The Good Shepherd

[Magda Hassan]

The selection of planets doesn't make a lot of sense. Helocentricly or geocentricly.

[David Guyatt]

Charlie, I didn't know that. Very interesting.

Speaking of triple numbers, especially "777" these were, as I'm sure you'll recall the Yen value in billions of WWII Japanese plundered gold stashed on the Philippines just prior to the end of the war.

But rather intriguingly, Crowley wrote a rather obscure book entitled "Liber 777" that summates Qabalistic doctrine.

[Jan Klimkowski]

That being noted, I must take issue with you, Jan. In the hands of a better informed and more gifted writer, The Good Shepherd might have succeeded not in spite of, but because of its direct historical depictions of characters and events.

Yes, the job would have been immensely more "difficult." But to quote Rocco, one of Michael Corleone's two most trusted hitters, when asked by his boss in The Godfather, Part II if Hyman Roth can be killed ...

"Difficult, but not impossible."

I wouldn't disagree. But I suspect it also comes down to intellectual honesty and one's conception of truth.

The Bay of Pigs storyline in The Good Shepherd is posited on the notion that a mole betrayed the timing of the invasion. For dramatic reasons, this "mole" turns out to be the Damon/Angleton character's son, presenting Damon with ultimate moral choices.

The moral dilemma is fine... as drama. Its supposed historical context cannot be other than rubbish... as history.

Having said that, those people who believe Lee Harvey Oswald assasinated JFK alone doubtless conclude that Oliver Stone's movie, JFK, is rubbish.

The combination of Angelina Jolie's gross miscasting and the Bay of Pigs nonsense make it impossible for me willingly to suspend disbelief when watching The Good Shepherd.

One last observation before I go to the mattress: I've not read this anywhere else, but I see the Corleone family in part as a Kennedy family analog: The Don is papa Joe; Sonny is Jack; Michael is Bobby; and poor Fredo is Teddy.

Not a bad fit at all. JFK was rather headstrong, whilst Bobby was intellectually calculating. And Teddy is the compromised family idiot.

[Charles Drago]

The Bay of Pigs storyline in The Good Shepherd is posited on the notion that a mole betrayed the timing of the invasion. For dramatic reasons, this "mole" turns out to be the Damon/Angleton character's son, presenting Damon with ultimate moral choices.

The moral dilemma is fine... as drama. Its supposed historical context cannot be other than rubbish... as history.

Jan,

Your criticism of the use of the Bay of Pigs by the writer of The Good Shepherd is right-on. I'd say the story line represents reckless disregard not only for literal truth, but for the long-term consequences of such an act.

That the April, 1961 invasion was a "perfect failure" is beyond reasonable doubt. Not to split hairs, but the operation was NOT blown; it was designed to crash and burn, and giving advance notice to certain elements within the Cuban and Soviet deep political structures was simply part of the design.

To be even more accurate: Those elements likely were involved in operational planning.

Given what TGS alleges, the film stands as enemy propaganda. A better-informed, more gifted, less compromised writer would have known the truth and not sacrificed it on the altar of dramatic expediency.

To be absurdly generous, the character of "Angleton's" son may represent the part of his psyche that drove his own double game ...

But conducting such analysis, I'm afraid, to quote the Senator Long character in JFK, is best likened to digging gnat shit out of pepper.

[David Guyatt]

The selection of planets doesn't make a lot of sense. Helocentricly or geocentricly.

I'm sure logic is involved in their choice. It's just that there is unusual logic involved. Backwards logic perhaps?

The traditional bodies I listed earlier, and in the order I listed them, are those that correspond with the ascending Sephira of the Qabalistic Tree of Life (the journey of the Fool) - falling short of the Supernals at the emerging Sephiroth Daath and the Abyss (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Kabbalah)).

Very exotic stuff.