Sometimes when I’m riding my bike, I like to sing. Often on the way to work, when I catch all green lights going down hill,  and I have the wind at my back, as I’m speeding through traffic with the open road ahead of me, I will scream at the top of my burning lungs, Wagner’s The Ride Of The Valkyries. I’m also a great admirer of Benjamin Franklin, as well as the rest of the founding fathers. And I can’t help but sing when most R. Kelly songs come on the radio. So, what do Franklin, Wagner, and The Pied Piper of R&B have in common? They are all people who have created great things, while also being major assholes.

Wagner was an anti-Semite (“rabid”, while overused, may actually apply here), Franklin cheated on his wife(s) and participated in the slave trade (like most founding fathers), and R. Kelly… well we all know what R. Kelly did, don’t we?

But I don’t have a problem with any of those things when I’m singing Wagner and Kelly or when I read Poor Richard’s Almanac to find out the weather for the day. In my universe, the thing that is created is separate from the morals of its creator. But not everyone in my life is in agreement with this, and this ongoing argument leads me to my Cinema This Week posting…

My wife is a very moral, Christian woman, and she refuses to pay money to see any movie made by Woody Allen or Roman Polanski. In her eyes, these men are child-molesters, and in the case of Allen, incestuous to boot. I LOVE Woody Allen movies, and it would take something worse than a little family lovin’ to stop me from watching them. I’m not sure what that “worse thing” would be, maybe a personal insult? But even then I couldn’t see it, because he cracks me up in ways that no one can, and his films show a love for NYC that I try to emulate. Plus, he wasn’t afraid to tackle the argument in question. In Allen’s comedy, Bullets Over Broadway, Allen writes a dialogue on the screen about an argument that he must have been having in his own mind when thinking about the consequences of his love affair with 22 year old Soon-Yi Previn, his girlfriend’s (Mia Farrow) adopted daughter, to whom he had been like a father figure since she was 10 years old. In the movie, one character (played by Rob Reiner) says to the main character (played by John Cusack), “An artist creates his own moral universe.” and “Guilt is petit-bourgeois crap.” 

In fact, the entire plot of BOB is about deciding how much art is worth, compared to human life and existence. I admire a person who has the introspection for such an argument, and the courage to put it out there. Besides, he makes me laugh, and I love to laugh!

My father will not see any movie made by Mel Gibson. He felt that The Passion of the Christ was anti-Semitic (completely ignoring the racism of another white-faced Jesus), and when it was proven without a doubt that Gibson WAS an anti-Semite by a police cruiser video (I don’t care how much you’ve had to drink, alcohol does not turn a good man into a bigot), he announced that he would no longer pay for anything associated with Mel Gibson! That was a shame to me, because I loved Apocalypto, which had come out after the controversy, and I wanted his take on the movie, but he refused, and stormed away in his German-made, Volkswagon Beetle (probably listening to some Wagner).

I don’t get it. I mean, I do get it, but come on! These people are already unbelievably rich, so don’t think your boycott is hurting any pockets. Woody Allen’s characters aren’t telling you to molest kids, and Mel Gibson’s characters aren’t telling you to hate Jews (unless you somehow blame all that violence he depicted in The Passion of the Christ on the Jews! But I couldn’t see how, when it’s always been obvious to anyone looking that the Romans killed Jesus, because Imperialism is violent at its core and anyone participating in Imperialism had a hand in His death, duh!).

The fact is that we as Americans have benefitted from Nazi technology (please see IBM), the genocide of Native Americans (please see the land upon which you live) and even slavery (please see Jimmy The Greek’s drunken but accurate explanation of why African-Americans are disproportionately better athletes than…everyone else), and we’ve accepted these things for the most part. Why then can we not accept that the art is separate from the artist?

For movies on or related to this subject, check out:

 

1.  Apocalypto, Directed by Mel Gibson [On DVD and playing on Starz in Black (despite no blacks in the movie)]

An action film set at the end of Meso-America that deals with the struggle between tribalism and imperialism, but in that kick-ass Gibson way. This film was largely overlooked and under-appreciated due to the controversy surrounding Gibson.

2.  Bullets Over Broadway, Directed by Woody Allen [DVD]

One of the funnier Woody Allen movies from his modern era. John Cusack, Diane Wiest and Chazz Palminteri all give outstanding performances.

3.  Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired  [DVD]

A very controversial documentary that may change your mind about any pre-conceived ideas one may have regarding Polanski’s exile from America, after he was charged with giving drugs to and having sex with a 13-year-old.

4.  The Passion of the Christ, Directed by Mel Gibson [DVD]

Brutally violent, this movie may have been closer to Gibson’s heart than anything else he’s been a part of. Don’t get it twisted, Gibson’s film has an agenda, maybe a few, but that doesn’t mean there is not art in here.

5.  The Birth of a Nation (AKA The Clansman), Directed by D. W. Griffith [DVD]

This 1915 silent film where the heroically portrayed KKK fights an uppity black militia trying to take over the South, may possibly be the most racist film you will ever see, but at the time it was known for its technical achievements and its status as the first Hollywood “blockbuster”! Have fun asking for this one at the video store.

6.  Frankenstein (1931), Directed by James Whale

The movie adaptation of Mary Shelly’s The Modern Prometheus, explores the divide between a creator and his creation, as well as the people’s inability to see past how something was made and by whom, versus what has been created. Still a classic, with Boris Karloff playing the monster (no one does it better than he did). Watch the movie and then please correct everyone who calls the “Monster” from the movie “Frankenstein.” That’s more annoying than people who call First Blood “Rambo1”…but I digress.

 

Cinema This Week appears every Friday. 

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