Response for 11-2

Fred Camper, “In Chaos, Truth: Kippur”

1. What is Gitai’s position on objectivity, and what does Camper find interesting in how Gitai transitions from an “objective” to “subjective” viewpoint in Kippur?

Gitai says there isn’t an objective view; only subjective views exist from many perspectives. Gitai uses long takes and moves for long shots in to close ups.

Nitzan Ben-Shaul, “Israeli Persecution Films”

5. Define the terms “Zionism” and “Sabra.” In what ways does the Sabra woman in Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer “metonymically represent the future of the state”?

“Zionism” is the establishment and development of a Jewish state. A “Sabra” is a native-born Jewish revolutionary agent of Zionism, who works/fights to gain land and participates in the socialist collective. The Sabra woman in Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer represents the future of the state by surviving the war to live in Israel as it moves to a better future. She also has a non-Jewish foreign lover, which shows the peace between East and West.

6. What is the significance of having both nativist (Sabra) and diasporic (non-native born) characters in the group defending Hill 24?

They are all Israelis, no matter where they come from, fighting against the Arabs who wish to destroy them and remove their presence from the region.

7. Why was the period following the Six-Day War (1967) significantly different than the period following the War of Independence?

The cinematic focus shifted from patriotism to the persecution of the Israeli people by their Arab neighbors and the world in general. There was a sense the world disliked the Jewish people and wanted to bring down the Jewish state.

8. Ben-Shaul suggests that Israeli ideology shifted “to an individualistic social paradigm as a better social coping mechanism than the collectivist one.” How did this shift manifest itself in films of the period (1967-1977) and particularly in the film Siege?

They felt an individual can influence his society and would be better able to lead the society than the collective thought of society. To illustrate this, the woman, in Siege, is being influenced by her husband’s friends and neighbors (society). As a whole, society shows attitudes of mourning, loneliness and claustrophobia; while the woman’s attitudes change to that of boredom, defiance and disrespect. These conflicting attitudes go against what social pressures are asserting on her.

9. Ben-Shaul suggests that in the 1980s, “persecution thematically dominates Israeli war films as never before, along with the often vague suggestion that Israel is somehow responsible for the persecution it suffers.” Why is this particularly true for films dealing with the Yom Kippur War (1973)?

The director’s of these films have a lot of anxiety because of the switch in power from a left leaning government (one they support) to a right leaning one (one they are unsure of). These films also portray war as gruesome, and that everyone is a victim of an interconnected cycle of war.