Beaten by Animals
My earnest sympathies to Movie City Indie‘s Ray Pride after getting beaten up by right-wing thugs during the Thessaloniki Doc Festival last month. His 4.29 posting says he suffered no organ damage or broken bones, and is on the mend — good to hear. And thank fortune for medical insurance.
But who sits on a story like this for over a month?
If you’re a movie blogger/columnist you’re filing as it happens — screenings, festivals, musings, reviews, etc. But when something like this occurs — an awful traumatic thing that could have been life-threatening — isn’t that journalistic gold? Meaning that you’d want to write about it as soon as possible? Or certainly as fast as you’d file a review of a hot new film? Horrible as it surely is, getting beaten up is a chance to step out of the rarified cineaste realm and grapple with something “real.”
I just can’t help wondering how someone of Pride’s stature, expertise and intelligence could say to himself the next day, “That was terrible but you know what? I’d rather not write about it. Or at least, I need to few weeks to think it over.”
If I’d been kicked and punched by Greek thugs you can be sure I’d have an account up a few hours later, or certainly by the next day. (Unless my hands were broken.) I would write the story and then find a way to send it out from the hospital. The day I was back on the street I would describe my attackers and explore to what degree the police had investigated and were prosecuting. And I’d want to read English translations of whatever press coverage came from this. And I’d look around for eyewitnesses and find out if others had been beaten by the same gang.
Pride’s photos of his bloody jacket, windbreakers and press pass are excellent, but I want to see photos of where it all happened.
The Thessaloniki Film Festival ran from March 13th to 22nd, and Pride’s misfortune happened on “a little more than a month ago,” he writes. That would be Sunday, 3.22, or the festival’s closing night. Pride’s attackers, he suggests, probably weren’t that much different from the brutes who took part in Yves Montand‘s murder in Costa-Gavras‘s Z (1969).
The Castro here in SF is showcasing a new print of “Z” in May. Haven’t seen it in ages.
wow… that’s horrible, poor guy. I’m glad to hear that he got out safe and sound, though.
I got robbed at gunpoint in East St Louis last year. I didn’t want to tell very many people about it. People I am/was close to know about it. Hardly anyone knows the real story though.
Funny, but ‘robbed at gunpoint’ would have been my second guess to, “Guess what happened to me in East St Louis last year?”
the mugger was probably a right wing thug. Democrats don’t commit crime.
Obviously, this was pretty traumatic, and one would think he’d need some time to recover emotionally from such trauma.
Michael:
Touche sir.
having a passport that links me with November 17 makes me an unwelcomed guest in Greece.
Considering the way Jeff blathers on about the perceived emotional and financial damages inflicted by a missed room reservation and faulty wi-fi in the rural South, there’s no doubt that an actual, physical assault on H.E.’s mastermind would read like a Twittered Ulysses.
Ju-osh, that was hilarious and dead on.
“But who sits on a story like this for over a month?”
It’s called perspective, Jeff, and it takes time.
Also, while only an occasional reader of Pride’s, I still can’t recall seeing much before that is this personal. Treating a blog as an open diary might be your approach, but it’s not the only one.
wow… that’s horrible, poor guy. I’m glad to hear that he got out safe and sound, though.
Oh Jeff … only you could ignore centuries of uprisings and violence and associate nationalism and aggression as strictly “right wing”.
Actually, he did write about it a month ago, but in a column for the local paper he writes for (NewCity Chicago):
http://newcityfilm.com/2009/03/31/to-observe-and-to-report-fast-furious-unseen-and-seen/
My dad threw me through my closet door and made me shit my shorts and then he drove me to school and I didn’t tell anyone about it even when they kept asking me if I farted.
Having the shit kicked out of you is very emasculating. Unless you are already in touch with your feminine side, like I have learned to be, since I have recently realized that I was raised to be a bimbo.
Speaking of bimbos, why is everyone is Greece so upset? I haven’t been keeping up with what’s going on in the rest of the world. I’ve been to busy trying to finsih my fictional biography of Bill Walton, which takes place during the early and mid 70s, and which revolves around Walton having worked for the FBI as an Agent Provocateur.
“Treating a blog as an open diary might be your approach, but it’s not the only one.”
^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^
You don’t like what I write then don’t fucking read it.
You see my name just keep scrolling. It’s really a lot easier that way.
Oh, and by the way, what I wrote was on topic. Jeff posted something about someone getting the shit kicked out of him and I related an incident when the same thing happened to me. What is the protocol? What, am I just supposed to say, Hey, Great Post, Jeff! I have an associative memory. Sue me.
Got beat up pretty bad a few years ago by two guys and a woman, all very drunk (I was rather tipsy myself), ended up with two broken wrists, cuts on my scalp from where they smashed a bottle over my head, and some cracked ribs, along with all the usual fascinatingly colored bruises everywhere. Turned out all three were from a local homeless shelter, and thanks to a quick thinking friend who called the cops they were arrested at the scene. I distinctly remember as it happened thinking “Wow, this is like Raging Bull, they’re hitting me so fast!”
Got a few months paid leave from work, so it wasn’t all bad. But having both wrists broken makes life hell – going to the bathroom, opening screw top bottles, buttering toast – all required a lot of patience.
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