(Originally posted Wednesday, March 19, 2008 )
Washington, D.C. (AP)–President Bush said yesterday that, upon the five year anniversary of the War in Iraq, he has tapped legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg to come up with an ending for the long, drawn-out conflict, a goal that has so far frustrated the efforts of America’s greatest military minds.
“Given the great challenge at hand, we needed a real pro to come in and complete the production of this challenging and tough project,” said Bush, with the famous filmmaker standing at his side in the Rose Garden, “And who could do it better than the man who directed Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Munich?”
Bush said that Spielberg was coming up with an ending that would satisfy the American public’s thrist for “closure, justice, and a clear moral message.” Though he didn’t divulge any ideas right off hand, Spielberg said that “a Dr. Strangelove ending might be dark and sinister, but also funny.” Also, he said, the idea of reconciling the country with its long lost leader Saddam Hussein might have the right amount of bittersweet irony and forgiveness, though sadly, Saddam is no longer available for the role. Another option is to have Tom Hanks give a valedictory speech to the Iraqis as the Americans fly desperately out of Baghdad on helicopters with Iraqi children dangling off the skids. His message would be to the abandoned country: “Earn it!”
“I just love Steven’s ideas,” said President Bush, “As you know, I’m was a history guy in college and strongly believe that history is always written by great men. And where great men fail, it is to be written by the pros at Dreamworks.”
Spielberg asked the audience to imagine great red and blue flashes of fireworks in the night sky, soaring music intermingling with the sounds of whistling RPG shoulder-launched anti-tank weapons and home-made mortars. The roar of Bradleys, tanks, humvees and armored personal carriers. “And then,” Spielberg said, conjuring a movie screen, “the camera zooms down on a small Iraqi girl picking up a flower from the ruin. And the audience will know: that’s why we were here. That’s what it’s all about. And then shortly after that, the American troops will quickly fall back and abscond in a scorched-earth evacuation of heart-chilling animal fear that makes the evacuation at Dunkirk look like a Sunday at Emack & Bolio’s.”
“What I like about Steven is that he understands the narrative of history,” said Bush. “And by that I mean history is a narrative … or, it has a narrative applied to it … after the fact … by people who insist that there be a narrative.”
“Let’s face it,” Spielberg said, “Random meaningless violence and carnage don’t add up to good storytelling, and that’s what’s been the problem with the Iraq War up to now. What it needs is a sense of closure. A sense of the personal and not just the statistical. Because you’ve got to admit, if you just looked at all the statistics of the Iraq War, it’s mainly just hundreds of thousands of dead people, and most people would react to that and say: ‘My God, that’s so mind-numbingly awful I want to commit suicide.’ It’s better to end on an up-note, or if not, to end on a note of redemption or bittersweet irony, at least.”
Spielberg will set to work in a couple of months, his schedule now being free after he withdrew from work on the Olympics in China, in protest of that country’s continuing economic support for the government of Sudan.
“I can never morally support a regime that tolerates genocides simply because it needs oil,” said Spielberg. “Um … actually, what I meant to say was that I always thought my pal Robert Zemeckis would be a better fit for that project.”
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Beauty is Imperfection 