| Subj: | Fwd: Wrote this for Wall St. Journal Europe |
| Date: | 11/27/01 4:44:45 PM Pacific Standard Time |
| From: | Jbigpest |
| To: | MPF1free |
Sick....he sends me this crap all day!Oh,save the Drudge stuff, he took mine. M
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Forwarded Message:
| Subj: | Wrote this for Wall St. Journal Europe |
| Date: | 11/27/01 12:04:33 PM Pacific Standard Time |
From: John.Fund@wsj.com (Fund, John)
To: jbigpest@aol.com ('jbigpest@aol.com')
Rostarwards
HED: May the Force Be With You
DEK: Star Wars is a classic.
Who would have thought that a film set long ago in a galaxy far away
could have such an impact on the here-and-now. But nearly a quarter-century
after its release, Star Wars remains a force to be reckoned with. A poll by
Britain's Channel 4 found that a plurality of 20,000 voters considered it
the greatest movie ever, ahead of Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather,"
Frank Darabont's "The Shawshank Redemption," Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp
Fiction" and Billy Wilder's "Some Like it Hot."
The poll, unscientific in its methods but telling in its results,
was met with the usual tutting from the sophisticated classes. The
Guardian's Peter Bradshaw said the result depressed him. "When people are
asked for their favorite film, they tend to go for something they view as a
classic, and it's disturbing that people now think 'Star Wars' is a
classic."
But Star Wars is a classic. This is not because it turned out to be such a
box-office smash; lesser films, such as "Titanic," yielded a higher gross.
Nor is it because Star Wars can lay any claim to being a work of art; for
that, one must turn to such masterpieces as Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane"
(#19 in the Channel 4 poll) or, more recently, Ang Lee's fanciful "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and Alejandro Gonzalez Iniarritu's devastating "Amores
Perros."
Star Wars is a classic, rather, of moral and political allegory, rendered
all the more effective by masquerading as a cartoonish sci-fi adventure
flick. Neither unsubtle nor overtly sermonizing, the movies in the series
instruct impressionable youngsters in some very necessary themes: about the
existence of evil and the possibility of salvation; about finding one's way
in the world (or galaxy); about the ultimate hollowness of remaining neutral
in a moral struggle; about courage, nobility, self-sacrifice and a sense for
the divine. All of this entitles Star Wars to its place of honor in the
hearts of all.
There's more. For many East Europeans at the time, to watch Star Wars, with
its depiction of the militarized and totalitarian "dark side of the force,"
was to realize, possibly for the first time, that it was no more than a
futuristic facsimile of their own regime.
Nattering nabobs may find the point we're making ever so crass. But to the
extent that Star Wars prompted many in the West-and East-to acquire the
rudiments of a decent moral sensibility, the movie has performed an
invaluable service. Next to this, what do its artistic defects matter?
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From: "Fund, John" <John.Fund@wsj.com>
To: "'jbigpest@aol.com'" <jbigpest@aol.com>
Subject: Wrote this for Wall St. Journal Europe
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