Films of Infamy

Films of Infamy - New York Times - By DAVID THOMSON: ""30 Seconds Over Tokyo" (1944), which reveled in the Doolittle "gotcha" after Pearl Harbor. Similarly, the big American movie on the Holocaust waited on our discovery of Oskar Schindler — our way of making films requires heroes, even if sometimes a hero is like poison in the muddied water.

More recently, Steven Spielberg's "Munich" is a brave, if troubled, attempt to look at both sides of a fraught conflict. But I can imagine a film other than "Munich" or "United 93," a greater film, a film about different kinds of courage. "The Godfather: Part II." Michael Corleone is in Havana to make a mobster deal to extend the milking of that island. He is in a car that has to stop. Rebels or terrorists have caused a problem up ahead and one of them blows himself up rather than be captured. Later, Michael tells Hyman Roth: Be careful, that bravery is hard to beat. Before the film ends, Cuba has fallen (or risen)."

David Thomson is the author of "The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood."