Compulsive behavior in Munich
Reading the source material for Steven Spielberg’s new film is not enough to gauge the texture of the film. The main character, who I’m calling Saul for the lack of a better name, will be the focus of the film; and if past character-driven Spielberg films are any indication, we can expect the film to revolve around several important elements: obsession, guilt and redemption. How Spielberg intermingles these elements in the film depends upon how fictional the story is that he intends to tell. If he sticks closely to the original material, then these elements will fall into the background and become less important.
Since all indications point to his making the film into a fictional rendition of a historical event – using the model of Saving Private Ryan – we can assume Spielberg will deviate greatly from the historical character and insert his own powerful and emotional characterization into the tale, leaning on elements that can be found in all of Spielberg’s better fictional pieces. In this regard, we can expect Spielberg to create our hero out of a complex composite of historical people rather than sticking to the character scripted for him in the book, Vengeance, one of his sources.
So in this regard we can assume that Saul will have some stronger emotional connection to the Munich Massacre than merely national pride at being an Israeli. Most likely Saul will be related to one of the dead and will be drive by the obsession to seek revenge and enact vengeance on those who killed this person such as in Roger Rabbit as an example when the main character’s brother was killed.
Thus propelled into the service of the Israeli hit squad by this personal need for vengeance, our hero will go with gusto for a time until he comes face to face with the issues involves -- learning that there are more than one side to every conflict, and more than one truth, and though he still hates the people who killed his brother, he has also begun to hate himself for what he is doing, and thus the story becomes a tug of war with conflicting motives, whether to continue as he is or find some more noble way to honor his brother’s memory.
Desire for vengeance begins to fade in the character as he struggles to figure out what more would be a more appropriate action. Racked with guilt, he eventual comes to a point where he needs to quit what he is doing and find a way to atone for what he has done.
This becomes a struggle to determine if one wrong is make up
with another wrong, and how a person comes to terms with a cycle of violence
which has grown so complicated that it is no longer possible to determined who
started what when and for what the other side might be seeking vengeance for.