It’s not a huge surprise that a correspondent for a newspaper that supported the coup that ousted Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would dislike a film that offers a more sympathetic view of Chavez’s politics.
That said, Larry Rohter’s review (New York Times, 6/26/10) of the new Oliver Stone film South of the Border still manages to surprise—mostly because Rohter’s attempt to fact-check the movie is such a failure.
Rohter’s first big catch is this:
Mr. Stone argues in the film that Colombia, which “has a far worse human rights record than Venezuela,” gets “a pass in the media that Chavez doesn’t” because of his hostility to the United States.
Rohter doesn’t attempt to demonstrate that this is false; instead, he points out that the Human Rights Watch logo “appears on the screen. That would seem to imply that the organization is part of the ‘political double standard’ of which Mr. Stone complains. ”
Well, that could be. Or it could mean that they’ve studied the human rights situations in both countries. Rohter goes to the group for a response. And here’s what he got:
“It’s true that many of Chavez’s fiercest critics in Washington have turned a blind eye to Colombia’s appalling human rights record,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of the group’s Americas division.
So the movie suggests that Colombia’s rights record gets far less attention that Venezuela’s—a contention that would seem to be true based on the amount of press attention granted to abuses in each country (Extra!, 2/09). Rohter goes to Human Rights Watch, and they…agree with the film’s argument that Colombia gets a pass in Washington.
Rohter devotes a lot of space to discussing the 2002 shootings in Caracas that preceded the coup. He seems to insinuate that Stone is getting things wrong (arguing that one expert in the film is a biased source, for example), but if there’s a lesson here in how Oliver Stone abused the truth—Rohter maligns Stone’s “tendentious attitude”—I am unable to locate it.
The movie isn’t just about Hugo Chavez; the point is to take stock of the leftward political shift in Latin America. Rohter finds problems here, too (the Ali referenced here is Tariq Ali, who co-wrote the film with economist Mark Weisbrot):
Trying to explain the rise of Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia who is a Chavez acolyte, Mr. Ali refers to a controversial and botched water privatization in the city of Cochabamba.
The problem with that? Rohter explains:
In reality, the government did not sell the water supply: It granted a consortium that included Bechtel a 40-year management concession in return for injections of capital to expand and improve water service and construction of a dam for electricity and irrigation.
Oh, they didn’t sell the water supply; they granted a private corporate a “a 40-year management concession.”
Stone, Weisbrot and Ali have written a letter to the Times responding to the review. They point out that even some of the more mundane criticisms of the film are wrong:
Accusing the film of “misinformation,” Rohter writes that “a flight from Caracas to La Paz, Bolivia, flies mostly over the Amazon, not the Andes….” But the narration does not say that the flight is “mostly” over the Andes, just that it flies over the Andes, which is true.
But they also point out that Rohter’s fixation on the shootings and coup might be explained by the fact that Rohter’s reporting on those subjects was so problematic:
Rohter should have disclosed his own conflict of interest in this review. The film criticizes the New York Times for its editorial board’s endorsement of the military coup of April 11, 2002, against the democratically elected government of Venezuela, which was embarrassing to the Times. Moreover, Rohter himself wrote an article on April 12 that went even further than the Times‘ endorsement of the coup:
“Neither the overthrow of Mr. Chavez, a former army colonel, nor of Mr. Mahuad two years ago can be classified as a conventional Latin American military coup. The armed forces did not actually take power on Thursday. It was the ousted president’s supporters who appear to have been responsible for deaths that numbered barely 12 rather than hundreds or thousands, and political rights and guarantees were restored rather than suspended.” — Larry Rohter, New York Times, April 12, 2002
These allegations that the coup was not a coup—not only by Rohter—prompted a rebuttal by Rohter’s colleague at the New York Times, Tim Weiner, who wrote a Sunday Week in Review piece two days later entitled “A Coup by Any Other Name” (New York Times, 4/14/02).
South of the Border aims to give viewers a glimpse of Latin American politics that could serve as as antidote to the one-sided, propagandistic treatment in the corporate media. Reviews like Rohter’s only remind us of this fact.
I watched the film in NYC, and enjoyed it along with my “non-political” boyfriend whose interests were aroused. So kudos for Stone’s movie… but there were serious issues with this movie. And as long as progressive and liberal-left outlets like FAIR present the pissing contests between Hollywood superstar Stone and the Great News Behemoth NYTimes, we won’t really understand the limitations of Stone’s reportage and political-economic visions. FAIR should treat Stone as what he is – a very wealthy and well-connected media elite… and we should ask questions that are serious, not just cheer him on because he upset the NYTimes.
A few questions I’d like to ask Stone:
1. Why were the brown leaders (Chavez and Morales) treated like children (the bike, soccer), but the white leaders (the Kirchners and Lugo) treated like adults? Is this racism meant to match the sexism of the shoes question to President Kirchner?
2. Why was Obama displayed like a conciliating Christ figure, but Bush was just a buffoon? Would the people of post-coup Honduras agree with Stone’s depiction of Obama? Recall that Obama said during the 2008 campaign that he considered Chavez a threat to the US; why wasn’t that discussed? Chris Dodd, never to be confused with a defender of democracy in Latin America, was exhibited as such – why didn’t Stone show the Connecticut senator’s denunciations of Chavez, etc? In short, why wasn’t Stone honest in his depiction of the BIPARTISAN nature of US hatred of Chavez?
3. Why such extensive use of FOX NEWS video? The vast majority of Americans don’t watch FOX. It is widely perceived as a partisan, even lunatic, channel. While I’m glad that Stone wants to publicize the already well-known story of the NYTimes’ endorsement of the Venezuelan coup, no serious expose of the US media world would focus so heavily on FOX NEWS. (But, like the worshipful take on Obama, it’s great red meat for the Democratic Party Establishment to which Stone is allied.)
4. Why the focus on leaders? I know it’s fun to hobnob with the big bad boys and girls, but isn’t the REAL lesson of REAL change in Latin America about the mass of people and grassroots institutions that are transforming the political, economic, and cultural landscape? We see this problem in Stone’s mentality in films like JFK and Nixon.
5. Why can’t Stone pronounce CHAvez correctly? Is he too important to care how to pronounce Latino names? Bush can do it, and every FAIR subscriber (like me) knows Bush is a moron. So why do we have to hear about the faux-French shaVEZZZ? There is no President shaVEZZZ in Venezuela.
6. Why did we have to be treated to the fantasy juxtaposition of Stone’s “good capitalism” vs. actually existing “bad capitalism”? That shows how flimsy Stone’s understanding of capitalism is. It’s why his focus on the IMF as some sort of conspiratorial thief in the night is bogus, bad analysis. The IMF is doing precisely what capitalists want it to do. Just like Stone’s movie Wall Street, we’re treated to this fantasy small-town Main Street capitalism vs big bad greedy Wall Street capitalism. But it’s the same system, which manifests itself differently in different places at different times. We know this. But Stone insists on fantasizing otherwise.
Kudos to Stephen for his thoughtful and precise critique of the film (which I haven’t yet seen.) Raising such questions would be a real service for FAIR in any presentation of “factually-challenged” media criticism.
I was looking for some mention of the NY Times’s own Simon Romero, who must be a CIA operative. How about a bibliography of the man’s anti-democratic Latin reportorial propaganda?
CHAvez–shaVEZ; potAYto–potAHto; nuclear–nucular, etc., etc. Like RB Shea, I have to take Stephen’s critique at face value for, like RB, I haven’t seen the film either.
Robert Naiman at truthout wrote in a recent op-ed: Rohter covered Venezuela for the Times during the period of the April 2002 coup, and during the coup, on April 12, 2002, Rohter wrote a piece for the Times claiming that the coup was not a coup, but a popular uprising. That alone should have disqualified Rohter from writing a piece on the film for publication by the Times. At the very least, the paper should have acknowledged Rohter’s previous advocacy for the coup – and its own.
http://www.truth-out.org/nyt-attacks-border-with-false-rant-pro-coup-reporter60872
Why did the film depict Obama as conciliatory and Bush as a buffoon? Hey-It’s a movie. Stone has to construct a film (an entertainment) that appeals to a certain audience (example: dems good, repubs bad)in such a way as to engineer a certain satisfaction or it won’t sell. This is not cynical.
Have you seen “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” the documentary on Chavez?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144#
I found it electrifying and it has inspired me deeply but also enlightened me about the way my government-the U.S., has tried to destroy democracies in South America. As kooky as Chavez may get sometimes, he inspires millions and supports real democracy in the world. Peace.
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