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I apologize if my original response seemed snarky or snotty, my bad. As for Kubrick, I do not have access to the entire article but, unless it is citing some archival materials I am not familiar with (a very likely thing), I think the record on SPARTACUS is clear. I took a film class on Kubrick at RI College and never came across Kubrick expressing interest in much of anything except psychoanalytic theory and anti-consumerist thinking. Kubrick had almost zero control over production, it was Kirk Douglas's show and basically it was a color-by-numbers quick paycheck. In fact, it was such a miserable experience for him that he moved to England to get away from the American studio system shortly thereafter and refused to produce a film unless he had absolute and total control, from script approval to final cut. From thereon, he created what are argued to be his masterpieces, starting with LOLITA, though I do think that PATHS OF GLORY and the other earlier features he made before SPARTACUS were pretty decent. This article is actually pretty informative ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_(film)). As for the history of the Left and Israel, Jacobin magazine ran a great article on this topic some time ago, ( https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/04/palestine-and-the-left/). Even Noam Chomsky was enchanted by kibbutz living and moved to live on one for a while. I've recently been reading some material by Iriving Howe that includes his argument that everyone should join the Democrats to push a Scandinavian social democratic model and look to Israel as the socialist motherland. On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 6:01 PM, Louis Proyect <l...@panix.com> wrote: > On 11/27/15 5:39 PM, hasc.warrior.s...@gmail.com wrote: > >> The record is pretty clear on SPARTACUS, Trumbo actually had arguments >> with Kirk Douglas over the script orientation, he wanted to keep with >> Fast's original work and talk about McCarthyism but Douglas was on a >> secular Zionist kick and wanted to make it about Israel. There is a Kubrick >> biography by John Baxter that talks about this. Also remember that >> SPARTACUS was filmed in Franco's Spain, so irregardless of Trumbo and Fast >> being Reds, Kirk Douglas was not. >> >> Best regards, >> Andrew Stewart >> > > It has been many years since I saw "Spartacus" but apparently you are > right. > > "Kirk Douglas, a passionate Zionist, wanted the history depicted to > parallel the story of the Jewish people and clashed with screenwriter > Dalton Trumbo, who was more interested in making the film a comment on > modern-day politics and the Cold War." > > full: http://www.classicmoviehub.com/facts-and-trivia/film/spartacus-1960/ > > Apparently it wasn't only Douglas who was a Zionist. So was Kubrick the > director: > http://adaptation.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/03/30/adaptation.apv006.abstract > > The only thing worth considering is that in the 1950s and very early 60s > many people on the left, including Douglas and Kubrick, had not figured out > how shitty Israel was. In fact a guy I know who is very involved with the > Israeli left (his son is a refusenik) came to Israel in the mid-50s from > Detroit where he was in the CP. He was under the impression at the time > that radicals could help turn Israel into a kind of vanguard for radical > change in the Middle East. He was obviously wrong as he would readily admit > today but back then it was a lot easier to be fooled. > -- Best regards, Andrew Stewart _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
