It you want to see what has been going on in Ukraine, contact Net Flix or go to your local video store so you can watch the excellent movie, “Coriolanus,” which opened in the Berlin International Film Festival, in February, 2011.

This is urban warfare without the urban dictionary. Why, because the dialogue is Elizabethan, while the action is current day Civil War Rome – or actually Ukraine, and it is very believable. As I watched the action, I said, “it’s Kiev, without onion domes.” The “troubles” in Kiev are much worse, but you get the picture; you really get it.

The story and language is Shakespeare, but the time and place can be anywhere. “Modern-dress productions of his plays are common and can inspire intriguing viewpoints. Who is to say that “Coriolanus” might not as well be set in the Middle East as in Rome — neither a place Shakespeare had ever seen?” says Roger Ebert, in 2012.

For some time now mainstream media news has been reporting on the quasi civil war in Ukraine, but that of course isn’t all of the potential war news, past the filters. On March 1, 2014, President Obama spoke by phone to President Putin, for 90 minutes it is said, but transcripts are difficult to find/most are paraphrased. http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com/ for analysis from various sources.

Mr. Obama told Mr. Putin not to send troops to Crimea – when Putin had already done so, and Mr. Putin told Mr. Obama not to try to police the world… which Obama has already done. Also, there was film and audio of the emergency meeting of the United Nations, but when a CNN reporter referred to the dialogue of the UN meeting, her message was completely different from the actual audio. How do American news consumers find out what is going on regarding this preview to war. They go to Canada, or for a report from action in the streets, they watch “Coriolanus.”

In speaking to people who actually work in the Pentagon, there are those who didn’t get a chance to fight in the Cold War and are still hot for it… there are remaining pockets of wistful Cold War vitality for their old nemesis, remaining in the Pentagon Hills, and remember, war always improves the US economy. Also, Russia doesn’t like Obama’s One World, New World Order.

Russia is huge – they have more natural resources than other countries – but their immensity also keeps them more remote. Back in the days of the Tzars, Russia greatly admired everything French, wanted everything French, until Napoleon agreed.

Mr. Putin sees the world in his terms, while China watches from the sidelines, waiting to recycle the pieces – all the better to view the world from China, they reason.

Ralph Fiennes is Caius Martius (and Director), then to be names “Coriolanus.” Gerard Butler is Tullus Aufidius, the leader of the Volscians (an Italic tribe south of Rome) plays his sworn enemy, and Vanessa Redgrave, Volumnia, is cold, but very real as the great general’s mother-in-charge. Note: a good synopsis appears at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolanus_(film) .

But it isn’t the actors that convince us this could be Ukraine. It is the cinematography – the film is in color but it seems like Black and White, colored by the surroundings and human darkness – this is war. More and more we see war playing out in urban confines – we think of downtown Sarajevo, and those average citizens running the gauntlet across the street from a bakery, and not getting shot; and Damascus, or Aleppo, and now Kiev and Crimea.

We will continue to encourage more truth in reporting, from journalists who do not work for any government.

Good thing the Olympics is over, or we might be sending American soldiers to Sochi.

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worldviewopinion.net