http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/01/movies/01spie.html?oref=login
On Wednesday, Steven Spielberg's apocalyptic thriller War of the
Worlds invaded movie theaters worldwide. But the director had already
moved on. That night in Malta, Mr. Spielberg quietly began filming the
most politically charged project he has yet attempted: the tale of a
secret Mossad hit squad ordered to assassinate Palestinian terrorists
after the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
Mr. Spielberg has taken risks before: he said he feared being seen as
trivializing the Holocaust when he directed Schindler's List in
1993, at a time when he was best known for blockbuster fantasies like
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Raiders of the Lost Ark. And with
Saving Private Ryan, he gambled successfully on audiences' tolerance
for prolonged and bloody combat scenes.
But with the as-yet-untitled Munich film, already scheduled for
Oscar-season release by Universal Pictures on Dec. 23, Mr. Spielberg
is tackling material delicate enough that he and his advisers are
concerned about adverse effects on matters as weighty as the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process if his project is mishandled - or
misconstrued in the public mind.
Indeed, the movie's terrain is so packed with potential land mines
that, associates say, Mr. Spielberg has sought counsel from advisers
ranging from his own rabbi to the former American diplomat Dennis
Ross, who in turn has alerted Israeli government officials to the
film's thrust. Mr. Spielberg has also shown the script to Mr. Ross's
old boss, former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Clinton's aides said Mr.
Spielberg reached out to him first more than a year ago and again as
recently as Tuesday. Mr. Spielberg is also being advised by Mike
McCurry, Mr. Clinton's White House spokesman, and Allan Mayer, a
Hollywood spokesman who specializes in crisis communications.
The film, which is being written by the playwright Tony Kushner - it
is his first feature screenplay - begins with the killing of 11
Israeli athletes in Munich. But it focuses on the Israeli retaliation:
the assassinations, ordered by Prime Minister Golda Meir, of
Palestinians identified by Israeli intelligence as terrorists,
including some who were not directly implicated in the Olympic
massacre. By highlighting such a morally vexing and endlessly debated
chapter in Israeli history - one that introduced the
still-controversial Israeli tactic now known as targeted killings -
Mr. Spielberg could jeopardize his tremendous stature among Jews both
in the United States and in Israel.
He earned that prestige largely for his treatment of the Holocaust in
Schindler's List and for his philanthropic efforts, through the
Shoah Foundation, to preserve testimonies of survivors of the
concentration camps. Until now, though, he has been relatively quiet
on Middle East politics compared with more vocal American supporters
of Israel.
Making matters more complicated, an important source for Mr.
Spielberg's narrative is a 1984 book by George Jonas, Vengeance,
based largely on the account of a purported member of the Mossad's
assassination team, whose veracity was later widely called into
question.
Friends of Mr. Spielberg said he was keenly aware that admirers of his
Holocaust work could misunderstand his new film and regard it as
hurtful to Israel. And they noted that he had never before courted
controversy so openly. A lot of people around him never thought he'd
make the movie, said one associate, who asked not to be identified,
in keeping with Mr. Spielberg's preference for secrecy.
Typically, Mr. Spielberg keeps a tight lid on information about coming
projects, and he has been especially careful to do so this time. He
has revealed that the film will star Eric Bana as the lead Israeli
assassin, along with Daniel Craig, Geoffrey Rush, Mathieu Kassovitz,
Hanns Zischler and Ciaran Hinds. The director released a short
statement simultaneously this week to The New York Times, the Israeli
newspaper Ma'ariv and the Arab television network Al Arabiya, but he
turned down requests for an interview and declined through a spokesman
to answer written questions.
In the statement, Mr. Spielberg called the Munich attack - which was
carried out by Black September, an arm of the P.L.O.'s Fatah
organization - and the Israeli response a defining moment in the
modern history of the Middle East.
Mr. Spielberg's interest in the question of a civilized nation's
proper response to terrorism deepened, aides said, after the 9/11
attacks, as Americans were grappling for the first time with similar
issues - for instance, in each new lethal strike on a suspected
terrorist leader by a C.I.A. Predator drone aircraft. In Mr. Kushner's
script, people who have read it say, the Israeli assassins find
themselves struggling to understand how their targets were chosen,
whether they belonged on the hit list and, eventually, what, if
