AnonII

In support of R.S.H. Tryster and his response to Eyal Sivan's defense, allow me to add this very latest scholarship and observation from a highly renowned university professor of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies, Deborah E. Lipstadt.

In her 2011 book "The Eichmann Trial,"(Next Book/Schocken, NY), she indicts this "putative documentary" for its fatal procedural flaws, describing how the filmmakers "spliced together different portions of the trial without letting their viewers know that they had done so. They mixed the audio from one portion and the visuals from another. They inserted laughter where there is none. They selectively quoted from witnesses' testimony, thereby distorting the import of their words. In so doing they created scenarios that never occurred." (Lipstadt provides a detailed example of this.)

"Most reviewers," Lipstadt continues, "unaware of the film's creative approach to the facts, took what they saw on the screen as a legitimate portrayal of the trial..." which it clearly as NOT.

Unfortunately, this film is not worth ten review lines, unless one is aching to explore contemporary ennui and anomie in--of all places--Hollywood, from--of all perspectives-- that of a depressed actor. If "Nowhere"...I mean "Somewhere," could possibly be something that somehow could be justifiably construed as a metaphor for the state of modern-day American life--empty and aimless--then there might actually be a reason for this movie to exist, beyond the auteur ambitions of its creator. But there is little if anything authentically American about Johnny Marco, except his identity as a separated or divorced father who doesn't see his child often, and drives a foreign car. He is merely a creature of Sophia Coppola America--a celebrity insider with a suggestively Italian-American surname who seems to be adored in Italy. This fact, along with the scenes in Milan and the ethnic Coppola- brand appeal, would account for the movie's lofty praise at a major Italian event, the Venice Film Festival. The (in)action begins with candidly precise foreshadowing that could just as readily stand in as the ending--a man going around in circles in a vehicle much more wastefully powerful than necessary. America in 2010? No, not really. Just a sad, pathetically irrelevant actor in a Ferrari.

Wonderful dialogue and perfect script where virtually every word carries weight and expands character and story. It's just a shame that the only DVD apparently available(?) of this film is devoid of any extra features, especially commentary by Poitier and Curtis or Bikel which would prove fascinating. In 2008, when the film celebrates its 50th year there should be a fully loaded DVD commensurate with the picture's value.

Terrific acting and writing, virtually low-key and underplayed compared to most hyperbolic American cinema today. What's amusing. but also a bit too distracting however, is the plot hole which has our escapees smoking cigarettes just minutes after they were totally submerged and soaked crossing a raging river. No way they would have had any dry matches and smokes! But hey, that's just that whole nutty, wacky, crazy chain gang thang going on...