couple, is "SHOW ME DON'T TELL ME." That's why you have actors - to convey feelings. If a character feels something, like, "I'm having second thoughts about killing people and it's because I'm Jewish, not because I've become disillusioned with the Jewish project," then events and the actor's reaction should show us that happening. Perhaps the actor did do that, but editing is such these days that we never get to see anyone's face on screen for more than a few seconds. So instead, at various points, the characters tell us exactly that: that they're really Jewish, that they're conflicted because they're supposed to be defending Judaism, and that it's their being Jewish that makes them conflicted.

Movies are not psychologists' offices and neither is real life. Our hero doesn't need to pour his heart out at every opportunity. We, in the audience, have feelings and a successful work of art relies on either using those feelings as a natural guide or playing off them by showing characters who react differently than we do. Assassins may have feelings, but they don't go blubbering about them all the time on mission. It makes the hero seem effete, unconvincing, and whiny. It makes him less sympathetic. We think to ourselves, "If I was in that person's position, I wouldn't be carrying on like this. I'd do my job and feel bad about it on my own time." But Spielberg is so unsure of his craft, and he's not the only one, that he has to tell us how his characters are feeling. Maybe this is how Hollywood types think everyone behaves? Do they sit around at parties and have an identity-crisis circle jerk?

What would be infinitely superior would be a quiet, Michael Corleone type reaction. Michael is so convincing because we know exactly what he's feeling without him saying it, and though we cannot imagine being in the many situations he ends up in, we can understand very well why he does what he does. His plight is moving because he doesn't complain. We see his pain rather than being told it. Apparently stoicism went out of fashion sometime in the late 70's? Or maybe that was masculinity.

To sum up, intriguing action, a solid set up, and superb technical skills betrayed by trite ideas acknowledged as art by a herd of want-to-be intellectuals.

Hence the 5 Cardinal Sins of Pretension as applied to film:
1) Preachy
2) Political
3) Psychosexual
4) Too long
5) Whiny Hero

There is a cure.