Category Archives: history

red-coat

Russian skater in red calls out Olympics, Putin

Russian figure skater Yulia Lipnitskaia is taking the 2014 Winter Olympics by storm. At 15 years of age, she has positioned herself as a favorite for the gold medal in this year’s ladies’ singles free skate competition, and she seems poised to be the greatest female figure skater in the world through at least the 2018 Games.

Today, in the ladies’ free portion of the team event, making its debut in Sochi, Russia, Lipnitskaia took the ice in a brave and provocative performance. As Russian president Vladimir Putin settled into his seat in the Iceberg Skating Palace, Lipnitskaia stood at center ice, clad in a red leotard while the strains of John Williams‘ score to Schindler’s List came to life.

Steven Spielberg’s 1993 historical drama tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German man who saved more than 1,000 Polish Jews from execution in the Holocaust. The film is presented nearly entirely in black-and-white, and one splash of color creates a stark image: the red coat of a young girl as she tries to hide from the Nazis who are “liquidating” the Jews of the Kraków ghetto. Later, Schindler sees a body clad in a red coat among a wagon of dead bodies being carted off for disposal.

Not everyone is impressed with Lipnitskaia’s performance choice. Critics pan the idea that the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust should be “trivialized” in a figure skating routine. That is the wrong perspective.

Lipnitskaia’s choice to portray that girl on the ice today is a bold statement that echoes the fundamental principles of the Olympic Games, namely that “[t]he goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” The girl in red also challenges the leader of her country, directly to his face, to reconcile the Russian president’s desire to host these Games with his disregard for human rights.

It is true that the Soviet Union fought against Nazi Germany in World War II; the USSR was not complicit in the Holocaust. Nonetheless, the hands of the Russian Empire are not free of the blood of genocide.

The policies of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin created a famine that killed millions in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933. Today, Ukraine is still fighting to exorcise the ghost of the long Soviet presence in its borders as the nation determines its identity in a new Europe.

In fact, Sochi itself may have been the site of the first modern European genocide: beginning in 1859, Russian emperor Alexander II engaged in a campaign to relocate the Circassians by massacring the North Caucasians in their native villages.

While the act was not perpetrated by the Russian government, the Caucasus Mountains were also the setting for the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915. Even today, the Caucasus is a hotbed of separatist movement and brutal government crackdowns. The terror threat at the 2014 Games is directly connected to the unrest in this region, including Chechnya, at the edges of Moscow’s grasp. The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing suspects had ties to radical Islam in the Russian republic of Dagestan. This unrest underlines the sense throughout the region that oppression has been a way of life for centuries.

The socio-cultural focus of these Games from the American perspective has been on Russia’s ban on “homosexual propaganda.” Putin himself has said the nation must be “cleansed” of homosexuality. That language is chilling, and one can only hope this is a subpar translation of Putin’s Russian. If it is not, the global community must be on alert and be ready to take action.

All of these elements make the decision of the International Olympic Committee to award the 2014 Olympics to Russia difficult to understand. The IOC seems to pay lip service to the supremacy of human rights while granting financial reward and international prestige to a government that has not valued those very same rights.

The Olympics judges at the Iceberg are equipped to struggle with assessing the technical skill and artistic beauty of Lipnitskaia’s skating. And at 15, Lipnitskaia may not even comprehend the full weight of her performance. But it is the duty of the rest of us, the viewers of these Games, to recognize the moment of reflection that has been created by Lipnitskaia and her team to portray such a stark moment in such a vital film.

Kraków, Poland, is one of five applicant cities to host the 2022 Winter Games. If Kraków, a city that has overcome such a terrible chapter in human history, should be awarded the Games, the IOC will have presented an opportunity to showcase the triumph of the human spirit instead of shilling for a regime that does not demonstrate a concern for the very principles on which the Games were founded.

Here’s hoping the IOC has the wisdom to make as powerful a statement then as Lipnitskaia did today.

captain-phillips-poster

Captain Phillips illustrates humanity on all sides

If you asked three people to tell the same story, chances are you would hear three different versions of the same event. Each would be tinted a different shade by the assumptions and preconceptions of the narrator.

The director of a movie based on real-life events is handicapped by those same storytelling challenges. By being on a worldwide stage, though, the director has a responsibility to expand the camera’s perspective beyond individual biases, to tell as complete a story as possible.

Captain Phillips is director Paul Greengrass’s recounting of the MV Maersk Alabama hijacking. Greengrass, with the help of extraordinary acting, deftly weaves a narrative from the viewpoint of the American crew of the freighter, while honoring the story of the Somali pirates who took over the ship, and he does it in a way that reminds us even the “bad guys” are the heroes of their own stories.

In April 2009, the Maersk Alabama was supposed to be on a simple business trip passing around the Horn of Africa. The vessel, which contained tons of valuable cargo, was targeted by a group of young Somali pirates. The story of what transpired was told from Captain Richard Phillips’s perspective in his 2010 book A Captain’s Duty, and was adapted for the silver screen by Billy Ray.

In the film, which is nominated for Best Picture at the 86th Academy Awards, Phillips is portrayed by Tom Hanks and is shown as a man prepared for this harrowing situation. Using experience acquired over 30 years, the captain does whatever is necessary to keep his crew safe from harm.

The inclination for American audiences is, of course, to root for the safe passage of the American crew. A lesser movie would demonize the pirates, stripping them of all humanity and denying the viewer any reason to empathize with their plight. Instead, the backstory and motives of the Somalis are brought to life by some excellent actors, new to Hollywood, and with incredible stories of their own.

Acting across from Hanks is Barkhad Abdi, playing the role of Muse. Muse is a young man who aspires for more than Somalia can offer. With the Maersk Alabama in the pirates’ possession, Muse stood to gain much. He believed he would be able to ransom the ship for enough money to allow him to move away to America and begin a new life.

Abdi brings much to the character of Muse. A Somali himself, Abdi left his native country at seven years old, eventually reaching the United States. His is an all-too-rare success story from that troubled nation, having now been nominated for an Academy Award in his first major film role.

Abdi rises to the unenviable task of holding his own on-screen with Hanks. Their characters engage in an intriguing game of chess. The captain offers Muse and his crew thousands of dollars in cash to leave the ship alone. Muse sees through the play, knowing that the a ship the size of the Maersk Alabama can yield a much higher payout, and counters by refusing the deal. Phillips sets a plan in motion that puts his side in control, but the Somalis soon trick the crew and take the captain hostage on a lifeboat.

As the U.S. Navy mobilizes to free Phillips, the captain continues to negotiate with his captors on the lifeboat. He learns much about his captors and even seems hopeful he can change their minds before any blood is shed. This is where the director and actors truly excel at giving voice to the pirates’ story.

No one is going to argue the virtues of piracy, even if Johnny Depp makes it look so drunkenly hilarious. But what Captain Phillips does so well is portray the pirates as men on a mission — and for them, it is a righteous mission. The movie shows that the pirates themselves were victims of the horrid situation in Somalia. One pirate in particular has been swept up in the tide of a hopeless life that has led him here, where his innocence and kindness lead him to the verge of forging a friendship with the American captain.

The problem with the cinematic successes of the movie up to this point is that it makes the viewer wish for a peaceful resolution. A part of me hoped to see the pirates make it home with their ransom, raising the standard of living of their native land and saving Somalia from the pits of post-colonial hell. Of course, that didn’t happen, and Somalia is still considered among the most failed states in the world.

That reality made the conclusion of the film difficult to watch. The United States was right, of course, to pursue the safe return of its citizens. But the juxtaposition of the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. Navy with the desperation of four men armed with guns brings into relief the imbalance of power and wealth across the globe. The outcome of the conflict also raises important questions about what constitutes a proportional response in such a situation.

Captain Phillips is a beautiful tale from the perspective of Phillips himself. Hanks’s acting ability alone elevates the movie into Best Picture territory. He portrays Phillips as a crafty sea veteran who was prepared to handle an impossible situation. At the end of the movie, Hanks gives another career-defining performance in a scene wrought with pain. Hanks, even without an Oscar nomination this time, again establishes why he is one of the great actors of all-time.

Phillips’s thoughts are also never far from his family, which is a poignant reminder of the flip side of the story. The movie is a tragedy for the four pirates involved. If you are like me, you may find yourself questioning the decisions of the U.S. Navy and lamenting the way the real-life events played out for the Somali men.

Ultimately, this is a film with a rich depth of perspective, challenging the viewer to consider his or her own unconscious biases. Captain Phillips artfully demonstrates the principle that both sides can simultaneously be fighting the good fight, even while employing tactics that may betray those principles.

12-years-a-slave

12 Years a Slave stresses Gettysburg’s significance

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November 19, 2013, was the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. That date was celebrated across the nation as an interesting piece of trivia, but it is critical to understand that the Address and the liberties won in the Civil War are only 150 years old.

To put that span of time into perspective, railroads are older than the Thirteenth Amendment’s guarantees of freedom, and the last child of a slave only died in 2011. American slavery is, unfortunately, a piece of our very recent history. The film 12 Years a Slave, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, skillfully displays the horror of a world that was transformed by the events of the 1860s.

Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg was a defining moment in the American story that is difficult to truly comprehend without context. When the war broke out, North and South believed themselves divided over a simple political dispute: who was sovereign under the U.S. Constitution, the states or the federal government? There was a certain inauthenticity in this understanding, as the South was only fighting for states’ rights to protect their “peculiar institution,” also known as human slavery.

It was not until Lincoln gave his address at Gettysburg that both sides, especially the North, acknowledged the war was not simply a political dispute, but a moral one. To the president, this was a war about ending a great evil. While history has immortalized his words, many at the time questioned the president’s actions. Some, indeed, were wondering what took him so long.

The slavery question had been creating more and more heated disputes among the American people in the decades since the ratification of the Constitution. Many in the North saw the war from the beginning as a crusade against the great slave power. Some came from the Quaker traditions of Pennsylvania, which had filed the first anti-slavery petition to the U.S. Congress in its very first session. Many, however, were recent converts.

The printing of two seminal works of literature in the 1850s sparked a rise in abolitionist sentiment. The more commonly known work is Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but the other work, seemingly forgotten by history, was Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave.

Twelve Years tells the story of Northup, a free-born African-American from New York who was tricked into a trip to Washington, D.C., where he was drugged and kidnapped. After 160 years of relative obscurity, Solomon’s tale has made it to the big screen, and in a big way.

Chiwetel Ejiofor, a British actor, takes us through the difficult journey from free man with a wonderful family to human livestock, letting the true tragedy of his life sink in deeply with each scene. Solomon is given the slave name “Platt” and is sold to Ford, played by the always fantastic Benedict Cumberbatch.

Cumberbatch plays a straightforward yet challenging character. A product of his time, Ford is a slave owner, but not necessarily a tyrant. Ford finds himself impressed by Solomon and often treats him like a friend, while still keeping the line between master and slave clear. It becomes difficult at times to tell if Cumberbatch’s character is truly a good man or is simply manipulating his slaves to get the best work out of them.

After a dispute, Solomon is sold to a notorious slave-breaker by the name of Epps, played by Michael Fassbender. Those familiar with Fassbender’s work probably know what to expect. His portrayal of Magneto in X-Men: First Class allowed for a lot of moral ambiguity in his actions, but Epps is no such complex character. I believe some men are simply evil, and Fassbender convinces the viewer Epps is nothing short of a monster.

This section of the movie is the toughest to watch, and it certainly lives up to the brutal reputation of slavery in the American South. You may find yourself hoping for the movie to end so you can move on to think happier thoughts, but I believe these scenes are what elevate the movie beyond entertainment or even art; sitting through these uncomfortable scenes will strengthen the character of any viewer.

Steve McQueen’s adaptation of Twelve Years a Slave is a difficult work of modern cinema that displays in stark and real terms the tragedy of chattel slavery. It reminds us that seven score and 10 years later, we still owe a debt to our shackled ancestors, whether we descend from slaves or not. These men and women were viewed as subhuman even as they toiled to build the country of freedom we enjoy today. We owe it to the human beings who worked by the force of the whip: to remember their tragedies and to tell their stories.

McQueen (the director, not the late “King of Cool”) proves himself unafraid to turn a mirror on the United States and remind us all why the dead at Gettysburg did not die in vain. His deft work emphasizes to us that the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation are not simply words on a paper to memorize for a school assignment. They are philosophical tracts that changed the history of America and the world.

The Gettysburg Address changed the reasons for fighting the Civil War. Instead of dying for ideological differences about nationalism and states’ rights, the thousands of men who gave their lives at Gettysburg died for a greater ideal. Those brave soldiers sacrificed themselves so that America could have a new birth of freedom — so that millions of men and women still unborn could live free.

Lincoln believed the American people would not long remember what he said in Gettysburg. But true art — art with a purpose — always survives the centuries. We may not be watching McQueen’s masterpiece in 150 years, but the work done by Ejiofor, Fassbender, and Cumberbatch will keep the story of Solomon Northup alive in the American conscience for at least another generation.