The Book of Judges (13-16) tells us of the heroic life of Samson, one of the most famous characters of the Old Testament. He was a wise judge, a fierce fighter and a brave defender of his people.
Vladimir Ze’ev Zabotinsky in 1927 wrote a brilliant book titled «Samson the Nazarite». In his unique interpretation of the biblical story, he empowers Samson with supernatural strength, yet at the same time he never loses sight of Samson the man. This story rages with the scope and drama of a major cinematic event.
Samson overflows with life. The Philistines are his tribe’s enemies, but they are also his closest friends. Only with them can he be himself, drinking and laughing and entertaining them with his jokes. When his people accuse him of not acting like a judge, Samson answers them: «In my land I live and act as a judge. When I am away from you, I follow my dreams. Do not judge my dreams!» But his dream ends when he falls in love and marries the Philistine beauty Semadar. When his closest friends kill his wife and her family, Samson vows revenge. He burns their fields and towns, killing hundreds, and then flees. The Philistines send their army to capture him. To save his people from war, Samson surrenders. He is rescued by friends, but then betrayed by a woman who loves him. The Philistines blind him, robbing him of his power. The years pass. Blind Samson knows that the Philistines plan to invade his homeland and destroy his people. The day of the great festival to the gods arrives, and Samson takes a horrible revenge.
Samson was the first Superhero in history. His story comes to us from the ancient past, from the land of the Dead Sea. Yet a Superhero never dies. He will live again in this movie.
Genre: Action, epic, drama.
Screenplay: Sergei Bodrov, Carolyn Cavallero
Based on a novel by Ze’ev Zabotinsky
Director: Sergei Bodrov (MONGOL, NOMAD)
Language: English
Casting director: Susie Figgis (PRINCE OF PERSIA, HARRY POTTER)
Production designer: Wolf Kroeger (PRINCE OF PERSIA)
Visual concept: Khamid Savkuev
Locations: Israel, Morocco
Production Co: Bodrov Film Production, Russia, Tengri Production, USA, Kinofabrika, Germany.
Capet said he grew up in IRA-era Britain and lost college acquaintances on Pan Am 103, which was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. He said he was struck by the pervasiveness of these violent acts throughout history.
"Why do we repeat the same mistakes over again?" he wondered.
Samson is an examination of a political and personal struggle, but updated to make it more relevant to modern audiences by drawing parallels with ongoing conflict in the Middle East, he said.
"Samson could be any 'freedom fighter'," Capet said.
The choice of Simon Capet -- musical director of the Victoria Philharmonic Choir -- to portray Samson as a suicide terrorist is perhaps a legitimate literary licensed decision. However, it is nevertheless invidious to link the Zionist Irgun resistance underground in 1946 to the Arab terror in Israel today. Mr. Capet is not reinterpreting the Bible, he is attempting to apply a moral equivalency: Jews in the 1940s were no better than Arabs today. That parallel is mendacious and malicious.
Irgun fighters took up arms against a regime that didn't belong to the country, as it had reneged on reconstituting the Jewish national homeland as charged by the League of Nations in 1922. They never purposefully attacked targets that were civilian.
Arab terrorists, on the other hand, are active almost exclusively against Israeli citizens. They had been killing Jews even before the 1967 war, before a presumed "occupation," their excuse for their actions.
Mr. Capet's real intention, I fear, is not a perversion of history but the maligning of Israel.
Yisrael Medad, Shiloh, Israel.
Most attempts to transplant classic plays and operas into modern settings are artistic disasters. But if the Victoria Philharmonic Choir (VPC) wants to try staging Handel's 1743 oratorio of the Biblical story of Samson as a tale of modern Middle Eastern terrorism, good luck to them. Artistic freedom needs to be protected -- whether the goal is to provoke debate or merely to drive ticket sales. Just, please, spare us the disingenuous claims that portraying the title character as a Jewish suicide bomber circa 1946 is not intended to offend. If one is going to undertake a controversial artistic adaptation, at least have the intellectual honesty and courage to admit one's motives are, at least in part, to shock prevailing sensibilities.
We will not dispute that there are superficial parallels between Samson and modern suicide bombers. Samson's final words as he toppled his enemies' temple on himself and 3,000 others was, "Let me die with the Philistines!" His homicidal/suicidal act was undertaken to deliver his people from the hands of their oppressors, in much the same way modern Islamofascists claim they are fighting neo-crusaders bent on stealing Muslim lands.
Even in the libretto of Handel's Samson, the religious context of the hero's act is clear. On the day of his death, he is brought to the temple of the Philistine god Dagon to be displayed before the gawking crowd. Under his breath, he welcomes the "rest" death will bring and the chance "to breathe heav'n's air, fresh blowing, pure and sweet." Yet, if he is to die, he vows that first he will make "the heathen hear [God's] thunder deep."
But even if these details do supply grist for those who seek to portray Samson as a Biblical-era jihadi, why would the VPC cast Samson as a member of the postwar Zionist brigade Irgun rather than, say, Hamas or al-Qaeda? And why have him blow up the British colonial headquarters at Jerusalem's King David Hotel in 1946 years ago instead of a busload of Jewish workers and school children in 2007? It would seem that if an artist wanted to make art that is relevant to today's audiences, he would choose a plot that echoes the current scourge of Islamist terrorism, not its short-lived mid-20th-century Jewish counterpart.
Simon Capet, the VPC's music director, explains "We didn't want to just present the work as a simple morality tale. There is a social and political commentary here that's important." But we suspect there is more to it than that. There is the scent of political correctness, too. Mr. Capet is likely playing a game of moral equivalence: "Look," he is telling his audiences, "You cannot condemn today's Palestinian bombers, because not that long ago Jews were doing the same thing."
No doubt, many of Mr. Capet's supporters see his production as edgy and courageous. But we doubt the VPC would have the courage to portray Samson as a Palestinian martyr. Not only would that offend Jews and Christians -- as the current production surely will -- it would also offend Muslims and multicultural boosters, two groups most lefty artists would never dream of slighting.
While we support Mr. Capet's right to mangle the works of Handel and express whatever point of view he wishes, we wish he would be more forthcoming about his intentions.
Samson to be a Zionist terrorist
VICTORIA - In the Bible, Samson is a hero who used his superhuman strength to do God's will by pulling down pillars in a Philistine temple, killing thousands and himself in an act of vengeance.
But in what's sure to be a controversial interpretation of the story, a Victoria choir will next month present Samson as a suicide bomber.
Simon Capet, music director of the Victoria Philharmonic Choir, says he wanted to update Handel's Samson oratorio to be relevant to today's audiences by drawing comparisons to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
"We didn't want to just present the work as a simple morality tale," says Mr. Capet. "There is a social and political commentary here that's important."
While the music will not change, the setting of the oratorio will be 1946 Jerusalem. Mr. Capet says he chose the period to draw comparisons to the bombing of the British headquarters at the King David Hotel by the militant Zionist group Irgun in that year. Menachem Begin, who ordered the attack, would later become Israel's prime minister and win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mr. Capet says presenting Samson as a terrorist is not meant to offend anyone or point the finger at one group, but to challenge our notions of what a terrorist is.
"Is there any difference between pulling down a pillar or blowing a bomb?" asks Mr. Capet.
"Samson killed thousands [thousands? nice to know he literally interprets the Bible] of people. To show him in the traditional mythological sense does a disservice," Mr. Capet says.
The choir would not be the first to drawing comparisons between Samson and terrorism.
"There's a large focus on this right now, with Israel being presented as the Samson figure," says Andrew Rippin, dean of humanities at the University of Victoria and a specialist in Islamic studies. American journalist Seymour Hersh coined the term "the Samson option" in his book about Israel's development of a nuclear arsenal.
Shadia Drury, a philosophy professor and Canada Research Chair for Social Justice, recently compared Samson to World Trade Center bomber Mohammed Atta in a talk at UVic. In her book, Terror and Civilization: Christianity, Politics and the Western Psyche, she argues that terrorism is a biblical problem.
"The concept of a collective guilt is a flawed morality," she says. "The idea that 'We're on the side of God and everyone else is evil' has and always will be disastrous."
Ms. Drury says she thinks the choir's modern interpretation of Samson -- scheduled to run April 5, 7 and 8--is heroic.
But local Rabbi Itzchak Marmorstein says comparing Samson and the Irgun bombing will offend Jews and Israelis.
"It's an inappropriate comparison that promotes a shallow understanding of history," says Rabbi Marmorstein. "Israelis never supported Irgun or that kind of terrorism. They weren't heroes ... and Begin went into politics legitimately decades later. He wasn't some crazy terrorist."
One man who is already uneasy about the performance is Samson himself, played by Vancouver Island tenor Ken Lavigne.
"I'm really struggling with this," says Mr. Lavigne, 33. "I can't help but feel that a number of people will not enjoy this rejigging of a biblical hero."
Mr. Lavigne says he has warmed up to the idea of putting on an Irgun uniform and wearing a bomb-belt to sing the emotionally charged part since discussing it with Mr. Capet.
"Simon wants to get people talking about music and its relevance today," Mr. Lavigne says. "In the end I've had to accept that whoever I thought Samson was, what he committed was an act of mass murder."
Simon Capet's decision to portray Samson of the Bible as a suicide terrorist, while perhaps a legitimate literary-licensed decision, is nevertheless invidious as he seeks to link the Irgun resistance underground and the Arab terror in Israel today. Capet is not, one should note, reinterpreting the Bible but is attempting to apply a moral equivalency: Jews in the 1940s were no better that Arabs today. That parallel is mendacious and malicious.
The fighters of the Irgun, as well as the Lechi, or Stern Group, took up arms against a country that didn't belong to the country, closed the gates to war-time immigrants fleeing Nazi Europe and its ovens and reneged on reconstituting the Jewish National homeland as charged by the League of Nations in 1922. They never purposefully attacked targets that were civilian.
Arab terrorists, including suicide bombers, are active almost exclusively against Israeli citizens. They have been killing Jews even before the 1967 war, before a presumed "occupation", their excuse for their actions. Indeed, Arab terror began in 1920 and has never let up despite attempts to negotiate with them. Israel's compromises as a result of the Oslo Accords could not prevent the Arab terror and many are convinced no amount of Israeli surrendering will ever satiate their desire for practicing terror.
Capet's real intention, I fear, is not a perversion of history but the maligning of Israel.
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