How many times did you have to watch this movie to follow everything Bogart was saying? Isn’t that what makes it great? That it’s right there in front of you, but it’s so hard to follow. A shudder still goes up my spine every time he gives it to her. Every line out of his mouth is a gem. What’s so important about the Maltese Falcon thematically to 9/11 you might ask? The concept of the fall guy, the sap, going over for it. I had hoped to make the point that, yes, it’s true that the 19 hijackers may have hated the US and indeed flew planes into the buildings. But also that they were set up. They were recruited, indoctrinated, trained and facilitated by an iran-contra like secret government agency. Perhaps that secret government agency was called Able Danger. We’ll never know. They destroyed all the data relevant to their program in March 2001. 2.5 terabytes of data, supposedly equal to 1/4 of the printed books in the library of congress, according to Webster Tarpley.
Of course I always loved the Maltese Falcon, but for me as a modern viewer, I never liked Mary Astor. I never found her attractive personally and in that sense she failed as a femme fatale. I just didn’t get why Bogart fell under her spell. It wasn’t until I found out that she was the sexpot of the day, the Paris Hilton of her time, that her understated sexuality in the film made sense.
March 19th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
[...] process. It’s my new favorite word. Charlie sez, “Krik conjured an homage to classic noir in a post 9/11 digital age. [...]