TERROR’S ADVOCATE: Barbet Schroeder Interviewed by David Ehrenstein
by Andre Soares
David Ehrenstein in the Los Angeles Times:
"Barbet Schroeder loves monsters. Especially when examined from the vantage point of their lair.
"Not the monsters of horror films such as Frankenstein and Dracula. Schroeder’s monsters are very real: Socialite Claus von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune, or the drug-dealing teenage hit men of Our Lady of the Assassins, or most memorably the late and unlamented Ugandan dictator and mass-murderer Idi Amin. Schroeder spent many anxiety-ridden months in 1974 filming the man whose life was re-created last year in dramatic form in The Last King of Scotland. But Schroeder’s bio/documentary, General Idi Amin Dada (now available on DVD,) doesn’t have the filter of Forest Whitaker’s performance to keep horror at bay. When his camera points at Amin, it’s the real deal.
"And so is his latest film, Terror’s Advocate."
Terror’s Advocate depicts the life and times of Jacques Vergès, a former defender of the cause of Algerian independence who later metamorphosed into the attorney of choice for the world’s mass murderers, psychopaths, and the like. Among Vergès’ clients were mad bomber Magdalena Kopp, Nazi Klaus Barbie, and the ex-Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
A Schroeder quote found in Ehrenstein’s article:
"Like many people of my generation I supported the Algerians in their struggle against the French. But after a time he turned into someone out of a Balzac novel. He vanished for eight years and when he returned as Klaus Barbie’s lawyer — well, he was really pretty disgusting. The end credits show that his clients are now all African dictators with lots of blood on their hands."
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