Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Guts & Glory

A the 60th Anniversary of V-J Day approaches, I thought this link to Lawrence H. Suid's website might be interesting. I met him for lunch before our vacation, at the suggestion of Alice Goldfarb Marquis, author of numerous books about culture. She did me a real favor to put us in touch. I learned a lot, just at one lunch at the Woodside Deli. He's written ten books, and is the foremost historian of the US Military in Film and Television. Most interestingly, Suid explained why there weren't more films about terrorists after 9/11. Suid pointed out these type of films were already made before 9/11--movies like the 1997 Air Force One, starring Harrison Ford. Apparently, as Oscar Wilde said, life does imitate art.

These days, Suid is busily working on a biography of Fred Zinneman, who made Day of the Jackal, about an earlier incarnation of terrorism.