So Ebert has posted a transcript that's almost a decade old (1999) of a conversation he had with Clinton when he was still President. It's sort of a companion piece to his analysis of what the current Presidential candidates' favorite say about them. Now, I'm a fan of Clinton politically, but I came away from this interview realizing that the guy knows his movies, and more importantly, he can discuss them.
Here's Clinton on Fight Club (the RE is Ebert):
And, later, on Three Kings:
More at the link.
Here's Clinton on Fight Club (the RE is Ebert):
Quote:
| WJC: Um, well I thought it was a pretty compelling movie. I think Norton and Pitt were good in it. I mean, they played their roles really well. And I think that it is, now that we have the most prosperous society we've ever had and we've got a thirty year low on unemployment and a twenty year low on poverty, I think that it's a good thing for people to remember that life is about more than money. But I also think it's important not to disparage prosperity for it gives people the opportunity and the leisure and the security to think about other thing. And you know, so maybe it's the public servant in me, but I think the proper response to the questioning of it is to try to make sure that the people who don't have enough, have enough and then to think about what we're going to do with time and the fruits that we have. But you know, so it was a little to neolist for me, but I thought it was very compelling. I thought that those two guys were great and I think that Helena Bonham Carter was in it and she was a very compelling figure in it. I thought it was quite good. RE: I loved the performances and I loved the first half of the movie, but it seemed to me that WJC: It gets old though. Doesn't it? RE: Well, they have to fight each other in order to feel real. It seems to me that there's enough suffering in the world without having to go out and find it. WJC: There is. And it's simply not true that this that the material advances we've had are inherently bad or empty. They give you the power to define your life more. And I don't mean just for rich people, I mean people that have a decent middle class life. You know, to have the lowest African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates we've ever had, to have a twenty-year low in poverty, to have a forty-year low in female unemployment. These things are not bad. It's just not enough. It's not all there is to life, but it creates the possibility of fashioning a life that has integrity and meaning. RE: I think so. I gave a negative review to the movie and I got an email from somebody who said, "Well, my generation," this is an amazing email, "my generation has been denied the opportunity your generation had to fight a war like Vietnam. We don't have any way to test ourselves so we have to go to movies like "Fight Club."" And I'm thinking, "That's not what wars are for." His reasoning seemed to be so screwed up. WJC: Well, the young people they don't have to deal with Vietnam, but I think if they had they would find it was way overrated. You know, losing 58,000 people and a whole other generation of people who were alienated from it and the traumas that so many people went through and there's not a person who went through it who's still not marked by it in some way. Or even more importantly, the civil rights movement, you know that was a very positive thing, but for the people who suffered under the oppression of segregation or who like Congressman John Lewis had their lives threatened because they stood up for civil rights. You know, I wouldn't wish that on the young people of this There's still a lot of problems in this world. You know, if they really want to throw themselves into something they could figure out what to do about the AIDS epidemic, threatening Africa and increasingly Indians in Asia. They could figure out what to do to save a lot of these kids that are still being lost in our own country. There's still mountains to climb out there. There are things outside yourself to throw yourself into. You don't have to get beat up by somebody you know. |
Quote:
| WJC: I loved "Three Kings." Did you like "Three Kings." RE: Oh, I loved it. WJC: I loved it because it accomplished all these different things. It's a great cheap thrills movie, Clooney's unbelievable you know the screen loves him and he's compelling and all the other guys are good. And it's a tragedy as well as a comedy. You know, there's heartbreak. And then they do all that sort of high tech stuff showing you how bullet wounds effect the body. RE: Oh yeah. The bullet goes right in the body. WJC: And they do that a couple times, which I thought was fascinating. And they tell the very sad story that our country has to come to terms with of how we falsely raised the hopes of Shiites in the south of Iraq. And what has been done to them since then. Draining those swamps, changing their lives after thousands of years. It's an atrocity what Sadam Hussein did to them. Not just the ones that were physically hurt, but they literally had their whole lifestyle taken away he could continue to be a dictator over a people with a culture that is very alien to that kind of a government and that kind of oppression. RE: It also shows how small the world is. I mean, here you have a guy who you want to objectify as your enemy and he has an MBA from an American university and we bombed his convenience store. And then the guy is kept prisoner, our guy is kept prisoner and he can use a cell phone to call his wife at home. I mean, it's not like wars take place over there. They're all connected with the CNN microphones right in the back. I love the complexity of that film. WJC: Well it really shows us a world and a society in transition you know. I hope that the communications revolution will make wars more difficult in the future and will make oppression less sustainable. That's what I hope and you know there's a little of that in there. It's kind of interesting. But I thought that was a great film. What else you like that's come out? |
