Interview: Ben Affleck, Director and Star of “Argo” (Part 2)

Posted on October 15, 2012 at 3:33 pm

More from Ben Affleck about Argo:

What were some of the tougher scenes to film?

The scenes with the actors were the easiest scenes. We have all these good actors, they know what they’re doing, it was really fun. I got to enjoy acting with really good actors. Getting 2000 extras out in Turkey was really hard. It was cold and people wanted to go home and the idea was like, “Every hour, we’re going to give away sweet rolls!” But we’re still losing a lot of people who felt the sweet roll wasn’t worth hanging around and it was a lot of work. So that was tough. The car stuff wasn’t that bad. I was kind of excited, there was a car, sort of a Porsche Cayenne that has a huge crane on the back and it’s called “The Russian Arm” and they do incredible things with it. You can be driving like 100 miles an hour next to something else that’s 100 miles an hour and moving the crane around. They use them a lot for car commercials and I had wanted for “The Town” and we couldn’t afford it. This time I said, “We’re going to need the Russian arm” and we got it. I got play with it and that was a lot of fun.

This was something of an homage to the late 70’s, you know, with the clothes and all the TV and Walter Cronkite. Was that something that attracted you to the movie?

I’m the age of the kid in the movie and so I definitely identified with the child. When I went into his room, with all the action figures and the Star Wars stuff, it really hit me: this was my childhood. And I got really fastidious about the sheets and everything. There’s something remarkably innocent about that era. We think of the 70s as being slightly debauched in some ways, key parties and all those other sort of images we get from some other movies, but we had none of that technology, huge TVs, the people on television, you know, had these sort of crummy sets. Nowadays, we get a theme song and a graphic for every news story but then it was these gigantic cars that probably got 6 miles to the gallon, you know, it was the true sort of internal combustion engine in bloom and I don’t know—I thought there was something kind of sweet about it, sweet about the big answering machines and you just leave the house and that’s it. No one can find you until you come home. Put a quarter or a dime in a pay-phone slot…So I discovered a little bit more about it as I was doing it.

How are Hollywood and the CIA alike?

That is a good parallel, and it’s true, there is a symbiotic relationship. People make movies about military and if you go on a tour of the military, they’re all movie buffs, all these guys and women overseas. Movies are a big part of our culture, and both the movies and our military and our intelligence services (particularly our intelligence services) are inventing things, are filmmakers and actors for the sake of art and for entertainment and for our intelligence services, it’s for, God knows, skullduggery and spy-craft and all that kind of stuff. And they both tell stories. One of the themes of this movie is storytelling and how powerful it is, whether it’s political theatre or relating to our children or trying to get some people out of a place where their lives are in danger. Usually telling stories is incredibly powerful. There’s this shot I really like where there’s this firing squad and there’s a firearm, a rifle and a camera, and hopefully it’s subtle, but suggests that the camera is much more powerful than the gun. That has been really borne out, as in the YouTube era, as true.

You begin with strong criticism of the Shah and America’s support for him. Were you as tough on the people who took over after the revolution?

I don’t think anyone would argue that the Islamic Revolution was good for the country. It’s just that it was a reaction to the Shah who was not good for the country, who was embezzling a lot, and as you point out. Unemployment was low, but a lot of those jobs were done by foreigners, because they didn’t have Persians who were trained to fly the helicopters he was buying and run the cranes and even drive trucks, so there was a lot of importation of labor that the people resented. I didn’t have to show, in specific, what happened and how bad the revolutionaries became (so to speak) because you see them hanging people from construction cranes, you see firing squads happening impromptu in the streets, kangaroo courts, you see a place that’s living in fear under the revolutionary guard, so in that sense, you very much see what has happened to this country as the Islamic Revolution took hold. It’s an extraordinarily complicated scenario. Part of it was a reaction against the Shah, you know, the Savak were sort of modeled after the KGB, they were extremely oppressive, but there were a lot of people who really prospered under the Shah and the revolution was not fomented strictly as an Islamic revolution. There were merchants and communists and secularists and students and Islamists and nobody would have engaged in this revolution with most of those other people if they thought, “Well, we’re all just going to end under Khomeini.” In fact, Khomeini was able to use the hostage situation himself, which he didn’t engineer, but was supposed to be the short-term two-day thing that the students did. He sent his son to say, “You know what? Let’s keep the hostages here, let’s hold out and see what happens,” and because he sort of controlled this event, he was really able to marginalize the moderates in government. I was a Middle Eastern studies major, I took classes and classes and classes on this and still don’t feel I understood the Iranian revolution sufficiently. I do know that we tried to capture the essence of the truth; I absolutely standby the prologues, and people call it the history lesson, but I also acknowledge that we did not have the room, dramatically, to really get into the minutiae and the complexity and the nuance of what happened as the Islamic Revolution took hold. I do feel that we show it in a fairly negative light, but I also wanted to give people some context so that they see it just wasn’t just sort of mad barbarians who made a rush for a country, but that this was something that was developing over time as a reaction to the Shah’s policies.

Tell me about the character you play in the film.

I think Tony in real life was a guy who got his mission and got his orders and followed through, and it was rather uncomplicated. He had a certain amount of fear but he was going to do it. As a result, the story’s a little wonky, in a way, in the film, because it was really about the six people. If you want to talk about, like where your empathy is, where the line is that’s pulling you through the story, it’s the six people, not the guy on his horse with the sword who’s going to kill Saxons or whatever, you know. And then you start to be developed emotionally with these other characters who have different emotional relationships to the story, you know, John and Alan and Bryan and so on. I thought that was interesting, and I also sort of worked with Tony’s slightly passive personality, you know, that his focus was he was going to go and save these folks’ lives, and so they became a center of the wheel, the hub, in a way, and all of this other stuff was spokes in that way.

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Interview: Ben Affleck, Director and Star of “Argo” (Part 1)

Posted on October 14, 2012 at 3:11 pm

Ben Affleck directed “Argo,” the incredible story of a real-life 1980 CIA rescue mission, and he plays Tony Mendez, the “exfiltration” expert who came up with the idea to create a fake Hollywood film production company and get the six American out of Iran by convincing the people who had captured 52 other State Department employees that these six were members of a Canadian film crew, scouting locations for a big sci-fi/fantasy film. I spoke to him about the movie with a small group of journalists, the day after a screening attended by some of the real people rescued by Mendez.

You did something really remarkable in combining what is really two movies with two completely different tones in this film. How did you put that together so skillfully?

Well, I wish I could say it was my own skill, I don’t think it was. They’re really smart actors, they kind of looked at the material on the page and did me a favor of playing it honestly. Because it was played realistically it kind of blended anyway. If it hadn’t, I suppose I would’ve had a bunch of conversations about how we were going to get the jigsaw puzzles to fit, but all the parties, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, and Alan Arkin were really pretty adept. They knew how to play it real, and that kind of saved my bacon.

Did you anticipate that there would be so much connection to current events and what do you think the movie can say about where we are now?

I was kind of stunned, naturally, just to see that the material that I looked at for research from 30 plus years ago all of a sudden was looking exactly like what was on the evening news. That surprised me and it surprised everybody and obviously, it was just a terrible thing for everyone. I expected the movie to be resonant to the sense of what happens when the United States gets involved with the government of another country and overlooks some of the negative things they may be doing because they’re pro-Western, the unintended consequences of revolution, those are the kinds of things I was anticipating. What it ended up being more about, in some ways, was an homage to our clandestine service and our foreign service folks, who, as illustrated by these tragic events do a lot, sacrifice a lot, put themselves in harm’s way, give up a lot to go overseas. Our Foreign Service folks are doing a lot and making a lot of sacrifices for us, and sometimes it’s even the ultimate sacrifice.

It really seems like you shot it as if it was a film made in the 70s, starting from the old Warner Bros. logo.

I thought it would be a trick of the brain, where, if you’re looking at a movie that looks like the kind of movie that was made in the 1970’s, it’s easier for the brain to subconsciously accept this notion that the events they’re watching are taking place during that period. Now, you can’t do that if you’re doing a movie about the Revolutionary War, but that’s why we had this interesting advantage. Even better, that era that I was trying to replicate, to sort of fool the brain, was a really great era for film-making, so I got to copy these great films and great film-makers, Lumet, Pakula, Scorsese.

How does it complicate things when you’re making what is basically a living history film, knowing that the people who were really there will see it?

It’s about a whole story, you know, and you have to maintain the integrity and the honesty of the spine of the story. That’s one profound responsibility because. I want them to look at it and say, “Yeah, that’s basically it.” Now, the real takeover was four hours long, and we have five minutes. That’s the kind of thing that we need to do to sort of compromise. It was raining in the real takeover, it’s not raining there. There are some details that are naturally changed. But the essential spirit of it, that has to be preserved. You know somebody did find a picture of Khomeini with the darts in it and say, “Who did this?” They really did blindfold people and things like that. I also have a responsibility to make a good movie, to tell a good story, because that’s what I do, and so those two things are constantly intentioned with one another, because I want to make it true, but I gotta make it good, you know?

How much was changed for dramatic purposes?

The main change, really, is the cars in the runway. They got to the third checkpoint, they got through, that was all the same, and they got there and sat there and they said, “Well, your plane has been delayed.” I thought, “Well, we’ve all been through that!” And then they got on the plane and left, and so in an effort to sort of externalize that and make the third act work, I added the sort of, them just barely getting away, when in fact they got away a little bit more ahead of the wire. But that really, fundamentally, in my view, doesn’t change the story. The same things happened, you know? It was a close-call in terms of trying to get out in terms of their own deadline. Most of the sins, really, in terms of story-telling, are sins of omission, you know? Not being able to include the fact that Pat Taylor got money from her co-workers or that in Ottawa they approved this special session to make these passports that had never been done before. You have people who are all alive, there’s a natural tendency to feel like, “Well, this is my story.” So you have to sort of do everyone’s story justice, and also take into account the sort of Rashomon phenomenon where you hear slightly different accounts from different people, and definitely maintain the realism of it while not sacrificing what’s really interesting about it.

What movies of the period ended up inspiring elements of this film?

There were a lot of them that I had seen and I still watched again, and I liked “The Thing” for my hair, and I liked Killing of a Chinese Bookie, the Cassavetes movie, for the sort of seedy LA, I just loved the look, the feel, the way they use zooms, the way it felt kind of raw but you also realized it was choreographed—and I didn’t expect to see that coming. There’s a movie called Let Me In that I watched, that’s really good, a guy named Matt Reeves directed it, the remake of the original one, and I thought it was really well directed and watched it with my DP, and we were looking at stuff that they did with focus in that movie, you know, keeping things in the foreground, focus, and maybe soft the background—that was something that I didn’t expect to influence me and it really did.

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Actors Directors Interview

Argo

Posted on October 11, 2012 at 6:00 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language and some violent images
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Scenes of mob violence, hostages, references to terrorism
Diversity Issues:	Ethnic, political, and cultural differences a theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	October 12, 2012
Date Released to DVD:	February 18, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00AHTYGRW

The movie within the movie, an outlandish space fantasy possibly named “Argo” for Jason’s vessel in the ancient Greek myth, may be more believable than the true and recently declassified story that surrounds it. In 1979, when American State Department employees were taken hostage in Iran, six escaped and were hidden by the Canadian ambassador. A CIA “exfiltration” expert who specializes in getting people out of difficult situations, rescued them by disguising them as members of a Canadian film crew, scouting locations for a fictitious Hollywood movie called “Argo.”

It is like an episode of the television series “Mission: Impossible” except that (1) it really happened and (2) it was much, much harder. Unlike “Mission: Impossible,” the people creating an elaborate false reality in order to fool the other side had to work with civilians. And they had to navigate a lot of bureaucratic, diplomatic, and national-security-related internal conflicts in a volatile environment with limited sharing of information. James Bond has something more valuable than a license to kill. He has a license to pretty much do whatever he wants with M ready to stand behind him. But Tony Mendez (played by director Ben Affleck) has to make a lot of literally life-or-death decisions very quickly and yet is still subject to oversight by layers of people with different priorities and points of view.

Affleck, following “The Town” and “Gone Baby Gone” (and a screenwriting Oscar for “Good Will Hunting”) is no longer one of Hollywood’s most promising new directors — he has arrived. This film works on every level. Even though we know the Americans were rescued (Canada’s embassy was given a prominent location near the White House in gratitude for their efforts), the tension is ferocious. The scenes in Hollywood, with John Goodman and a sure-to-be-nominated for a third Oscar Alan Arkin are as sharp and witty, recalling “The Producers” and “Get Shorty.” But rather than an easy way to provide contrast or comic relief, Affleck and first-time screenwriter Chris Terrio (based on an article in Wired Magazine) use those scenes to provide context, along with some tang and bite. One masterful section of the film intercuts the two stories as the Hollywood group set up shop, secure the rights to the screenplay, and put together a staged reading to get publicity to demonstrate their bona fides while the six Americans are trapped and the exfiltration mission gets underway. There are a lot of similarities — both sides deal in illusion, and not just the illusion of the sci-fi fantasy film they are pretending to make. The constant lying about the project comes naturally to Arkin’s character, an old-time Hollywood guy who has seen it all and who himself has no illusions about the integrity and loyalty of those around him. He says, “You’re worried about the Ayatollah. Try the WGA.”

Affleck locates the film in its era with hair and clothes that evoke the time period without exaggeration or ridicule, not easy to do with 70’s styles. He even used 70’s era film stock and borrowed some of the staging from movies of the era like “All the President’s Men,” and the opening titles are in a 70’s font. But the film also has some important insights about what happened and about our own time, reflected in the conflicts of three decades ago. It begins with a brief description of the events leading to the hostage crisis, emphasizing America’s support (to benefit the oil companies) of the Shah’s brutal regime, told somewhat differently than it would have been in 1979.

“You don’t have a better bad idea than this?” a State Department official asks the CIA. “This is the best bad idea we have,” is the reply from Jack O’Donnell (Bryan Cranston). They can’t fake any of the usual identities for the Americans because they are too easy to disprove. The normal reasons for foreigners to be abroad — teaching, studying, aid — are not plausible. Only something completely outrageous could be true. And it turns out that Iranians are as in love with Hollywood movies as everyone else. This one is a good reminder of why we all feel that way.

Parents should know that this film includes scenes of mob violence, hostages, references to terrorism, characters in peril, tense confrontations, alcohol, a lot of smoking, and very strong language.

Family discussion: Why did the Canadians take in the Americans? Why did Mendez defy his orders? What would you do if someone approached you the way Mendez approached the Hollywood insiders?

If you like this, try: “Charlie Wilson’s War”

The Company Men

Posted on January 20, 2011 at 6:04 pm

Remember all those executives George Clooney fired last year in Up in the Air? Here is their story.

Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, and Tommy Lee Jones play characters who work at an enormous conglomerate and feel confident in their value to the organization and not at all the kind of people who get laid off. That might have been true in past recessions. But they come from the heavy building side of the company. That might have been how the company started, but in the post-meltdown world it is the past, not the future. CEO James Salinger (Craig T. Nelson) explains that the future of the company is in health care, infrastructure, and power generation.

And so, “difficult decisions had to be made in situations where redundancies surfaced.” And therefore euphemisms had to used, the passive voice employed — so often the case when everyone else is pretty much unemployed.

The first to go is Bobby Walker (Affleck), a top salesman who has the bad luck to be selling something that is not health care, infrastructure, or power generation. He walks into the office bragging about his 86 at the golf course before work, and shortly after is walking out with everything in a cardboard box. Phil Woodward (Cooper), a factory guy who made it to the executive suite — and who has a daughter very excited about the senior class trip to Italy — doesn’t last much longer. And finally, the head of the division, Gene McLary (Jones), the CEO’s oldest friend, is riding the euphemism and cardboard box express, too.

It turns out that people who are fired go through the same Elizabeth Kubler-Ross stages that we experience in facing death, though not exactly in the same order. In these cases, it seems to be anger first, and then denial. They may skip bargaining and go straight to depression. And not everyone makes it to acceptance. Bobby goes from “I can’t let anyone know I lost my job” to “I need to look successful” to “We can’t leave our home,” to accepting the sequential blows of his wife’s return to work, moving back to his parents’ home, and asking the brother-in-law who always needles him about the big shot life for a job helping to put up drywall.

Writer/director John Wells (television’s “ER”) has a good feel for the corporate world — the analyst meetings in hotel ballrooms, the Wall Street jargon, the CEO pay packages. And he has a television writer’s economy for evoking the range of situations and emotions. While he also has a television writer’s feel for structure, he seems locked in to television drama’s three-part storyline, just too conventional, predictable, and neat, especially in the last half hour. It comes down too hard on the facts we all know too well, the imperial CEOs (with pay 700 times that of the average worker), the difference between what is legal and what is ethical, the difference between building something other than figures on a balance sheet, the “real people” honor and generosity of the people who get their hands dirty literally rather than metaphorically.

It’s the small details and moments that work best in this film. The layoffs come to people with busy lives predicated on keeping jobs they once thought depended only on ability and integrity. Everyone has an event to attend; everyone has a lovely house to pay for. Gene comes home to the gleaming surfaces of his gracious home and peeks at the five-figure price tag on his wife’s new table. Phil is told by a cheery but frank “outplacement” counselor that he should remove “ancient” references like service in Vietnam from his resume and dye his hair. There’s an understated moment where the brother-in-law (a fine Kevin Costner) shows that a real leader puts his workers first. Rosemary DeWitt can convey more about her understanding and support in putting lotion on her legs than most actresses can do with a page of dialogue. And the movie delivers the message that the workforce is not all that gets downsized; so do dreams, hopes, plans, pride.

(more…)

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Drama Inspired by a true story

Extract

Posted on September 3, 2009 at 6:40 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language, sexual references and some drug use
Profanity:	Very strong and explicit language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking, characters smoke marijuana
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic violence, character injured, character dies
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	September 4, 2009

The fans who have been waiting for a new workplace comedy as wickedly on target as Mike Judge’s cult classic “Office Space” will have to keep waiting. Judge’s new film has no red stapler, no TPS reports coversheet problems, and most of all, it has no flair.

This time, Judge has us on the side of the boss. He is Joel (Jason Bateman), who owns a small manufacturing company that makes flavor extracts. His life is flavorless, get it?

Joel has an office with a window that looks down on the assembly line that conveys the little bottles to the boxes and the forklift. And he has to deal with petty and incompetent employees. But no matter where we are on our own corporate totem poles, it is always going to be more difficult for the audience to identify with the guy who gets to tell everyone what to do before he goes home to his big house and his big bank account.

And it turns out that this movie is less about the workplace than it is another weak frustrated married life comedy. On one hand, this is a good thing because the workplace plot line, involving an industrial accident than unmans one of the workers (Clifton Collins, Jr., you can do better than this) and a scheming temp (ditto Mila Kunis) is neither interesting nor original. On the other hand, it is not a good thing because neither is the marital plot line. Joel is frustrated. His friend (Ben Affleck, bearded) advises Joel to entrap his wife into an affair, thus giving himself carte blanche to do the same. This was briefly popular back the days of, what was that again, oh yes, “Love, American Style.” There is a reason that show is no longer on the air. And it’s the same reason this movie should immediately move to the 99 cent bin and stay there.

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Comedy Movies -- format