What the world needs now is a movie of Cloudsplitter

Thank goodness that George Clooney has made the world safe for political movies. Somebody famous had to take on the risk and punishment, and he did. Good on him.
So, now let's have more. I'm hoping that a movie version of Cloudsplitter is in the works. Remember "Cloudsplitter"? Alienated abolitionist turns to terror? I saw Russell Banks read from it at the Elliott Bay Book Store in Seattle, and he explained that when he told blacks that he was writing a book about John Brown, they asked "the hero?" and when he told whites, they responded, "he went crazy, didn't he?"

The story's told from the point of view of John's son Owen, and Mr. Banks read what became one of my favorite lines. "The difference between my father and myself is that I had him for a father, and he had someone else."

But, to the point. Terrorism is very bad for wealthy people, and for people in control. They would prefer that you become wealthy and powerful yourself before entering into a genteel dialogue about the way things are run. But, John Brown was a terrorist -- my second favorite line from the book is when he growls, "we must become terrible" -- and slavery (at least as we practiced it here) was bad. Sure, our well beloved president Ronald Reagan felt that terrorists were the moral equivalent of our founding fathers, but recently the pendulum has kind of shifted the other way.

What with Clooney creating an environment for political pictures and Mr. Banks compelling writing, I think this movie could really be great.

Hold on -- remember the professor and the frisbee in "Rescue from Gilligan's Island"? Let's do a brief search on who has the film options... Martin Scorcese? To be directed by Rauol Peck for HBO, written by Paul Schrader. I'm not sure if it's been made or not. Oo! Let's check the IMDB. Hmph. Not listed. Let's hope this film comes out of the can and gets a theatrical release soon!