THE BRUSSELS AIRPORT DIAMOND HEIST

Life imitates art. As crime. 

In 2001, David Mamet makes a film called Heist, in which a gang of thieves steal a consignment of Swiss gold at an airport.

In 2013, thieves heist a consignment of diamonds, at the airport in Brussels. 

Thieves watch films. For gold, read diamonds; money; power.

Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money.

Makes the world go round. 

What's that? 

Gold. 

Some people say love. 

Well, they're right, too. It is love. Love of gold. 

Thieves collude and make clever plans. At summits in Swiss mountain resorts.

So, is he going to be cool? 

My motherfucker is so cool, when he goes to bed, sheep count him. 

Hey, I'm as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton. 

I don't want you as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton. I want you as quiet as an ant not even thinking about pissing on cotton. 

Thieves are powerful and adamant. They use violence, directly, sincerely and, at all times, indirectly.

Why doesn't he shoot me? 

That's the deal. 

He ain't gonna shoot me? 

No. 

Then he hadn't ought to point a gun at me. It's insincere. 

I hate to do anything as dramatic as count to three but one, two, three. 

Don't you want to hear my last words? 

I just did.

Thieves count on the violence. And on duplicity, itself a form of violence.

The way you're looking at the deal, the deal was we get away with the gold. Cute, huh? 

No, that's charming. And then what? 

We slip away.

We go looking for the gold. We say to the thieves: no more slipping away.

Where's the gold? 

You know, I'm reluctant to tell you. 

When we put it to you, you know when we put it to you, you're gonna be telling us the gross national product of Bolivia. You're gonna be telling us the area codes of Belgium and Luxembourg. 

We plan things differently. No more slipping away. No more violence, direct or indirect.

What, do you want to tell me what made you a criminal? 

What made you a criminal? 

Nothing made me a criminal. I am a criminal. 

It could get tricky. It could swing all the way from Swiss mountain resorts to Belgian airports, Greek cities, Chinese uber-factories, Brazilian rainforests. There could be no end to it.

You're a pretty smart fella. 

Ah, not that smart. 

[ If] you're not that smart, how'd you figure it out?  

I tried to imagine a fella smarter than myself. Then I tried to think, "what would he do?" 

It requires imagination. And resolve. Because the thieves have power, control, brains, tradition, religion and the appeal to democracy in their armoury of weapons of duplicity.

She could talk her way out of a sunburn. 

And they are not afraid to bring all their weapons to bear to preserve the status quo, even though it does none of us any good.

Sometimes adrenaline gives people the shakes, some might think it's cowardice, so maybe you'd want to pray about it. 

I'm not a religious man. 

There's nothing wrong with prayer. We knew this firefighter, this trooper, who always carried a bible next to his heart. We used to mock him, but that bible stopped a bullet. 

No shit. 

Hand of God, that bible stopped a bullet, would of ruined that fucker's heart. And had he had another bible in front of his face, that man would be alive today. 

Thieves have the getaways all worked out.

You plan a good enough getaway, you could steal Ebbets Field. 

Ebbets Field's gone. 

What did I tell you? 

We shine a light on it all. The diamond and gold markets; the trading that occurs across continents in commodities stolen from the earth and the people who live on it; the ones who dig and sweat in deep caverns and dim factories.

Stay in the shadows. 

Hey, everybody's gonna be looking in the shadows. 

So where's the place to be? 

The place to be is in the sun. 

This is not a time for calm. It is a time for agitation. Together with imagination.

Don't smoke a cigarette. 

Makes me look calm. 

What kind of person tries to look calm? 

Ask the questions.

Where's the gold? 

In the heart of the pure. 

It is time. Now.

Nice day for the race. 

What race is that? 

The human race. Kids growing up, so on. Hope for the future. 

Where are the thieves? Who owns the diamonds? Who paid pittances to have them dug out of the earth? Who benefits?

Who are the thieves?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0252503/quotes?ref_=tt_trv_qu

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ARE THERE PLAYS ABOUT CALL CENTRES?

A call centre that once employed up to 1, 000 people in Derry is to lay off its last 15 employees in the city.

This is the opening paragraph in an exclusive report by Ursula Duddy on page 3 of  Derry News, dated 7th February 2013. 

The city in question is Derry Londonderry (54 degrees North, 7 degrees West), designated the first ever UK City of Culture, with a rich programme of events already under-way and many more  to come.

In the coming months, as part of the programme for the year, there will be two productions of plays about shirt-factories. These were major centres of industrial activity in the city. The plays are Tillies by Patsy Durnin and The Factory Girls  by Frank McGuinness.

These factories, which mainly used the labour of women, are held in high esteem by the people of the city and beyond. They are viewed as part of the city's industrial and social history, sites of skilled tradeswomen and men, now, largely, no more.

Seamstress. Overlocker. Cuffer. Stitcher. I've done more than twenty years in the shirt factories. All closed. Have you a trade?

A question to ask the now-redundant call centre workers, who gave their labour to Stream International.

Because of its dedication to recruit, train and retain the best talent, Stream has become one of the area's largest employers, and an "Employer of Choice" in Londonderry. Stream provides exceptional labor conditions, work stability, excellent training programs and long-term career paths for its local employees.

Local workers saw their future in the much-trumpeted technology sector that political, business and civic leaders promulgated as the solution to the city's depressed economic conditions.

I've been good. I've studied. I've kept my nose clean. I've bought all the things I was told to buy. I've lusted after all the things I was told to lust after. I've watched the films they told me to watch. I've dreamed the dream they told me to dream. (Beat.) I've bought the suit.

Stream International is an actor in the great outsourcing and offshore drama of the contemporary economic system. Cynics now opine that they move off having exhausted UK incentives, tax breaks, grants and the local labour force.   

With its central location and highly-educated workforce, the United Kingdom (UK) and the Republic of Ireland remain top outsourcing destinations and are among the largest outsourcing markets in Europe. The UK outsourcing sector is significantly advanced in its development and growth and was one of the first regions in Europe to accept offshoring as a viable outsourcing solution. 

What is the legacy of Stream International, in terms of skills, trades and crafts that can be applied in other settings? Will there be other call centres opening?

The complex relationship between public finance and private profit enters a new act. The people who lost their jobs will now seek re-training on publicly-funded schemes, further challenging the notion that there is an economic sector that can be called  'private' in any meaningful sense.

Is there a play in this? The story of a woman who's mother worked in a shirt factory until it closed, who herself worked in a call centre until it closed and now having made a long-term commitment to a mortgage to provide a home for her family struggles to make repayments because of the short-term commitment the call centre made to her and her city?

The shirt factory girls, they danced through the gate

Past cameras and press intent on their fate.

The factories flew off to sunnier climes

And left them to fend in more flexible times.

Do playwrights write about call centres?

Derry News; newspaper; Derry Londonderry; 7.2.2013

http://www.stream.com/media/1913/sgs%20united%20kingdom%20and%20ireland%20profile.pdf

The Recruiting Office: stage-play; Dave Duggan; from Plays in a Peace Process; book; Dave Duggan; Guildhall Press; Derry; 2008

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WATCHING LINCOLN

The cinema-goer sees Lincoln on a horse, with a troop of mounted soldiers as his retinue, move slowly through the mounds of the mutilated dead. The camera briefly rests upon a black Union soldier, brutally broken, barely recognisable. Could it be Corporal Clarke who spoke out at the very start of the film?

The cinema-goer wonders if a more dramatic story of democracy and peace could be told if the camera, as written by Tony Kushner and directed by Steven Spielberg,  stayed with Corporal Clarke and not President Lincoln.

Democracy and peace are the grand themes of this grand film. The word 'plodding' creeps into the cinema-goer's mind. The drama is often elsewhere, other than with Lincoln. It is as if Kushner and Spielberg shy away, at key moments, from the arch-typically heroic drama with which they are wrestling. Lincoln is not present in The House when the vote on the constitutional amendment on abolition of slavery, for which he fights so ruthlessly to achieve, passes. Lincoln is shot, off. The cinema-goer sees his youngest son anguish and grip the rail of a box-seat in another theatre, not the one where his father is killed.

This is a problem with historical drama. The ending is widely known.

The heroic Lincoln nonetheless dominates the film, even with Kushner/Spielberg's apparent attempts to downplay the hero. The cinema-goer sees the classic image of the long walk down the corridor to his death, out of the present and into historical time, Lincoln wearing the stove-pipe hat, walking the gangly, stooped walk. The cinema-goer enjoys the homely, story-telling, Euclid-quoting sage, expertly played by Daniel Day-Lewis.

And yet the downplaying of the hero and the blatant portrayal of political duplicity in the search for votes do not serve to humanise the character or the story. A particular model of representative democracy, backed by great cultural, military and economic power is offered as the great idea; Lincoln, as the great man to save and advance it. 'Get me those votes' he thunders, sending scheming lobbyists to connive, cajole, threaten and bribe politicians to save and advance democracy. To make history.

The appeal to an idea of democracy is idealogical. Fundamental. Fanatical, almost. The assertion of the primacy of a particular understanding of peace and democracy reminds the cinema-goer of the wise old American saw - Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, (37 degrees North, 122 degrees West), circa 1968 -

Fighting for peace makes as much sense as fucking for virginity.

The cinema-goer enjoys the scene where a lobbyist tries to buy the vote of a representative who pulls a gun on him, which goes off in a comic bar-stoop scuffle. This is one of very few 'light' moments in the film. John Williams' musical accompaniment is jaunty throughout the corruption scenes, as if they were japes not crimes. 

Economic interests are briefly and slightly alluded to when the Confederate delegation parleys with Lincoln, suing for peace amidst their fears that the abolition of slavery will destroy their economy. And favour that of others. The Northern states, led by Lincoln? The film does not connect the dots linking war industry with democracy.

There is plenty of shock and awe. Off. The destruction of the port of Wilmington, with sustained artillery barrage from a naval fleet, is told in the war-room, full of politicians, generals and clerks tapping Morse code machines. Horrendous casualty figures are written on crisp, white, stain-free memos.

The opening scene of carnage is reminiscent of the similar and more telling opening scene in the film Cold Mountain. There is often a quality of easing and softening the cinema-goer notes in all Spielberg's treatment of war images. Even in the images of the man's head being heeled into the muddy water.

The viewer sees Lincoln elevated. On a horse. On a podium. In a carriage. On the steps of The White House. In a key scene, Lincoln stands and his wife kneels, stranded in the blancmange of her gown, bereft in her grief. The couple speak of burdens. The woman sinks, as if in quick sand. The man's heart break. The cinema-goer feels tears well up.

There is no great man to save no great idea. There is a mass of humanity, people, an assertion of blind genes, groping forward in the mire, human-made, yes, ever made by us. 

Mrs. Lincoln's black servant, Mrs Keckley, delivers the ace speech of the film on the steps of The White House. She rebuffs Lincoln's litany of 'your people' with the striking assertion that she is a mother of a victim of the war Lincoln prosecuted. She need say no more. The cinema-goer notes that we don't hear from her again.

The myth of the great man flounders. Spielberg has a gift for the mawkish. The sentimental. The jingoistic. The cinema-goer remembers the ending of Saving Private Ryan. These notes are less evident in this film. Tempered by Kushner perhaps, who writes a number of splendid dialogues.

Tommy Lee Jones plays a blinder as Thaddeus Stevenson, in particular in a warm bedroom scene with his black house-maid and life-partner. A strong advocate of abolition, his role underlines the feminist wisdom that the personal is political.

There are moments of great artistry, charm, even beauty. Lincoln lies down with his youngest son, in front of the fire, and they speak about another dead son.

The film  - and the war - is full of dead sons, who's fathers, Lincoln among them, send them to war. 

The cinema-goer, on leaving, sees a poster for Zero Dark Thirty and wonders if a film about the executive killing of Osama bin Laden will offer insights into democracy and peace.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443272/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

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WATCHING IAN MCKELLEN, THE ACTOR

Ian McKellen, the actor, steps away from the microphone to finish his lecture with a speech written by William Shakespeare, from the collaboratively-written Elizabethan drama Sir Thomas More.

Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,

Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,

Plodding tooth ports and costs for transportation,

Actors are familiars of strangeness. The gay actor, such as Ian McKellen, especially so. 

And that you sit as kings in your desires,

Authority quite silent by your brawl,

And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;

The actor is also familiar with kings and their desires. He garners honours, wears gongs and gowns. He dangles one of them as a bauble on his Christmas tree.

What had you got?  I'll tell you:  you had taught

How insolence and strong hand should prevail,

The actor's face is vivid and mobile. His eyes slit to challenge insolence. His teeth bare to brazen the strong hand. His shoulders lift and turn as he draws us to him and his arms reach out so that we settle in our seats. And in his extended palms.

How order should be quelled; and by this pattern

Not one of you should live an aged man,

The actor is an aged man, replete with wisdom, wit and wonder. Aged and ageless. Dapper and bohemian. His human presence is his power. 

The Tory politician, the provincial Secretary of State, in the front row, hears the actor affirm that Margaret Thatcher should not have a state funeral in London because of her persistent support for anti-gay legislation. Margaret Thatcher's handbag is full of bile she unleashes on strangeness.

The actor knows that long life and survival of the species are advanced by the celebration of strangeness. The alternative is to be sharked by ruffians.

For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,

With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,

Would shark on you, 

And we shark, one upon the other.

and men like ravenous fishes

Would feed on one another.

Another actor, James Nesbitt, offers us Hamlet's outline of the human as a measure of the actor Ian McKellen.

 What a  piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! 

The actor is not a god. The actor is a divine human. There is no contradiction. There is strangeness embodied, and made present in the world.

All the beauty of the world,  as manifest in the paragon of animals: nothing more than a quintessence of dust?

We are moved. Charmed. Magicked. By the actor, Ian McKellen.

 http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1547/pg1547.txt

http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=hamlet&Act=2&Scene=2&Scope=scene

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