Cooler than thou

[davemarc]

> From: andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk
> To: Craig G. Bleakley <cgbleak at rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: Cooler than thou
> Date: Tuesday, March 04, 1997 5:00 AM
> 
[snip]
> 
> Spielberg gets a bit part as the whizz-kid movie director who is hired
> to argue a PR case for the big money boys. He pushes all the usual
> sentiment buttons as ordered by his backers but as a sop to his
> feelings of worthlessness at his own lack of artistic integrity he
> pushes for this one to be a class act - black and white, high fi
> costumes and settings (no museum stuff, but the best the studio
> carpenters and dressmakers can manage at least), classical strings
> rather than pulsing pop beats, the works. Anyway, the studio can
> expect to rake it all back in when they pick up the academy award
> nominations. Every studio has to push out a bit of class now and then
> to keep morale up and pick up some gongs. And once in a while the
> class act has to have a big money director. So, they agree to let
> Stevie have his Oscars, just so long as the big money comes out
> looking white.
> 
> It's a minor plotline in the world-encompassing plot of GR. A-and
> Pynchon effortlessly sidelines small-fry like Stevie with his exposure
> of what the big money really did in the war to aid the Holocaust.
> That's why such a minor topic is on this list and that's also why it
> would be more worthwhile to talk about other subjects.
> 
As usual, I end up feeling like I've read a different book--the nonfiction
version.  In that edition, Stevie ends up filming on location in Poland,
getting locals to perform in and otherwise contribute to the movie--raising
their awareness of a part of history that had been in danger of being
snuffed out along with nearly the entire Jewish population of that country.
 He also meets with and hears from Holocaust survivors who encourage
him--and others who, to his surprise, criticize him.  He listens to the
praise and the criticism, thinks about the project, and realizes that he
can do more--he can use the momentum from the movie project to enable
thousands and thousands of survivors to tell their own stories "for the
record" on an unprecedented scale.  Survivors who had never been able to
"bear witness" suddenly feel like they are being recognized as individuals.
 Gaps in the historical record begin to be filled in.  Stevie oversees this
work, all the while working on the production of ER, the making of the
Jurassic Park sequel, the construction of Dreamworks, etc.  The reader's
left to ponder the mystery of an imperfect man, mired in mediocrity, who
managed to restore a measure of dignity to survivors who--despite the
efforts of numerous Nobel Prize winners, religious leaders, philosphers,
authors, filmmakers, webheads, etc.--had been denied it for five decades.

davemarc