Real government, real men

Sixty minutes into Costa-Gavras'
Cold War thriller, State of Siege,
a sexy masked terrorist interroga-
tor guides a captive CIA advisor of 
a repressive South American régime
to the core of his character's il-
lusions. Their dialogue now returns
to life in the nature of the new
American government, and tends to
make one sentimental for the music
of Mikis Theodorakis. Who restores
the state of mind of a nation to
grotesque alternatives, first em-
bodies one for seduction's sake.

Tupamaro: A policeman might become a 
revolutionary and vice-versa ..

Captive: Not a true policeman.

Tupamaro: Do you belong to a specific
breed?

Captive: Yes, in a way. Our vocation
is to uphold order; which means, that
we do not like change. We're conserva-
tors. 

Tupamaro: Here, many become cops out of
hunger, not by vocation.

Captive: Yes, but they become policemen,
while others, out of hunger become thieves.

Tupamaro: You think hunger gives you the
choice?

Captive: I believe, that a man, a real man,
always has a choice. Don't you?

Tupamaro: No. We don't believe in real men,
[sir]. We believe in men, and their right
to equality.

Captive: I believe in those things.

Tupamaro: No, you do not. You accept in-
equality, you defend privilege. Actually,
what you believe in is ownership. 

Captive: What do I get out of it?

Tupamaro: The illusion that you're one of
the bosses, when in fact you're an errand
boy.

We accept that this is why the new government

sustains its unbroken partisan commitment to

the President's incompetence and instability,

given the vanishing opportunity he presents to

win the repressive alternative, of battles it

has lost before, and must surely lose again -

on the strength of a collage of ante-bellum

white male fetishes, crumbling before our eyes.

What illuminates the new government's betray-

als of these voters is his hunger to run any

errand to be petted as a boss. What brightens

the exposure of his Congressional conspirators

is the very same errand. All over again, des-

pair is premature. They make themselves real.

Costa-Gavras
  director
Franco Solinas
  screenplay
Pierre-William Glenn
  cinematography
State of Siege
KG Productions, 1972©

Fairfield Porter
Calm Sunrise
1963