BLOGS
As Odie Henderson pointed out recently, Spike Lee seems to have a thing for getting into fights. According to Variety, Lee's Miracle at St. Anna is being derided "as mispresentation of the facts" by Italian veteran organizations after a press screening yesterday in Rome. Lee didn't really start the latest skirmish, but he's not exactly being Mr. Diplomat about things, either. He responded by telling those critical of his film: "I am not apologizing for anything. I think these questions are evidence that there is still a lot about your history during the war that you [Italians] have got to come to grips with." Pretty much the best way to make sure people don't come to grips with something is by telling them to come to grips with something. It's like telling an angry person to calm down. Does that ever work?
The point of contention among the Italian vets is the film's linking of an Italian resistance group to a Nazi massacre of 560 civilians. An Italian character in the movie collaborates with the Nazis, and that action leads (indirectly) to the slaughter. A touchy subject, to say the least. While Lee seems uninterested in soothing Italian ire, St. Anna writer James McBride tried to bridge the gap with a shared experience, saying that '[as] a black American, we understand what it's like for someone to tell your history, and they are not you.' He added that it's a fictional story, and that the "real question" for him as a writer was how to make that story "a reveal." McBride said he did the best he could.
For Spike Lee, the real miracle might be finding an audience for the picture. It's currently running a 29% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and barely broke the domestic box office's top 10 in its first weekend out. It'd be an even bigger miracle for the movie to do better in Italy, where it'll be released this Friday.
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