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Green Spiderweb
In a scene I shot sitting on the ground, a 100-year-old woman monologued in a tent. I hear her voice in my memory, alternately buoyant and despairing. I remember my feeling of self-congratulation as if I’d invented the extreme close-up, filming her ornate face tattoo, the fuzzy green ink moving around her lips and chin like a spiderweb in a breeze as she spoke of losing home after home, and of her anger at God’s abandonment of her people. Others I interviewed were angry at the Arab countries who wouldn’t stand and fight. The Americans I was traveling with blamed America. So did I. I’m American, after all. Few blamed Israel. Israel was the rabid dog, sure, but the blame had to be placed on its owners, on those who could have, but didn’t, stop it from attacking.