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roachboy · 08-08-2006, 08:21 AM

okso i just watched the op film again---there are obvious problems running in all directions.

1. the material that the film uses refer to two specific situations--one in 2000 and another in 2002---it cuts back and forth between them in order to generate the impression that the limited case the film can actually make using the materials the filmakers had available constitutes a general indictment of not only news footage relating to violence in the context of the israeli occupation of the west bank and gaza, but also to the claims that the filmakers argue shape such footage.

the film does not make anything like a case for generalizing the information it presents. it tries, but the filmakers simply do not have the evidence that they pretend to have.

in this and other threads, it seems a kind of quaint commonplace for ustwo or stevo to refer to this film as if it establishes an actual case about information pertaining to the situation of the palestinians in general. this would be a shared delusion--the film does nothing of the sort.

2. as for the footage itself--there are two types basically--footage in which the claims the filmmakers want to make about it are not obviously supported by the footage itself, and footage where the problems are obvious. the assumption seems to be that the latter will wieght the former---apparently for ustwo et al this technique worked---the problem is that there is very little footage in which the evidence is clear--that taken from the fench footage "the road to jenin" seems most obvious---the footage of the palestinian gunman shooting into an empty factory--but otherwise, the voiceover tries to make claims about ambiguous footage that the footage itself simply does not support.

so i dont know folks: i havent seen anything from ustwo or stevo that even starts to address these questions and so find their reliance on the film totally unconvincing.

let's focus on the stronger elements of evidence that landes et al present: in these cases, my response really was...well duh....news organizations prefer dramatic footage and when there isnt any folk will sometime create it. duh.

o and eyewitness accounts are often unreliable. duh again.

when the americans filmed conditions are bergen-belsen in 1945, they created some of the scenes they filmed for dramatic effect. this is well-known and not particularly controversial at this point.
a landes style argument would be to highlight those staged moments, and to move from there to arguing that the holocaust did not happen.
the linking term would be a catchy name--something like "pallywood"

this word does most of the arguing for landes et al--it is what creates the impression that the two sequences that are obviously staged can be used to make general claims about all information originating with palestinians, or all information about the israeli occupation of the west bank and gaza.

this is a quite shabby bit of agitprop. i am not surprised that it looks compelling to ustwo in that it seems to simply confirm a dispositional antipathy toward palestinians in particular and toward arab muslims more generally. a dispositional antipathy is not an argument. judgments made on the basis of such a disposition are maybe of psychological interest, if your objective is to understand something about ustwo, say, but it really is not adequate for making political judgments based on a shabby film that makes claims wholly out of whack with the material it provides as evidence.

as for the film i linked to: i really do not see the equivalence between them at all--the longer film tries to provide broad social-historical contexts for the information it provides--it outlines a state media policy governed by the needs of israel in the context of an information war. so you have specific insitutions which perform specific functions for specific ends.

the landes film relies on vague claims about the fact that the raw footage it does try to use were shot by palestinian cameramen--the implication is that palestinians by their nature are problematic as sources of information--i dunno folks, that seems to me to be racist.

08-08-2006, 08:21 AM	#68 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	okso i just watched the op film again---there are obvious problems running in all directions. 1. the material that the film uses refer to two specific situations--one in 2000 and another in 2002---it cuts back and forth between them in order to generate the impression that the limited case the film can actually make using the materials the filmakers had available constitutes a general indictment of not only news footage relating to violence in the context of the israeli occupation of the west bank and gaza, but also to the claims that the filmakers argue shape such footage. the film does not make anything like a case for generalizing the information it presents. it tries, but the filmakers simply do not have the evidence that they pretend to have. in this and other threads, it seems a kind of quaint commonplace for ustwo or stevo to refer to this film as if it establishes an actual case about information pertaining to the situation of the palestinians in general. this would be a shared delusion--the film does nothing of the sort. 2. as for the footage itself--there are two types basically--footage in which the claims the filmmakers want to make about it are not obviously supported by the footage itself, and footage where the problems are obvious. the assumption seems to be that the latter will wieght the former---apparently for ustwo et al this technique worked---the problem is that there is very little footage in which the evidence is clear--that taken from the fench footage "the road to jenin" seems most obvious---the footage of the palestinian gunman shooting into an empty factory--but otherwise, the voiceover tries to make claims about ambiguous footage that the footage itself simply does not support. so i dont know folks: i havent seen anything from ustwo or stevo that even starts to address these questions and so find their reliance on the film totally unconvincing. let's focus on the stronger elements of evidence that landes et al present: in these cases, my response really was...well duh....news organizations prefer dramatic footage and when there isnt any folk will sometime create it. duh. o and eyewitness accounts are often unreliable. duh again. when the americans filmed conditions are bergen-belsen in 1945, they created some of the scenes they filmed for dramatic effect. this is well-known and not particularly controversial at this point. a landes style argument would be to highlight those staged moments, and to move from there to arguing that the holocaust did not happen. the linking term would be a catchy name--something like "pallywood" this word does most of the arguing for landes et al--it is what creates the impression that the two sequences that are obviously staged can be used to make general claims about all information originating with palestinians, or all information about the israeli occupation of the west bank and gaza. this is a quite shabby bit of agitprop. i am not surprised that it looks compelling to ustwo in that it seems to simply confirm a dispositional antipathy toward palestinians in particular and toward arab muslims more generally. a dispositional antipathy is not an argument. judgments made on the basis of such a disposition are maybe of psychological interest, if your objective is to understand something about ustwo, say, but it really is not adequate for making political judgments based on a shabby film that makes claims wholly out of whack with the material it provides as evidence. as for the film i linked to: i really do not see the equivalence between them at all--the longer film tries to provide broad social-historical contexts for the information it provides--it outlines a state media policy governed by the needs of israel in the context of an information war. so you have specific insitutions which perform specific functions for specific ends. the landes film relies on vague claims about the fact that the raw footage it does try to use were shot by palestinian cameramen--the implication is that palestinians by their nature are problematic as sources of information--i dunno folks, that seems to me to be racist. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 08-08-2006 at 08:28 AM..