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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Not too shy to talk
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As I person who had relatives that died during the Katyn massacre, how dare you degrade the meaning behind this statue. I wish you could tell how you feel to my relatives, but they're dead - died for no reason by people who are/were as ignorant as you seem to be. I'm horrified at your thoughts. What is next, holocaust memorials?
Posted on: 2010/4/30 16:11
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Just can't stay away
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Hipsters? There is still a large and active Polish community in Paulus Hook, it's they and not these alleged hipsters who would object to seeing their memorial removed. Anyone remember the "Stop the Ethnic Cleansing!" flyers all over PH back when OLC stopped Polish-language mass?
Posted on: 2010/4/30 16:03
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Home away from home
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I say this every time this thread comes up.
Long time JC resident. Fairly ugly statue that is out of place and was erected to get votes. Would love to see it moved to somewhere more appropriate, like Poland, or at least not the center of the downtown district. There are 235,000+ long time residents who don't want this statue. Keep the 2,000 hipsters who want to keep this statue in place from taking over this town. Thank you.
Posted on: 2010/4/30 15:51
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Home away from home
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Judging from your avatar you appear to be Russian. Whether or not, I have no sympathy for your effort to erase history.
As someone who is neither Polish nor Russian, I see the Katyn monument in a very different way. I see it as a depiction of the danger of Totalitarianism, which we barely escaped becoming a world-wide ideology; whether in the form of Nazism or Communism. Furthermore, Communism is much more tolerated, despite having resulted in many more deaths at the hands of Communist regimes. For example, ignorant college kids walk around with Che t-shirts while only the dregs of society display Nazi images. When 5:1 social science college professors self-describe as Marxist than conservative (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=amjn_0feDpcM) there is something wrong. Similarly, nobody is critiquing the many Holocaust Memorials in the U.S., such as the one in Battery Park, on the basis of them being foreign or ugly. In short, I love the Katyn memorial and miss no opportunity to explain it to visitors to our city. Quote:
Posted on: 2010/4/30 3:24
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Home away from home
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That would be far too relevant to JC and the people that live here. Better to pick something that happened in another place over 50 years before and has no connection to the vast majority of people living here. Have you noticed that all the other Katyn memorials around the world (particularly the ones in Poland) are tasteful monuments that honor the memories of the people that were slaughtered without having to make political statements to people that could not have prevented what happened? Here is a computer visualization of a new Katyn giant memorial to be built in Poland. It consists of 20,000+ figures of all of the victims, each with a name and a hole in its head (coz that's how they were killed, folks, not with bayonets). The video takes a while to get going but if you are patient at around two or three minutes in, you will see the Bayonne vagina. http://video.google.pl/videoplay?doci ... 264069519938250476&hl=pl#
Posted on: 2010/4/30 1:03
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Just can't stay away
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Although I happen to love that statue, at the very least it's something interesting to look at, which is more than hardly any other piece of architecture in that part of town can say these days. In this world of rapid homogenization it's nice to see something that can elicit an emotion, good or bad.
Posted on: 2010/4/29 21:51
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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At the rate JC is changing I think someone needs to commission a statue that will represent the JC old-timers.
Maybe a bronze of an old man and woman with a shopping cart looking with delight into the window of a 99 cent store as they sip their 50 cent cup of coffee that they purchased from the local bodega. A fitting tribute indeed! Hey all of you new-comers, hipsters, and yuppies you are the JC old-timers of tomorrow never forget that. Show some respect!
Posted on: 2010/4/29 21:37
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Hey one more thing I will confess I have eaten in one of your hipster/yuppie establishments....and LOVED it! (I just hope it didn?t replace a sweet dollar store)
![]() Quote: gargantuan98 wrote: Before anyone condemns the ?vagina? monument please take a trip over to the old MOT (Military Ocean Terminal) in Bayonne and see it close up. (no pun intended, well maybe). The road to get to it is across from the light rail station. It is the road for the new apartment complex and cruise ship port. Next to the strip mall with the Stop & Shop. You can?t walk to it; it is about a mile or 2 into the entrance. You go past all of the old MOT buildings.. amazing to think how many military people and the tons of equipment that shipped out from there. We went on a rainy windy night; I swear the monument was screaming. Very surreal with the NYC skyline in the back ground. God bless those who were lost on 9/11. God bless America!
Posted on: 2010/4/29 20:30
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Home away from home
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I will vote for any mayoral candidate who promises to move that statue. Even Schundler.
Relocate it to the bottom of the Hudson.
Posted on: 2010/4/29 20:01
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Not too shy to talk
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Thank you for this thread.
Now I know about the vagina monument in Bayonne.
Posted on: 2010/4/29 19:53
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Quite a regular
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I'm one of those gentrifying yuppies. And yes, you nailed the absurdity of wannabe rich people (JC first, tomorrow Chelsea!) moving into slums to find an idyllic authenticity, I was truly lol. I would also have mentioned strollers full of hierloom tomatoes and arugala salads, but well done nevertheless. Gentrifying yuppies really don't want authenticity or urban grit at the end of the day, they want suburban bliss in the shell of something they can claim is authentic. Look at Chipotle in Manhattan. Where are all the mom and pop coffee shops they claim to love? I guess they prefer chain store burritos.
Posted on: 2010/4/29 18:55
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I think it needs to go. It has no relation to Exchange Place, Jersey City or this country. It's an eyesore in the middle of a modern business environment. Move it to some park.
Posted on: 2010/4/29 17:18
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Not too shy to talk
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From JCINDY.COM Apr 21st, 2010
PHOTOS: Memorial Service for Polish Plane Crash Victims http://www.jerseycityindependent.com/ ... lish-plane-crash-victims/
Posted on: 2010/4/29 16:57
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The Jersey City Independent is the alternative news and culture source for Jersey City.
www.jerseycityindependent.com or jcindy.com |
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Home away from home
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Attention Jersey City old-timers all 236,000 of you. The invading hipster?s all 2,000 (or less) of them have decided to tear down our statues, our symbols of the past. (they have their hip designer sneakers at the ready to whack the statues as they fall) The statues seem to be a little too ugly for their tastes. After all they are HIPsters! Way cooler to paint or plaster posters on the walls of downtown buildings with cool designs. Than have everyone try and figure out what the **** they mean.
Please be aware that they are also trying to take control of YOUR neighborhood bars and restaurants. They do not want you in their territory. They have begun to take away all of our dollar stores. They want the space for their fancy second hand stores (which are really just fancy dollar stores..dah!) and bicycle shops. It?s interesting that they all want ?the ultimate urban living experience? yet they don?t want to deal with the natives, their past symbols, or their current problems. They want JC to be ?nice? like the burds where they grew up living in mommy and daddy?s split level ranch. It ain?t happening deal with it! We?re here! We?re old-timers! Get use to it! For all of you geniuses... what does a bayonet being driven into someone?s back symbolize? What?s next on your hit list? The Jackie Robinson statue up Journal Square (I don?t like the way he is raising his both arms...seems too threatening to be in front of a transportation center) or the Christopher Columbus statue.. (hey he is holding a cross and just who is he pointing at? Is that his pointer finger or middle finger?). Or better yet.... Is the Holocaust Memorial: Liberation Monument by Nathan Rappaport in Liberty State Park next on your hit list? It is kind of ?in your face? having a US WWII soldier carrying a poor skin and bones concentration camp survivor in the shadow of the NYC skyline. Gee how gross I think his rib bone is popping out. LSP: Liberation Monument *** JC old-timers watch group: I am looking for volunteers to guard the Ruby Dollar Store and the K-Mart on Rt 440. I heard that the hipster?s might try and make a move on them. Something about a combined wine school, yoga studio, bike shop complex, where you can sip a glass of homemade wine, workout, while you get your bike fixed. Jersey City will survive with out without hipsters. If you remember the first hipster..err I mean yuppie invasion was in the late 80?s. That didn?t work out too well because of the crash in the early 90?s. But we survived ... crappy dollar stores and all! ![]()
Posted on: 2010/4/29 16:19
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Quite a regular
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If you look into the history of Katyn you would know that most of the people killed were Polish workers and state emplyees (doctors, professors, police officers, university graduates, political prisoners), not soldiers. Get schooled. Running away is not cowardice when you have no power, expectation, or ability to fight.
Posted on: 2010/4/29 15:09
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Just can't stay away
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The feelings of discomfort and/or horror one gets while looking at the monument are exactly its intent.
Artist - 1 Haters - 0 I think it is powerful and moving and darkly beautiful -- especially considering the true story -- and it should definitely stay.
Posted on: 2010/4/29 14:18
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Has anyone taken the time to think about what a soldier has to be DOING to be bayonetted in the BACK while his legs seem to be moving?
The statue is ugly and vulgar...toss it into the Hudson.
Posted on: 2010/4/29 13:41
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Quite a regular
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I love the monument. I don't think the artist was a hack at all. I always bring vistors from out of town to see it.
I also see the statue as a perfect metaphor for living in Jersey City given the politics around here. Would you rather have a statue of a unicorn running up a rainbow or of Mayor Healy passed out? The statue stays.
Posted on: 2010/4/29 13:38
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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I guess I?m one of those rare individuals that don?t think the NYC skyline is beautiful. I understand why people pay more money for homes on the ocean, with the infinite horizon, or a lake with a view of trees and cottages?. but a view of the river with a bunch of buildings just a skip and a jump away? To each, his own.
I?m not found of that bayonet. I remember poking around my grandfather?s attic as a child and discovering really old uniforms and a bayonet. It was weird. But it was real. Some of my favorite movies are Platoon, Gettysburg and most recently the Hurt Locker. All great movies. Not so much because of the fighting action, but the cost of war. I remember the end of Platoon, where Charlie Sheen is leaving Vietnam on a chopper and thinking out loud?. ?the war is over for me now, but it will always be there for the rest of my days?. And the scene from the Hurt Locker where the guy is back from Iraq and in the grocery store, overwhelmed by the huge selection of cereals, and throws any ol? box in the grocery cart. Just like 9/11. People will not forget a major terrorist attack. I won?t. I wish I could. I remember attending services at St. Michaels in Hamilton Park that evening. I couldn?t talk; wouldn?t talk for days. Now whenever I pass a 9/11 memorial, I pause for a moment and shed a tear. I just wish folks could understand that not all 9/11 victims are dead. Many are walking the streets today. ![]()
Posted on: 2010/4/29 13:37
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Home away from home
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I love that monument. Welcome to Jersey City. Don't f*ck with us.
Posted on: 2010/4/29 8:49
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Secret Documents on Katyn Massacre Published Online
By Andrey Volkov & Juliana Kim Epoch Times Staff Created: Apr 28, 2010 Last Updated: Apr 28, 2010 MOSCOW?The electronic copies of secret Katyn documents were published Wednesday on the Russian Federal archive website, revealing details on the 1940 massacre of Polish officers by the Soviets. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the publishing of the documents, as he promised Poland following the tragic plane crash in Russia on April 10, which killed the Polish first couple and 94 others. During the incident, 20,000 Polish officers and members of the intelligentsia were murdered on Soviet territory by the People's Commissariat Internal Affairs (NKVD) with Stalin?s approval. In 1943 the Germans discovered the mass graves near the camps, as well as prisons in Katyn Forest, which have now become a memorial site. Stalin accused the Nazi regime of the crime. This propaganda has still circulated in Russia since the regime fell in 1991. The secret documents contained in ?Special File No. 1,? were originally kept in the archives of the Soviet Union?s Communist Party and were only available to a select few. The archives were later handed over to the political and social department of the Russian federal archive, where Stalin?s main documents are kept. Among the seven secret documents?which include the signatures of Stalin and other officials from the top political bureau?there is a reporting notice written by People?s Commissary of USSR Lavrentiy Beriya to Stalin suggesting that they shoot the jailed Polish prisoners. ?So it does not mean that nobody knows these materials, but they first were published in such consolidated manner,? Medvedev said. The files were first declassified by the first president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin in 1992 and delivered to Poland. Before the communist regime began its wane, the issue was untouchable. Despite Russia?s acknowledgment of the massacre, however, its leaders never referred to the incident as a genocide. The Russian military prosecutor?s office suspended the declassification and investigation of the crimes in 2004, calling it the ?excess of official?s duties.? Soon after, the Russian international society for human rights ?Memorial? appealed to a Moscow court to allow the process to proceed, but the court refused. They later asked the Supreme Court, which led Moscow to consider the issue. Since the Poland president?s plan crashed, the Poles have been surprised with the overtures made by Russian leaders. Ties between the two former Soviet republics seem to be warming as the Katyn massacre was always a sensitive issue for late Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who put great effort into not letting Russia influence the country?s policies, which were typically oriented toward the West. Claiming Responsibility Memorial member Arseniy Roginskiy said that Russia has to claim responsibility for the Katyn crime. He said that revealing the documents is only recognizing that the crime took place. ?The difference between guilt and responsibility is far bigger,? Roginskiy said, in the interview with The Epoch Times. ?Russian authorities must give the crime certain juridical classification and the murderers? names must be made public,? he said. ?The rehabilitation of all victims of the Katyn crime should be provided according to Russian laws on rehabilitation for victims of political repression.?
Posted on: 2010/4/29 7:39
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Home away from home
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JerseyCityFrankie wrote: It looks like Gumby dressed like a gay pirate. Nothing against gay people or pirates ![]()
Posted on: 2009/10/24 16:35
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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You want to weigh in on bad public sculpture here in J.C. you have to start with the abortion at Journal Square. I?m not talking about the memorial fountain dedicated to the J.C. victims of the 2001 W.T.C. attacks ( whose names now include random dead J.C. people not killed on that dark day) No I?m not going to use this opportunity to bemoan the fact that the memorial fountain has been allowed to fall into disrepair and was never even on this year. My grudge is about the absolutely craptacular ?Christopher Columbus? statue ( I won?t dignify it by calling it a sculpture) that squats on a nearby plinth. I?m calling that piece of crap the ?Worst public statue in the entire city?. It looks like Gumby dressed like a gay pirate. Nothing against gay people or pirates, I am saying this piece of crap needs to be melted down and recast as something more useful. You can bitch and moan about the sculpture with the guy getting a bayonet in the back, but at least it is decent figurative sculpture with an evident understanding of anatomy and composition. The Christopher Columbus statue, like it?s twin in Columbus Park in Hoboken is a giant piece of crap, made by some long dead hack who could only have got the commission through some sort of political patronage/nepotism sort of deal since obviously this idiot had no artistic ability. Nobody that ever took the time to learn about the history of sculpture could ever refute any of the bad things I have said here. I work in the Fine Arts and I say these things because it?s my obligation to point out really bad Art when I see it.
Posted on: 2009/10/24 5:23
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Home away from home
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If you are having to use that much hyperbole to try to make your point you are struggling. Complete truth? I do think we are entitled to a better truth than this crass static image. A movie apparently is a much lower form of art that apparently can not be truthful. I thought it was obvious that this was a Polish film intended for the Polish audience and not a hollywood movie of pure 'entertainment'. Perhaps I was not making myself quite so obvious. And what purpose do you think it would serve to make a film that was untruthful or do you think for a moment that it wouldnt be ripped to shreds in its home country that has suffered from the stain of this event, not just from the loss of those killed but the struggle to be able to speak the truth about what happened for decades afterwards. That, my friend, is what the whole film is about, not what happened and how it happened, but the struggle for the truth. The what and how is shown in the last 5 minutes of the film. Is it the whole truth? Of course not. Quote: the master of the obvious anti-revisionista, who can't see the (w)hole for the t-t-towers or the "bayonet in the back" for the ham-fisted metaphor. I don't see what a statue erected in 1990 has to do with the towers. The bayonet in the back was not lost on me, in fact I did point out it was making a political statement or did you miss that? I dont believe this is aimed at Russia any more than it is aimed at Britain and the US for having apparently done nothing about the massacre. The question is what exactly could/should have been done? That is what annoys me about the statue, the Polish community here did not have to struggle to tell the truth like their compatriots and yet the monument we get is not one that says "help us remember the dead" but appears to say (I said appears to say) "we won't let you forget".
Posted on: 2009/3/11 1:56
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Home away from home
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If it's the negative imagery you love, instead of enshrining statements about Eastern European political conflicts, why don't we pick a more relevant tragedy; like the events surrounding the Native Americans we massacred, defrauded, and robbed to build that NYC skyline in the first place? +1 I couldn't agree more. The only reason that monument was placed there was to win some Polish votes in a JC election.
Posted on: 2009/3/11 1:40
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Re: Okay, so who here thinks the Katyn monument needs to go?
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Not too shy to talk
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The idea that an objection to the graphic, negative, dominating presence of this monument equates to a lack of sympathy for the tragedy of the event is absurd.
Depending on who you ask, between 15 and 25 MILLION Russians were killed during WWII. Should they have a statue there, too? Or should their's be a little smaller because there are more Polish people that live in the neighborhood? Let's add a third for the victims of the atomic bombs on Japan. Maybe it could be of two figurines, Uncle Sam with a gas can and lighter, and a screaming Japanese woman carrying her baby with giant flames coming out of both of them; that is what happened after all - would that be tasteful and appropriate as well? Of course if you think it wouldn't, you're a heartless holocaust denier. The Polish have a chip on their shoulder against Russia because Russia historically invades their country and tries to take them off the map. It's a long-running feud. The event was tragic, but the statue isn't just about how sad the Polish in the neighborhood are about Katyn. It's a political statement against Russia, at least in part, and it's na?ve to believe otherwise. If it's the negative imagery you love, instead of enshrining statements about Eastern European political conflicts, why don't we pick a more relevant tragedy; like the events surrounding the Native Americans we massacred, defrauded, and robbed to build that NYC skyline in the first place?
Posted on: 2009/3/11 0:44
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Holy moly.
One guy thinks all bad art is kitsch, and the other that art must represent over-arching and complete historical truth, but only as channeled through a movie. I don't know which is worse, the pompous derision by an armchair art-critic (could there be anything more... useless?) or the master of the obvious anti-revisionista, who can't see the (w)hole for the t-t-towers or the "bayonet in the back" for the ham-fisted metaphor.
Posted on: 2009/3/10 23:23
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Posted on: 2009/3/10 23:01
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I think the artist does have a responsibility to truth and especially in this case where there has been decades of mis-information and lies, I would have thought you would want to do it with at least some accuracy rather than letting your artistic leanings run wild. From what I have since read about this most of the executions were done by taking victims with their hands tied behind their backs to a cell where they were shot in the back of the head than the bodies were pulled through double doors and loaded onto trucks where they were taken to the grave. However, some officers were taken to the grave-side and shot in the neck. Some were bayoneted after they were shot. The Exchange Place statue shows a figure being bayoneted from above as if victim was standing in a grave but alive. It seems to be going for maximum shock value while also being a highly unlikely method of executing a very large number of people at one time. In that sense it actually diminishes the scale of the crime. Wajda's film showed both the cell executions and the grave-side executions. In the case of the grave-side executions a noose was placed over the head to lead the victim to the grave and in some cases a coat or blanket was tied over the head before execution. Quote:
Oliver Stone is the first one to say that he is not a chronicler (unlike Wajda) and that his films are not intended to be historical fact. However, some DVD versions of JFK include a documentary extra concerning the assassination. I think it is the Peter Jennings documentary which may not be the most recent but does include the 3D computer evidence which does back up the hypothesis that it was Oswald alone from the book repository and that he had time to get off all three shots. It debunks (not altogether satisfactorily) the audio evidence that caused a post-Warren committee to conclude that the was a fourth shot and hence a conspiracy. There have been subsequent documentaries that have further updated this but I would say that yes there is merit in renting JFK provided you rent a version with extras. Sorry if that was not the answer you were looking for. BTW, without Stone's film there is a vast amount of information that would still not have been unclassified but was released as a direct result of the impact of the film, so it has helped to bring us nearer to the truth.
Posted on: 2009/3/10 22:11
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