Archive for the ‘Cold War’ Category

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A City of Sadness

May 8, 2012

Hou Hsiao-hsien’s A City of Sadness, released in 1989, was the first Taiwanese film to deal with the “White Terror” that Chiang-kai-shek’s Kuomintang imposed upon Taiwan. In that sense, it is a politically courageous work, but it also happens to be beautifully made and moving to watch.

This film has a large cast of characters, but it mainly revolves around three brothers: Wen-heung (Sung Young Chen), Wen-leung (Jack Kao), and Wen-ching (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), who live in a port city in northeastern Taiwan. In the film’s opening scene, we hear the radio broadcast of Hirohito announcing Japan’s surrender, ending World War II, while a woman is giving birth. The symbolism of this is obvious: Taiwan, which has long been under Japanese occupation, is being reborn. Hope, however, soon turns to bitterness. The allies, without consulting the Taiwanese, turn the island over to China, which was then under the control of Chiang, who placed the country under the rule of his general, Chen Yi. The latter begins dismissing Taiwanese from government positions and replacing them with mainland Chinese. This, combined with rampant corruption, causes resentment from the people that ultimately explodes into violence.

During the Japanese occupation, the brothers’ father resorted to criminal activity to support his family. After the war, Wen-heung tries to run a legal business. Wen-leung, however, becomes involved with smugglers from Shanghai. Wen-ching, who is deaf, works as a photographer. Although the brothers are non-political, they are eventually drawn into – and ultimately destroyed by – the political convulsions wracking their country. (Trotsky: “One cannot live without politics any more than one can live without air.”)

A City of Sadness has a non-linear narrative that can be hard to follow sometimes. Nevertheless, if you stay with it, this film is deeply rewarding to watch.

Posted in China, Cinema, Cold War, Taiwan | Leave a Comment »

Nixon in China

March 18, 2012

The Eugene Opera Company recently staged a production of John Adams’s Nixon in China. It was daring for a small company with limited resources to stage a work like this. It was nevertheless a handsome production with good performances. I must say, though, that the opera itself is a curious and unsatisfying piece. As the title indicates, it is about Richard Nixon’s 1972 trip to China. It is an opera about politics that largely avoids the topic of politics. In an interesting moment in the first act, for example, Mao tells Nixon that he prefers right-wingers to “doctrinaire Marxists”. One would like to hear him explain why he feels this way, but instead he quickly moves on to another, less interesting topic. (I can’t remember what it was.) To be fair, opera is not the most ideal medium for discussing complex political ideas. But in that case, why make an opera about Nixon’s trip to China? Peter Sellars, who originally conceived the idea for this work, said that he was interested in this event because it was both “a ridiculously cynical election ploy … and a historical breakthrough”. Nixon’s “breakthrough”, by the way, actually consisted of the fact that he simply ended the US’s irrational policy of not recognizing the Chinese government. In any event, the opera never really explores this seeming contradiction. Indeed, it’s not clear what this work is trying to say.

An interesting question is how did Mao and Chou rationalize meeting with a man who waged a savage war against a Communist country? And how did a rabid anti-Communist like Nixon bring himself to get all chummy with Chou-en-lai? Clearly there were geopolitical motives here, but the opera doesn’t even address these issues. Instead we get Nixon reminiscing about his days in the army during World War II (who cares?), and Mao and Chiang Ch’ing talking about how happy they were in the days before the revolution (again, who cares?). Adams and the librettist, Alice Goodman, have said that they wanted to make these people seem human. Yet what is important about these people is not that they were human, but that they made decisions that had dire consequences for other people.

The opera’s portrayal of the Nixons is not really believable. Pat Nixon, for example, is portrayed as fun-loving and free-spirited. That’s not the impression I got of Pat Nixon. I don’t see how a fun-loving free spirit could have remained married to such a relentlessly grim person as Richard Nixon. The latter comes across as amiable but a bit dumb. This certainly doesn’t fit with what we know about Nixon.

The best part of the opera is the ballet scene in the second act, if only because something interesting is actually happening on-stage. Aside from that, it is only because of Adams’s music that this opera keeps our attention. The term “minimalist” is often applied to Adams, but that term is misleading. One of the striking things about his music is his varied and imaginative use of tone color. He subtly uses different instruments to indicate the changing moods of the characters. It’s too bad that there isn’t a more compelling story to go along with this.

Posted in China, Cold War, Mao, Music, Nixon, Opera | 1 Comment »

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

March 2, 2012

I was not certain whether I should go see the recent film version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, since I vividly remember the television mini-series that starred Alec Guinness as George Smiley. I was afraid the film would not live to up that, but I found it entertaining. Tomas Alfredson has directed a highly polished film that features strong performances. It is perhaps unavoidably a bit hard to follow at times, since it squeezes John le Carré’s sprawling novel into a two-hour film. (Here is the one area where television has an advantage over cinema: one can tell a story over a longer period of time.)

Gary Oldman is good as Smiley, although I prefer Guiness’s performance. Oldman makes the character seem a bit too much like Obi-Wan Kenobi (who was played by Guinness, interestingly enough), a wise old father figure. Guinness did a better job of conveying the character’s insecurities and moments of self-doubt.

In case you don’t know, the film, which takes place during the Cold War, is about a retired intelligence agent, George Smiley, who is called back into service to uncover a Soviet mole who has infiltrated the top level of Britain’s intelligence service. I might have liked this film better if it had dealt more with the political issues of the Cold War. When, for example, Smiley finally confronts the mole, the latter gives a vague explanation of his betrayal. He says the West has “gone to Hell”, although he doesn’t say why he thinks this. One does get the impression that le Carré himself took a lesser evil view of the West. The Soviet agents in this film torture and kill people, whereas the British agents are merely bullying and deceitful.

Posted in Cinema, Cold War | Leave a Comment »

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

December 14, 2009

A while ago I saw the film The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965). I found it sufficiently interesting that I then read the John le Carré novel on which it is based. The book was written at the height of the Cold War, which provided fertile ground for spy novels, since it was essentially a war of bluff.

Alec Leamas works for British Intelligence. He is in charge of British agents in East Germany. His plans are all foiled by the head of East German Intelligence, Hans-Dieter Mundt. When Mundt kills Leamas’s last operative, Leamas returns to London, expecting to be sacked. Instead, his boss persuades him to undertake an audacious operation. Leamas will pretend to defect to the East. He will then spread disinformation meant to make the East Germans think that Mundt is a double agent working for the British. I can’t tell much more without giving things away. Suffice it to say that, like any good spy novel, it is essentially a story of betrayal.

The British agents in this novel are shown as being no better morally than their East German and Russian counterparts. They justify their actions to themselves by saying that they must use the same tactics as their opponents. (One can perhaps detect a foreshadowing here of the arguments later used to justify torture in the “War on Terror”.) At one point, Leamas says that such methods are necessary so that “the great moronic mass… can sleep soundly in their beds at night.” He expresses contempt for the people he is supposedly serving. Indeed, a contempt for people in general seems to underlie the operation he is carrying out. Leamas says of his fellow spies: “They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards. People who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives.” Le Carré was reportedly working for British Intelligence while he was working on this novel. One can only wonder what his colleagues thought about this book.

The communists in this book all sound like religious fanatics. (An exception is Fiedler, an East German spy who is one of the few sympathetic characters.) I read somewhere that when le Carré was working for MI5 in the 1950’s, he spied on meetings of the British Communist Party. I take it from this book that they didn’t make a very good impression on him. Also, it is implied that Mundt is actually a Nazi. I find this a bit far-fetched. It seems that le Carré wanted to make Mundt as repulsive as possible, but I think this was over-doing it somewhat.

There’s a general belief that movies are never as good as the books they’re based on, but I don’t believe that this is necessarily true. When the source is a mediocre novel, the film version can actually be better. A good example of this is The Shining. Hitchcock’s Rear Window is based on a barely competent story by Cornel Woolrich. (The Tarzan movies, as silly as they are, are actually better than the even sillier novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs.) There’s an episode in the novel in which someone tries to kill Leamas, which is never really explained. This is left out of the movie, with the result that the story hangs together better. However, in the novel there’s a wealth of detail that’s lacking in the film, and the motives of some of the characters are clearer in the former than in the latter.

I’m told that in recent years le Carré has been an outspoken critic of US foreign policy. I will have to check out some of his recent works. If they are anywhere near as good as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, they will be well worth reading.

Posted in Cinema, Cold War, Literature | 2 Comments »

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