My Essay on “Bridge of Spies”
Posted on February 26, 2016 at 5:33 pm
Fandango’s Best Picture Movie Mashup
Posted on February 25, 2016 at 3:07 pm
You won’t see a better tribute to this year’s eight Best Picture nominees than this one, from Fandango. It made me want to watch all of them all over again.
Interview: Francis Gary Powers, Jr. on his Father, the Cold War, and “Bridge of Spies”
Posted on February 7, 2016 at 8:00 am
Bridge of Spies, out on DVD/Blu-Ray this week, tells the story of the tense negotiations for the exchange of a Soviet spy for an American U2 pilot and a graduate student. The pilot was Francis Gary Powers, who was flying a camera-equipped plane on a top secret reconnaissance mission for the CIA when he was shot down over the Soviet Union.
His son, Francis Gary Powers, Jr., talked to me about the film and about his work in educating people about his father’s legacy and about the Cold War era.
What led you to create the Cold War Museum?
I founded the Museum in 1996 to honor Cold War veterans, preserve Cold War history and educate future generations about this time period. I found that in the early 90s right after the end of the Cold War. I’d be giving lectures to high school students in the Washington DC Fairfax County area, and nine times out of ten I would walk into a classroom to give a talk on the U-2 incident and I would get blank stares from the kids. The students thought I was there to talk about the U-2 rock band. And so that was the catalyst, that was a light bulb that goes on, that said, “Oh we need to create a Cold War Museum to preserve this history and educate the students.” That’s how it all transpired.
It was opened in November 2011, 2000 square feet of Museum space, an addition 2000 square feet of storage space adjacent to the Museum. It is in Vint Hill, Virginia, 40 miles from Washington DC, in an authentic Cold War historic site that was used throughout the Cold War by NSA, CIA, ASA – Army Security Agency – to electronically monitor and intercept communications primarily from the DC embassies. And so it was functional up through the mid-90s at which time it was closed down by BRACT – the Base Realignment and Closure Act. The government of Virginia had appointed a Vint Hill task force to oversee some developments of homes and businesses and make it a residential area and a business complex. So that’s what they’re doing now. It’s opened on weekends, midweek by appointment for school groups and the vision that we have is to grow on site, to become a state of the art museum.
I think even adults will learn something from the movie. Does it tell the story accurately?
I am hearing very good reviews from friends and peers, and people I have interacted with over the last few months like the movie. My personal take is that the movie is very well done. In the big scheme of things, the overall movie hits the historical accuracy spot on, the feelings of the 1950s and 60s, the fear of the Soviet Union, the civil defense drills and duck and cover drills that people would do are all accurately portrayed, including the feelings towards my father, towards Rudolf Abel, and towards James Donovan , the attorney representing the Soviet spy but also brokering the exchange between my father and Rudolf Abel. So the feelings felt towards these individuals sometimes throughout the movie were not so flattering. I mean it was the time period and these were the feelings that were felt, so overall in the big picture it’s historically accurate.
Now you get to the details of each scene. It’s Hollywood, a little embellishing, a little dramatic effect, a little artistic liberty in all the scenes. At the very end of the movie, they do honor my father, though. They helped to set the record straight, acknowledge him as a hero to our country through the medals he received posthumously.
In the film’s climax, as your father is being released, the Americans bring someone there who knew him and could identify him. Is that how it happened?
In reality there is a gentleman name Joe Murphy and he was responsible for ID-ing my father at the bridge. So that is historically accurate. The movie takes some liberties with the role that Joe Murphy plays. In the movie Joe Murphy is a second lieutenant U-2 pilot along with my father, one of his colleagues. In reality Joe Murphy worked for the CIA in their security division and he was tasked to bring the pilot home. So in the movie it seems like dad and Joe knew each other very well, they were pilots together, in reality they did not know each other very well until after he came home.
But you had also have to remember this time period. Abel was caught in 1957-ish. There was a sting operation set up by the FBI for about two years in order to capture him. So between 55 and 57 they’re looking for Rudolf Abel. My father got shot down on May 1st of 1960. His his trial was August 60 then he got exchanged in February 62. So there’s about a 5 to 7 year time period that the movie has to condense into a two hour block so as a result some things are left out, some things are left unanswered. It’s not Gary Powers-centric, the movie is Donovan-centric. He is the hero of this movie, James Donovan. So there are a couple of things that I would have done or added in to clarify which there wasn’t time for.
Where should people go if they want to learn more?
There are three books out there that talk about this part of American history, or world history. My father’s book, Operation Overflight, that he wrote and had published in 1970. There is that of one James Donovan’s book called Strangers On A Bridge published in 1965. And there is a third book with the same title of the movie called Bridge of Spies that was written by Giles Whittell out of the UK. The movie is not based on any one book. It is based on, as they say in the movie, inspired by historical events. So between the historical records, the declassification conferences and files, the news reports at the time, the books that were written about it, the Coen brothers put together this movie script.
What did you know about all of this when you were growing up?
I was actually born in 1965, two and a half years later. So my father got shot down on May 1st of 60, spends 21 months in the Soviet prison, three months solitary confinement going through the interrogations, 3 days trials in August of 60 and then another 18 months Vladimir prison. The first prison he stayed in for the three months of interrogation was Llubyanka, the infamous KGB prison and then after the trial he was transported to three hours outside of Moscow to Vladimir prison where he serves out another 18 months as a sentence, a total of 21 months in captivity. His exchange on February 10th at the Glienicke Bridge, Potsdam Germany. It’s a cold dark foggy morning right out of a le Carré novel, these two spies were on each side of the bridge with their entourage, they are positively ID-ed and they walk home with their respective freedoms. So as a kid I was very well aware of this. I knew my father had been shot down and I knew he had been imprisoned. We talked about this, when I was reading his book. He would come in at nights and answer questions I would have. But for me as a kid 10 years old or so reading this book I thought this was normal, I thought everybody’s dad did something like this. That perception changed on August 1st of 77, I’m 12 years old my father dies in a helicopter crash while working for NBC television out of Los Angeles and that’s when the last light bulb goes on. That’s when I realized ‘Oh, not everybody’s dad gets struck down, imprisoned exchanged, buried at Arlington, news reports about him,’ that’s when it really hit home. But by that time had passed away and I couldn’t ask any other questions.
What is it that you think the Cold War era has to teach us about the geopolitics issues of our day?
The Cold War needs to be studied and analyzed so that people, including students and scholars understand the world we live in today. The War on terror has its origins in the Cold War. For example, the Afghan war in 1979 – 1980, when the Soviet Union is fighting Afghanistan in a guerilla type of war in that country. The CIA is helping to supply the rebels with the weapons and instructions to fight the Soviets. Well the head of the rebel organization that the CIA was backing to fight off the Soviets was none other than Osama bin Laden and so from his training, from the CIA, in the 1970s, late 70’s and early 80’s, the Afghan war evolves into over the next 10+ years into him using that technology, that training it against us. And so in this war on terror it’s very important to realize what the roots are, where it comes from. To understand what’s happening in the world today you have to understand how the Cold War contributed to it. And so one of the very important things that I like to reach out to my students about is that it’s not just two separate conflicts, it’s overlapped.
Interview: Matt Charman, Co-Screenwriter of “Bridge of Spies”
Posted on January 25, 2016 at 3:31 pm
Matt Charman is a British playwright whose first script (with the Coen brothers) was for the Steven Spielberg movie, Bridge of Spies. It is based on the true story of an insurance lawyer named James Donovan (Tom Hanks), who negotiated a spy swap with then-communist East Germany in the tensest days of the Cold War. In an interview, Charman told me how he first discovered the story of Donovan, what he learned from Spielberg, and what he, as someone who is not an American, most admires about the US Constitution.
I had never heard the story of James Donovan.
I didn’t know all of that either Nell, I was reading a biography of JFK that Robert Dalleck wrote called An Unfinished Life
What I pieced together was what “Bridge of Spies” became, this remarkable untold story about a true American hero, a man who believed so strongly in due process and in the Constitution that he was willing to follow it all the way from a courthouse in Brooklyn to the Supreme Court through the Berlin wall in order to represent his client.
Your background is in writing plays. What did you have to learn how to do in telling a story cinematically?
There are huge differences. I grew up primarily with movies because I used to live in the middle of nowhere with my folks so I think I caught the bug for storytelling through largely watching American films. When I first came to London I started to have access to London theater and so I saw a lot of plays when I was studying in London. I mean it’s no surprise to me that Stephen Spielberg tends to work with a lot of playwrights who have become screenwriters, Tom Stoppard, Tony Kushner, who wrote the Abraham Lincoln film most recently. He gravitates towards writers who can build a scene, writers who can create a scene that have a start, a middle and an end, that have characters that want things, that make arguments, that believe strongly in certain values. They don’t have to be lawyers or presidents but these are people who stand for things. And I think my background playwriting meant that when I came to write this, this is my first original screenplay that I was really able to channel all the things that I knew about building characters to create this movie which is very much about a man arguing his case.
What did you find out about the British-born Soviet spy Abel, who is portrayed so brilliantly by Mark Rylance in the film?
His time in New York is sketchy. He was an enigma. He stayed undetected for 15 years operating as the top state of the art agent in America at the time. And one thing that I really, really sort of hung onto and was really impressed by was I read that he had a very bright sense of humor and I read that he had this very close relationship with Donovan, despite their different ideologies and their different backgrounds. There was something about both man that was very dutiful. Say what you like about Abel but he did his job, he executed his job in a way that was impressive and dedicated and it took him away from his family for a long time and yet he believed enough in what he was doing to kept going. And I think even though Donovan was completely at the other end of the political spectrum he admired the way in which Abel conducted himself throughout the trial. That blossomed into a friendship between them. So exploring Abel as an enigma but as somebody who slowly revealed himself through the movie was something that I was desperate to do. And really what was so exciting was when Steven said, “Listen, I’m going to call Mark Rylance.” I have known Mark Rylance from stage in London. But he hadn’t really done many movies, so suddenly an American audience particularly is seeing a man that they have no background for, they have no reference point, and they are seeing him slowly reveal himself to them through the course of the movie and I think that was genius in the casting from Stephen.
It’s always a challenge to introduce the main character to the audience in a way that is telling and gains our interest and loyalty, and as a lawyer I really enjoyed Donovan’s first scene, negotiating a settlement of an insurance claim.
The whole idea behind that scene really was to meet James Donovan as he was before he got this case which is in a way a challenge to an audience because he is an insurance lawyer. And furthermore he is an insurance lawyer who was trying to limit the liability of his client and therefore trying to deny claims against his clients. So I’ve always enjoyed the fun of that scene. You are expecting a Tom Hanks as Atticus Finch or whatever and what you meet is a guy in a bar or rather in this club who is kind of down and dirty negotiating and backing his client the full way. Steven always loved that scene because it’s such a playful way to meet Donovan. And then we take this guy from an insurance lawyer through this transformation into somebody who is really remembers his calling, and his service at Nuremberg, and he remembers all the good things that that meant to him and then hr ended up taking on this remarkable case. But it was fun to meet him in that way, I think.
Was it a challenge for you as somebody who did not grow up in America to tell such an American story?
I never saw that it as a challenge probably because I’ve always watched so many American movies and read so many American books, and also growing up being so influenced by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams and all of those American playwrights. So no, to be honest with you it wasn’t. What I always knew I was doing was telling a story of a man, he had a family, he had wife, he had a job, he had the hallmarks of the kind of person I would live next door to in London. So he felt utterly grounded and utterly normal to me so it was the most natural thing in the world really.
The scene that seemed to me to be the essence of America is when he talks about people coming to this country from all over but having one thing in common: The Constitution. His affection — and yours — for the Constitution is very touching.
The Constitution of the United States is the most beautiful thing and I think it’s something that anybody can look at and appreciate, and hold up as being a set of values and a codified way of governing in a way as being so aspirational and so inspirational as well. I think anyone from any country can appreciate that, so I’m a huge fan of extolling its virtues.
So tell me a little bit about what you learned from working with Spielberg about filmmaking. What was the most important thing you learned?
I had this remarkable experience with Stephen which was a true collaboration and really where he was so pleasant, he was so open to dialogue and to talking things through, just trying things and being able to, not pressured at all which was wonderful because this is a man who has so much filmmaking experience you could imagine that he knows a certain way of doing things, and he would want to do it his way. He doesn’t at all and when you sit with him on set he is thriving on people’s ideas and their contributions that they’re making in that collaboration.
So what I learned from is two things really. First, he’s the most organized man I’ve ever met in terms of his preparation. He is like a military general. Second, he knows exactly what he wants to do and how he wants to do it but he has his remarkable ability to improvise. There was a moment when we were filming where suddenly he looked down on the floor and saw all these flashbulbs lying on the floor in the courthouse in the scene where they come out after the verdict. And he grabbed the camera and he got down on the floor with the camera himself. He said, “Okay, this here is what we want to do,” and he suddenly built the end of the scene where they walk out with the flashbulbs all over the floor. it’s a gorgeous moment with a bit of texture. He didn’t storyboard that, he didn’t plan for that but he saw the opportunity and he grabbed the camera and did it. So you have this man who is able to build complex sequences but also somebody was able just like a student filmmaker to adapt and adjust and improvise and for me that was kind of inspiring to see.
MVP of the Week: Amy Ryan
Posted on October 18, 2015 at 3:53 pm
Our MVP this week is one of my favorite actresses, Amy Ryan. I have been a huge fan since I saw her in “Gone Baby Gone,” where she played the mother of the missing child.
And she was wonderful with Paul Giamatti in “Win Win.”
I was fortunate to be able to interview her about “Jack Goes Boating,” co-starring and directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Here she talks to Vanity Fair about her role in “Birdman.”
This week, she appears in two very different films, “Goosebumps,” as a recent widow moving to a new town with her son, and “Bridge of Spies,” where she is the devoted but concerned wife of Tom Hanks’ character. Coming soon: “Infiltrator” with Bryan Cranston.