'Munich' accused of copycat tactics

Publié le 24 septembre 2007 par david castel

Jon Weinbach

Nearly everyone who's seen Steven Spielberg's "Munich" seems to have a strong opinion about the movie, which follows a five-man team of Israeli spies charged with avenging the killing of 11 Israelis at the 1972 Summer Olympics. To help smooth over any potential controversy, director Spielberg even hired Dennis Ross, a former American envoy to the Middle East.

Now here's something else to add to the discussion: It turns out there was a cable-TV movie made 20 years ago about the same historical events, and some people involved in that production say the Spielberg movie is getting too much credit for originality. The earlier film, "Sword of Gideon," also focuses on an Israeli agent named Avner who faces a crisis of conscience after helping assassinate Palestinians believed to be behind the Munich slayings. Both movies include scenes such as a Palestinian leader being blown up by an explosive planted in a telephone, and Avner's relationship with the grandfatherly leader of a French intelligence group who provides the team with leads on the terrorists.

To a large extent, this is to be expected: Both movies are based on the same 1984 book, Vengeance, by Canadian author George Jonas. But there are some scenes in the new movie that are staged similarly to those in the older movie. For example, in re-creating the bloody last moments of the Munich crisis, when Palestinians fire on Israeli Olympians held captive in a helicopter, both movies use the same camera angle -- from the perspective of the hostages. And both "Sword" and "Munich" feature a noteworthy scene that doesn't appear in the book: a shot of a pensive Avner picking up the tobacco pipe of a fallen team member in a London hotel room. (In the book, there's no mention of Avner picking up the pipe.)

Robert Lantos, producer of "Sword of Gideon," says some parts of the current film are "almost re-enactments" of his 1986 work. "It's a testament to the cunning and foresight of Spielberg's publicity machine that 'Sword of Gideon' has not made it onto anyone's radar," he says.

Lantos may be miffed, but he has no legal claim. Universal, which is distributing "Munich" with DreamWorks, owns the film rights to Vengeance as well as remake rights to "Sword of Gideon." The studio acquired the rights from Lantos' former company, Toronto-based Alliance Atlantis Communications. In the mid-1980s, Lantos had outbid several other studios for the rights to the book by Jonas, his good friend and a fellow Hungarian emigre.

Marvin Levy, a spokesman for Spielberg, dismisses any suggestion that "Munich" relied at all on "Sword of Gideon." Indeed, he says, neither Spielberg, nor Tony Kushner, the final screenwriter of "Munich," even saw the earlier movie. Levy says any perceived similarities are purely coincidental: "Sometimes two directors can go in the same direction," he says.

Spielberg and Kushner have said in interviews that their film isn't based solely on Vengeance, and that several accounts -- including other books and "One Day in September," the Oscar-winning documentary about the hostage crisis -- were consulted in putting together "Munich."

"Sword of Gideon" starred Steven Bauer as Avner, Michael York as a bomb maker, Rod Steiger as the team's tough Mossad boss and Colleen Dewhurst in a cameo as Golda Meir. It was made for about $8.5 million -- compared to the estimated $70 million for "Munich" - - according to Lantos. It appeared on HBO, then an emerging pay-TV network, and garnered a modest share of acclaim. It won several Gemini awards, Canada's version of the Emmys, after it appeared as a miniseries in that country. But it more or less vanished after that.

"Sword of Gideon" hasn't aired regularly on HBO in nearly 20 years, and the movie is difficult to find even at well-stocked U.S. video stores.

"I'm sure most of the audience for 'Munich' is not even aware of it," says Michael Anderson, the director of "Sword," who is now 85 years old. (A veteran British filmmaker, he directed the original "Around the World in Eighty Days" in 1956.) Anderson has no qualms with "Munich"; in fact, he says, he found Spielberg's film "fascinating."

Lantos didn't receive anything from Universal's purchase of the rights to Vengeance since he no longer was associated with Alliance, his former production company. And his movie's name doe not appear in the credits for "Munich."

Author Jonas, a 70-year-old Budapest native who lives in Toronto, fared better: As part of his original contract from the '80s, he received a five-figure payment when Universal acquired the rights to his book, and gets a prominent credit in the opening sequence of "Munich" as well as in advertisements. "If someone wants to make a third movie, it's fine by me," he says.