Liman Talks Game
Movieline‘s Stu VanAirsdale ran into Fair Game‘s Doug Liman last night (i.e., at an event I missed due to seeing Michael Winterbottom‘s The Killer Inside Me) and of course spoke to him about the film, which will show at next month’s Cannes Film Festival:
STV: “It’s kind of a weird climate for this film. There was Nothing But the Truth, which was kind of mishandled. Then there was Green Zone , which audiences were very cool toward. Where will Fair Game fall in this political intrigue/spy thriller spectrum?”
Liman: “I think it’s in the spectrum of ‘it’s a really great movie.’ And a lot of other movies that have been about the war or dealt with the war have not been great movies. In fact, they’ve been motivated more by politics than by story, and that’s been a turn-off to audiences. This is sort of the first political movie that’s been made where I feel like the commitment was there from the first moment to story and character, and not to politics.”
STV: “I overheard you a moment ago mentioning Naomi Watts is outstanding in this. Can you elaborate?”
Liman: “It’s the best she’s ever been. She is just extraordinary in the film. I don’t think there’s anybody — I don’t care how hardcore Republican they might be — who’s not going to look at the film and say, “That was an extraordinary performance. That was a once-in-a-lifetime performance.”
It is now incumbent upon HE commenters, obviously, to politely dispute Liman by pointing out previous political films that were made with a real commitment to “story and character and not to politics.” I’m presuming that Liman really meant to say “story and character first and politics a distant second.”
As much as I like Doug Liman and Naomi Watts, does anyone give this a chance to make more money than, say, Oliver Stone’s W.?
Primary Colors?
(unless liman’s comments were meant to be limited to only films about the iraq war, in which case he could be right)
Again I say – An Iraq War film, with all of that exciting Bush Bashing but none of that battle action.
The marketing department has quite a job on its hands.
I’d like to think The Hurt Locker was story first right? Black Hawk Down?
the jon cusack and tommy lee jones war flicks were very plot and character based. they were however very good, not great.
Jeff, you should have titled this post “Famous Last Words.”
John Nolte will be highlighting the “LIBERAL SUCKER-PUNCH” in this one. Sean Penn is public enemy no.1 at Big Hollywood.
“It’s a really great movie” didn’t help Hurt Locker or United 93 much.
It is also didn’t help “It’s a good movie”(s) A Mighty Heart, In the Valley of Elah, W., State of Play, Body of Lies, Green Zone, etc etc.
I know the few champions of these kind of smart, probing, politically charged movies, like Jeff, and their filmmakers, do not want to hear this at all, but…
There is absolutely NO MOVIE, good or bad, short or long, star-packed or not, big-budget or small, about the Iraq conflict, even in tangential terms, that is going to be a hit, now or in the foreseeable future. If the BEST PICTURE WINNER or an action spectacle with a big star like GZ couldn’t break the stigma, pretty much NOTHING is going to, and beyond political axe-grinding, anyone interested in making money or even having their movie seen by anyone should probably shy away from this genre until there are years of hindsight and emotional remove.
Not to sound like Big Hollywood, but they do kind of have a point when they say:
The 98% of the rest of the country that has friends and family in the military and worships it with unquestioning reverence and is actually living through these issues instead of writing about or making films about them with a journalistic remove, has no interest in paying money to see it in movie form.
I didn’t care for Avatar, but Cameron made it clear he was talking about Iraq and the previous administration with his film. Obviously, he got an audience.
As Emily Dickenson wrote – “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant”
It’s a cliche, but, sadly, perception is often reality. And if you want your Iraq move to be perceived as “story and character first and politics a distant second,” you don’t hire Sean Penn to be one of the leads. I say this acknowledging that Penn is a fine actor and probably does nothing overtly “political” in the movie.
The baffling thing about these political movies is the absurd budgets. If they were all HBO-movies they’d probably be more successful, but the sheer amount of cash being spunked on these things is out of control.
I’m most skeptical about the claim that Watts is the best she’s ever been. Mulholland Dr. is pretty hard to top. Watts is certainly very talented, but….man, I would be shocked to see her top it here.
I can’t stand Naomi Watts, unfortunately. Seems to overplay emotion in every role she takes. Always hysterical grief or fear or sorrow.
Kidman, Blanchett and Cornish all have her beaten in the Awards-friendly Australian actress stakes.
Craziness. Watts is like the best actress in the world (except for Kristen and maybe Jolie.)
Mulholland, 21 Grams, King Kong, Huckabees, Funny Games = some of the best acting ever put to film.
Plus she’s CHARMING and sexy. She isn’t hysterical at all in Huckabees… she’s a RAY OF SUNSHINE.
Didn’t Liman once tell Jef that MR. AND MRS. SMITH was the best film he’d ever made?
“The 98% of the rest of the country that has friends and family in the military and worships it with unquestioning reverence … has no interest in paying money to see it in movie form.”
That ain’t it, Lex. People don’t go to Iraq War movies because no one likes revisiting the scene of con job. The American public knows now they were punked. And they don’t like it. Simple as that.
And don’t think that many in the military and their families don’t know they were punked, too. They know better than anyone.
I think we can all agree that unless LIman cast an 80-ton CGI gorilla as Cheney, or a faceless girl that crawls out of TV’s as Judith Miller, that this thing won’t touch $20M. But we can’t expect LIman to admit as much. He wanted to make a great movie about real people that can’t transport themselves, and found some silly investors to sign off on it.
As Liman speaks of the story over politics, he must be aware that the casting of Penn is a deliberate insertion of politics. I mean, that’s like casting Woody Harrellson as the drug czar in Traffic, or Tim Robbins as the Afrikaner interrogator in Catch a Fire. (Wait, that last one actually happened???)
I heard Sean Penn demanded to be cut out of FAIR GAME because he didn’t like the way some Malaysians were portrayed – and the producers accommodated him. His role is now played by a CGI actor in all his scenes – and to quote Liman, “It’s actually worked out better for all us.”
As long as it’s better than Jumper, I’ll see it.
Jumper is good.
A political movie that’s light on the politics? Coward.
WE’RE NOT POLITICAL AT ALL! COME SEE OUR MOVIE! Kinda smells like bullshit.
Also, I think pro-war people that aren’t gun hawks won’t support these films because the war isn’t a heroic one, merely something that SHOULD be done in their eyes, like a global requirement. It’s like if Hollywood was doing nothing but making SAT movies.
The Killer Inside Me, a film that in the beginning I thought was going to be so boring, but then start to looks interesting and even make feel to many different emotions.
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Sean Penn and romance are made for each other. I do not find his thriller roles enthralling at all. We’ve been embroiled with Iraq for too long and there are just too many movies on Iraq reality stories. Sean Penn neither looks like an Iraqi nor like a liberal. We’ve also seen just too much of Iraq, we need some space to breathe. Why don’t the leaders give peace a chance for the movies?
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