Coming Attractions Trailer Night

By Cheryl Dixon, DC Film Society Member

A cozy group of diehard film fans gathered on June 4, 2013 at Landmark's E Street Cinema to cast their votes, both informal (applause) and formal (ballot) on over 30 trailers of upcoming, mostly soon-to-be-released summer movies and selected the trailer of director Josh (“The Avengers") Whedon’s Shakespearean Much Ado About Nothing as the best of the best. Not even rainy weather, nor an advance screening of Shadow Dancer could keep attendees away. What’s more, there was an actively participating, parental-guided teen (pre-teen?) in the audience. His vocal views assured that he will likely represent the next generation of film critics. But for now, our beloved Bill Henry and Tim Gordon remained and needed not fear the competition. They led the always-spirited discussion on the trailers and gave the audience the full buzz on the effectiveness of the trailers themselves to showcase our “artisanal” selection of trailers promoting the scintillating summer blockbusters and indie faves designed to captivate audiences in the cool, air-conditioned comfort of theatres nationwide all summer long.

The categories, the winners of each category, and general commentary follow. Whether by applause vote or official ballot, attendees are never shy about expressing their opinions. And they know that their vote counts. Audience feedback just might impact the course of future trailers and how they are used to more effectively market the films they represent. By now, many of the films associated with the trailers have been released, but remember, that attendees at this event saw the trailers first! If you liked what you saw in the trailers, go see the movies! And if you missed the trailers, but like what you’re reading here, go see the movies!!

Here’s a summary of the winning films in each of the seven categories:

Just One More Time, We Promise
Before Midnight
Kick-Ass 2
Monsters University
The Wolverine WINNER!

Hugh Jackman, looking buff and ready, reprises his role as Wolverine, in The Wolverine. Marvel Comics continues its run of successful X-Men Superhero movies with this title character. The trailer depicts a strange woman seeking the Wolverine. There’s also an attempt to weaken his powers, and make him a mere mortal. There are fantastic special effects. The movie will be in 3D. A real crowd-pleaser.

Commentary: Bill Henry and Tim Gordon opened the show with selected Superman trivia, awarding prizes to attendees who had brushed up in preparation for Man of Steel. They also talked about the practice of using up all of a movie’s best scenes in the trailer, citing box office disappointment After Earth. They also mentioned that the buzz in Hollywood is that trailers are too long: “Two minutes and 30 seconds too long.” Finally, they discussed M. Night Shyamalan (director/screenwriter for After Earth), querying, “Why is he still going?” Wish him luck: what’s next for him is a new TV series. Attendees called for trailers to get things going. Before Midnight: Ethan Hawke’s and Julie Delpy’s continuing romantic saga. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes marriage trouble. Respectable response from attendees, particularly those who remember the other movies. It gets the nostalgic vote. Speaking of nostalgia, chuckles abounded for Monsters University; the Disney Pixar animation trailer in 3D shows where it all began for Sully and Mike as it ponders the question: “If you’re not scary, what kind of monster are you? Not quite scaring a new generation of youngsters...


This is the End (But at least Michael Cera Dies First)
This is the End
Byzantium
World War Z
Fruitvale Station
The World’s End WINNER!

O.K. It’s a hometown reunion for several “mates” in some unnamed British town where robots have taken over. The goal is to do a pub crawl, featuring 12 different pubs, but what’s up with the robots? Kansas isn’t Kansas any more! Martin summed it up: this movie is about “Beer and Robots” and everyone was LOL!

Commentary: This is the End with its endless parade of stars, James Franco and Seth Rogen, etc. and TV stars Craig Robinson and Aziz Ansari, etc. It’s even got Rihanna in the mix. The Apocalypse and humor. In World War Z, a book adaptation, Brad Pitt portrays the family man, martial law expert. Bill and Tim pondered whether or not the trailer shown captured the essence of the movie effectively. It didn’t. It’s a zombie movie with very stiff competition, from the supernatural TV shows, “The Walking Dead” and “True Blood.” Fruitvale, Tim assures us, is well-reviewed and gaining momentum. It got great buzz at Sundance and is the one to watch. The trailer artfully depicts Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer in a not-just-your-usual, coming of age urban drama about a young African-American father trying to straighten his life out. This intriguing trailer is based on a true story. Ryan Coogler directs.


The Rise of Great Men
Elysium
The Lone Ranger
Man of Steel WINNER!
I’m So Excited

Henry Cavill is the latest edition of the superhero to don the cape, but not the shorts, of Superman. Director Chris Nolan, provides ample scenes of fighting, destruction, and special effects. The focus is on General Zod. Amy Adams and Russell Crowe round out the cast.

Commentary: Armie Hammer is The Lone Ranger, Johnny Depp looks adorable as Tonto in Disney’s The Lone Ranger. Another opportunity for Depp to regale us with his unique take on Tonto. Looks a bit slapstick, going back to the good old days of Abbott and Costello? Laurel and Hardy?


And You Think Your Family Sucks
The Conjuring
Shadow Dancer WINNER!
Unfinished Song
Prince Avalanche

Shadow Dancer. Brilliant thriller. That’s what Bill says. The trailer depicts Clive Owen, the IRA, and lots of action!

Commentary: I think that I was one of very few attendees that liked the haunted house thriller, The Conjuring. Several attendees joked that this was just another “Amityville Horror” movie. I thought it was scary. The Weinstein Company moves ahead with Unfinished Song and its tagline: “It’s never too late to change your tune.” Adorable old folks singing young folks’ songs. What’s a miserable pensioner to do? Beat ‘em or join ‘em?


Bad Cop/Worse Cop
The East WINNER!
The Heat
2 Guns
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

Actress Ellen Page and the gang confront corporations.

Commentary: Casey Affleck is in Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, also featuring a dour-looking Rooney Mara. Not the best title, but it’s got Cannes Film Festival-sanctioned features: a doomed love story at a snail’s pace trailer. Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy in The Heat. Bullock and McCarthy get a vehicle to showcase their comedic talents, but it led one attendee to ask: “Sandra Bullock won an Oscar? What’s she doing in this?" Then, watch Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, “out-do” each other as the bad guy(s) in 2 Guns. Bill thought that actually this was the best-produced trailer of the bunch, acknowledging that these trailers presented a case of “let's pick the best of the worst.”


The Studios Hate Your Kids
The Kings of Summer WINNER!
Turbo
The Way, Way Back
Bling Ring

O.K. it’s the parents’ universal anthem: “My house, my rules.” A father-son skirmish leads to teen rebellion in this coming-of-age comedy. The trailer sort of reminded me of a more grownup version of Stand By Me. Teenage angst strikes three teen runaways and those that just can’t take it any more build a home in the woods.

Commentary: The Way, Way Back got very loud applause. The ensemble cast of Sam Rockwell, Allison Janney, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, and Maya Rudolph look hilariously funny in their quirky characters. Sofia Coppolla’s direction in The Bling Ring looked solid and was also well-received by attendees. The trailer depicts the true story adaptation of the teenaged theft ring breaking and entering celebrities' Hollywood Hills homes. Who wouldn’t want to take a peek at Paris Hilton’s closets in all their blingy excess?


We Have Seen It All Before
The Internship
Pacific Rim
Much Ado About Nothing WINNER! BEST TRAILER OVERALL!
White House Down

Much Ado About Nothing: Well, it really says something when a classic Shakespearian play, filmed in the original old English wins as the best trailer of the evening overall. My seventh-grade English teacher would be so proud. The trailer shows a black and white movie, visually interesting, in a modern-day setting, with Shakespearian language. But, to quote the Man himself, “The play’s the thing.” It’s got all the ingredients inherent in a good story well-told: death, sex, deception. Bill and Tim agree that the critics say that the movie is really good.

Commentary: Watch out! Disaster-meister Roland Emmerich’s back and this time the White House is under siege! Our audience, representing the DMV (DC-Maryland-Virginia Metro area) was kind. We feel it’s our exclusive privilege to critique any and all films depicting our home territory. We could appreciate the action scenes with Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum depicted. And, I think it was Martin who commented, “It’s got Channing Tatum in it!” Enough to set hearts aflutter.


BONUS TRAILERS

Oops, we saw an unintentionally silent film rendering of the latest Coen Brothers’ effort. We also saw John Wells’ August: Osage County, featuring Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, and Juliette Lewis as dysfunctional family members in a big house. Finally, we saw a depiction of Gravity with Sandra Bullock as an astronaut precariously floating in space. These trailers weren’t included in the audience voting.

And so, our very sated movie-going audience enjoyed a full evening of trailer film surprises and promotional giveaways and prizes just for showing up. Always nice to add a free DVD to one’s collection, and there were lots of t-shirts, books, movie posters and other assorted movie memorabilia to please any discerning movie fan. See you at our next trailer program, and at the movies!

Thanks to all of the DC Film Society Directors, Coordinating Committee Members, and Volunteers for putting together this twice-annual educational program. And thanks to our uber hosts, Bill Henry and Tim Gordon for sharing their opinions and tolerating ours, Allied-THA, Landmark Theaters, and Filmfest DC.

The Cinema Lounge

Jobs: Q&A with Director Joshua Michael Stern and Actor Josh Gad

By Anita Glick and Annette Graham, DC Film Society Members

On August 1, a preview screening of Jobs was held at AMC Loew's Georgetown theater and followed by a Q&A with the film's director Joshua Michael Stern and actor Josh Gad who plays Steve Wozniak. The DC Film Society's director, Michael Kyrioglou, moderated the discussion.

JOBS is the extraordinary story of Steve Jobs, the original innovator and ground-breaking entrepreneur who let nothing stand in the way of greatness. The film chronicles the period of 1971 – 1991 telling the epic and turbulent story of Jobs as he blazed a trail that changed technology – and the world – forever. The music takes you back to the 1970s and is particularly uplifting. A book "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson was published in October 2011 by Simon & Schuster.

The film is directed by Joshua Michael Stern (Swing Vote, Neverwas) and stars Ashton Kutcher (Two and a Half Men, No Strings Attached) and Josh Gad (1600 Penn, The Book of Mormon). The cast includes Dermot Mulroney, Matthew Modine, J.K. Simmons, Lukas Haas, and Lesley Ann Warren.

Michael Kyrioglou: Congratulations and thanks for being here. First question: Mac or PC?
Joshua Michael Stern: I’ve always been Mac, except there was a period when I couldn’t afford Mac. But I’ve been Mac for quite a while. My first was the classic; it had that case. I'm Mac all that way. Unfortunately, I am a victim--every time a new product is launched I have to buy it. I’m not sure why. But it’s the IPhone 5.1--it has that .1 difference!
Michael Kyrioglou: Steve was in the news a lot before he passed away; biographies came out. Where did the impetus for this film come from?
Joshua Michael Stern: There was a producer in Dallas who called me up. I had done a film called Swing Vote and he liked it. He wanted me to meet with him. He was outside the Hollywood system and he had hired someone to write the script. I read it and I thought it is so ambitious; I just felt the message in the film--the underlying message that someone who for all of his flaws and as misunderstood as he was in his own really curious way, almost unsympathetic way, in the way we went about his life. He really created something amazing. He was obsessed with it and was self-motivated. There is something about our culture right now where the new norm is downsizing and the fact that bigger companies are doing better with less and the post-industrial age of the corporation and being set for life is all in question. There's the need to self-motivate. At the end there is a line that says, “When you wake up and realize that the world was created by people no smarter than you”--that is something I want my kids to know.

Michael Kyrioglou: I think that a boss of his who said, “You’re good, you’re damn good but you’re an asshole” kind of sums him up in a nutshell.
Joshua Michael Stern: We were discussing this today. There is level of shrewdness that if it didn’t exist, that if he didn’t have that, I don’t know that Apple would be Apple. I think that unfortunately there were a lot of corpses along the way but through the wake of that kind of genius that some may call destruction were these incredible products and I think that he knew that there was a means to an end and it might not be pretty. I think that one of the things that is so fascinating (now that all of you have seen the movie) is that it doesn’t take just a glossed approach, and that the character has major warts and all. And I think that once you have read the Isaacson book, for example, which was condoned by Jobs and had his full cooperation, (so we assume) it paints a portrait of him that is very similar, where he is not the nicest person, and I don’t think he shied away from that, I think he embraced it. Steve was really aware of the cult mentality, he was hooked into spirituality and religion and the hierarchy of what an organization is. He understood that priests wore the black and that they wanted the congregants to not associate the priests with anything kindly or worldly and that the priests were a representative of God. And every time he went out in public he wore that black mock turtleneck. I think at a certain point he did not want to be associated with himself anymore. He simply wanted to be associated with the products. When you see Steve in 2004, 2001 or 1999 all you are associated with are the products and I think that is how he showed love in the end. He was an extremely unsentimental man. He always looked forward. It was always, "What's next?" Human nature, empathy, is tied to memory and to sentimentality and he didn’t understand that and that is the key to human connection. He understood that by making this, that was how he showed his love.

Michael Kyrioglou: Whether it was intentional, he created this company leader that is not replicated, somebody that is identified with a product. Did you find it challenging to find a balance so that you are providing the flawed side (the critical side) a balanced picture without taking him down but also not sort of praising him so high that he was on a pedestal?
Joshua Michael Stern: Right. I think that in a lot of research there were not so many light moments. If you knew the guy you knew he could actually be a sort of prankster; he was when he was younger. I think it was about trying to tell the story as we know it to be and not delve into conjecture about things we don’t know anything about; his private life, the relationship with his wife. He was so private. Even if you read the Isaacson book, it’s revealing, but only in his first person telling of it. Everybody else’s telling of it was, “I worked with him for thirty years and I don’t know if he knew I had a kid.” It was the sense that he was an enigma, truly an enigma. So hopefully by the end of it you get a feeling for the man, but not all the answers about him. I don’t think we set out to uncover exactly who these characters were and this is the key to this person’s soul.
Josh Gad: I don’t think that information is readily available yet.
Joshua Michael Stern: I think one day. Maybe!
Josh Gad: His death only happened a year and one-half or two years ago [October 5, 2011]. There are still many, many things to explore, who Steve Jobs really was. This is a portrait of a period that has been well documented and is absolutely in the public spotlight. When I came on to this project I was not very educated when it came to the early part of Steve Jobs. My generation, in particular, I remember my wife introducing me to the iPod and I was wondering, “What is this thing?" And realizing at that moment, “Oh my God, this is revolutionary.” I had these MP3 players, but they were barbaric, I would rather listen to a Walkman. And so this thing – this little device then became a channel into this integrated computer where everything synced--my calendar can be integrated into this. And that was my idea of who Steve Jobs was. It was Mac, it was Macintosh. It was that post-nineties return to glory.
Joshua Michael Stern: Where our movie ends is where most people begin.
Josh Gad: Exactly! This movie almost serves as a prequel of sorts to what we all came to know as Steve Jobs. That's what was so exciting to me. I didn’t know so much, I knew tiny details, but I didn’t know the bigger picture.

Michael Kyrioglou: Do you guys know Mike Daisey? He is a solo theatre performer. He did a solo play called "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” which was about Steve Jobs at the time.
Joshua Michael Stern: Yes, I read about that!
Michael Kyrioglou: It also counterpointed exploration with all the factory injustices in China with him traveling to China and interviewing the workers there. I found it interesting because that is where I learned about his early history. You get a little insight into who this guy was.

Audience Question: [To Josh Gad] Did you meet Steve Wozniak? What did you draw from to create his character?
Josh Gad: I didn't get a chance to meet him, unfortunately. I reached out to him on several occasions. So what I had to do was, I had a two month period to basically cram for the SATs, essentially, where I delved into every piece of content that was readily available. I found interviews that dated back to the 1960s and I used YouTube as this incredible database by which I could figure out the voice, the mannerisms, all that. And then to get a better idea of him, it was all about the literature, whether it was Woz's own autobiography or the Isaacson book--you just try to paint a picture of what this person is and who he is, and then you got to let it all go. So that was my journey and it was informed a great deal by Ashton's commitment to playing Steve Jobs to its greatest accuracy. Early on I had a conversation with Ashton when I first started the project and he looked emaciated when we were skypeing. He was on a fruit diet, Steve's diet, and lost 15 pounds. And I went on an exclusive cheeseburger diet (everyone laughs).

Audience Question: When is the appropriate time to make such a movie? Is it a little too soon?
Joshua Michael Stern: I don't know the answer to that. I was presented with the opportunity to make the movie. I didn't focus on it. Interestingly enough, in a world where we have such a short attention span now, in a world of a newscycle that is so quick, and with so much social network and things that occupy our mind, I actually think now people's memories will fade quicker than they would have before. I think he's still in people's consciousness, and telling the story about how he began is very relevant in my opinion. In four or five years will it be just as relevant? Probably. I don't know. We tried to create a portrait of a man who did something amazing and insprirational and I think people will relate to it.

Michael Kyrioglou: When did you start working on the film?
Joshua Michael Stern: About a year ago. We did it very quickly.
Audience Question: Was there pressure to do it quickly?
Joshua Michael Stern: There's another movie coming out from Sony in a year. Was there pressure to do it before that movie? Not implicitly in the beginning. When you make a movie it's not guided by needs or wants. You get the money to make it. I got called and they said we got the money and we're going to go. It was the first out of the gate in many ways. There are going to be so many movies about him. I hope that when people look back at the movies they make about him and they see what is to know and not know about him that they can look back at this and say, "Wow, they really got a lot of that feeling of him right."
Michael Kyrioglou: It's interesting that some of these biographical movies cycle around each other, like the [Truman] Capote movies and others.
Joshua Michael Stern: And Lance Armstrong movies are being developed.

Audience Question: What can you tell us about the casting? Was Ashton [Kutcher] your first choice? What about Josh [Gad]?
Joshua Michael Stern: I met Ashton very early on. He had been obsessed with Jobs. When I met with him, he walked into the room with that kind of gait and already doing the gestures. He was very smart because he needed me to take away from the meeting evidence that he could do it because obviously he understood that it was a very provocative choice and there would be a lot of skepticism about him. But I thought there was something interesting, because the young Jobs was so charismatic and how do you cast charisma? He was a salesman; that's who he was. He was the leader of these guys. As I drove away I thought, there's something about this actor in this role that's interesting. It's dynamic but more than that I thought it was curious. And with a small film competing in a world with all these tentpoles that studios are putting out--huge $250 million dollar films--I thought there might be something that would draw curious attention about this film that would help it. As for Josh, he was in a movie called Thank you for Sharing which is coming out this fall. I saw some scenes of him in that. I hadn't seen Book of Mormon though I should have but I think it worked for this. I came to it not knowing anything about him except some of his work and I felt he would understand that character. When I saw that movie, I kind of knew. There were other people on the list for Jobs but I met Ashton very early on and it was the most interesting choice for the part, for this particular script. You balance everything out.
Michael Kyrioglou: I was noticing an interesting spectrum of actors from the Apple period. Matthew Modine [as John Sculley], a big 80s star, then Dermot Mulrony more 90s, progressing up. I totally thought about Steve Wozniak when I saw Book of Mormon.
Joshua Michael Stern: That's what I was looking for! (everyone laughs).

Audience Question: How did you find balance between the story of Steve Jobs and the story of Apple?
Joshua Michael Stern: I think that this a movie where everybody has something invested in Jobs that's different. Why not have the scene where he went to Xerox, where he got the user interface? Microsoft invested $100 million dollars helping Apple stay afloat. There were tons of things that were there. But this was really a movie about how a man creates a product and then he becomes completely obsessed with that product and then becomes one with that company. Until he can make that company work, and not a moment before that... So it's about a man, a company and how they become one. As far as what we chose not to tell, it's very hard to make a movie about computers. They're just generally inactive. There's so much to tell about a man's life. We had every scene everyone thinks you should have in a movie. Sometimes you open a door and you have to have so much explanation of it. What's important? Wouldn't it have been nice to have the Xerox scene? Yes, we thought of it. It took too much time. You make these decisions in these movies; you have to focus. In a movie that's two hours and five minutes long--the studio would have liked 15 minutes less information than you got. So you're always balancing that. And you have to also make it about people. So you make your choices and you try to stay focused. Because if you go off the path too many times, it's that movie that's two hours and twenty minutes long and people say, "I love that movie but I wish it was 15 minutes shorter." Then you ask, "What shouldn't you have told?" So we did our best, which was our telling of it.

Audience Question: Were those shots of Jobs' house his actual house?
Joshua Michael Stern: Yes, that was Jobs' actual childhood home. And that was the first place we ever shot. The first week of production, we literally went out there to the Silicon Valley area and shot in his childhood home. It was surreal, it was a very spiritual thing to go back to where those guys sat and created the first motherboards. There was a moment that was surreal where one of the set dressers came up with a bag and said, "I'm not sure what to do with this." "What is it?" "I think it's Steve's childhood journals, they were up in the attic." "I would put those back. Or send it to the Smithsonian." That's how untouched it still is. It was very surreal. It was like walking into a museum.
Michael Kyrioglou: Does his family still live there?
Joshua Michael Stern: Yes, his stepmother still lives there.
Josh Gad: When we walked into the garage, the calendar on the wall was from the Carter administration.

Audience Question: I've heard that Steve Wozniak disputed some of the things in the film. What were some of the reactions of some of the other people, most of which are still around?
Josh Gad: I have the utmost respect and admiration for Steve Wozniak; I've lived in his shoes for a couple of months. But Mr. Wozniak is also involved in a competing Jobs project, so some of his statements must be taken with a grain of salt. And we encouraged him to get involved early on when we presented the script to him to correct any ideas that were not exactly up to par with what he thought. We screened this movie for all of those guys.
Joshua Michael Stern: [Chris] Espinosa, [Daniel] Kottke, [Bill] Atkinson, every guy in that garage. And they loved it. Espinosa saw it twice. There were things in the movie you wouldn't know if you didn't know him, the way he walked, and his expresssions. And they said, "That exact scene didn't happen," like when he fired Jef Raskin. It didn't happen exactly like that. But it happened a hundred times. The 1977 computer fair scene--a lot of them were really touched by it. Woz has come out and said, "I had to drag Steve kicking and screaming." It's an odd pushback. But he hasn't seen it yet. He's seen the trailer. We want them to see it.

Audience Question: Why didn't you highlight Jobs' relationship with his family?
Joshua Michael Stern: The ten years during the NeXT period had two things going on. One, he met his wife [Laurene] at Stanford, and we know very little. And they were so severely private, that anything I would have done with his family would have been conjecture. He wasn't very happy with his time at NeXT. Pixar--he sat on the board, he was a consultant. We had it written out. We can't do too much with Laurene. I never wanted to get into what his relationships were or hazard a guess as to what she represented for him. It felt like we didn't know anything about what that was. The only other personal stuff was his adopted sister whom he became close to. We had a scene where they were walking in an early version of the script. It just felt disingenuous. You could almost make a movie about his relationship with his wife. This was a movie about him and Apple. So the decision not to do the first date scene with Laurene, or the "Oh God you're my sister" moment. The one thing I wish we had done--one of the stories was when he found out who his birth father was, the manager of a restaurant. Jobs would sit outside of the restaurant and watch him but he never walked in and he never met him. I thought that was very very powerful. But it was too much. We could have made a lot of that stuff--a lot of people want to know about that. I think [Aaron] Sorkin is struggling with this. He says the movie he wants to do is three 30-minute episodes about launching Steve's products, the NeXT, the first Mac and the iPod and you can tell why--having all the information everyone has. Why make it about the three products? Because there is so little information. They were very private people. I think there will be a moment in history when we know more about what it was like to be in that marriage or in a relationship with his sister. But anything right now would be wild guesses.
Josh Gad: If you made a Kennedy movie a year after Kennedy died, it would be a very different Kennedy movie than the Kennedy movie now. We know a lot more. We know he wasn't even Bostonian. (everyone laughs)

Jobs opens in theaters on August 16.

Lee Daniels' The Butler: Q&A with Director Lee Daniels and Writer Wil Haygood

By Cheryl L. Dixon, DC Film Society Member

[From the press notes]: [S]et against the tumultuous political backdrop of 20th century America, Academy Award nominated director Lee Daniels’ (PRECIOUS) epic drama tells the story of fictional White House butler Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), who serves during seven presidential administrations between 1957 and 1986. The film is inspired by Wil Haygood’s 2008 Washington Post article “A Butler Well Served by This Election” which chronicled the real life former White House butler Eugene Allen. The film begins in 1926 and follows the young Cecil as he escapes the tyranny of the fiercely segregated South in search of a better life. Along his arduous journey to manhood Cecil learns invaluable skills that ultimately lead to an opportunity of a lifetime: a job as a butler at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. There, Cecil becomes a firsthand witness to history and the inner workings of the Oval Office as the civil rights movement unfolds. At home his loving wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) raises their two sons, and the family benefits from a comfortable middle-class existence enabled by Cecil’s White House position. But Cecil’s commitment to his “First Family” fosters tensions at home, alienating Gloria and creating conflict with his anti-establishment son (David Oyelowo). Through the eyes and emotions of the Gaines family, Daniels’ film follows the changing tides of American politics and race relations; from the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, to the Freedom Riders and Black Panther movements, to the war in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal, Cecil experiences the effects of these events as both an insider and a family man. With an incredible supporting cast that includes Yaya Alafia, Mariah Carey, John Cusack, Jane Fonda, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Terrence Howard, Elijah Kelley, Minka Kelly, Lenny Kravitz, James Marsden, Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Redgrave, Alan Rickman, Live Schreiber and Robin Williams, LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER is a story about the resilience of one man, the growth of a nation, and the power of family.



A screening of Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013) took place on August 7, 2013 at AMC Georgetown. Director Lee Daniels and Writer Wil Haygood were present after the screening for discussion with the audience, Radio/TV Personality and Host Russ Parr (Russ Parr Morning Show) moderated.

Audience Comments: The first question was more of a observation of the two worlds created in the movie, that of the world inside the White House and outside of it, and also that of the dynamics within the butler’s (Cecil Gaines’) family. This attendee observed that there was a juxtaposition, but she also saw that both the father (Cecil Gaines) and son were fighting the same battles.
Lee Daniels responded that it was an interesting observation and that the movie was written in a way (by Danny Strong) that led one to ask: “Who was right?” For with the father/son relationship, each individual served his country in a different way. The son wanted better, but so did the father. They both wanted more.

Audience Comments: Another attendee mentioned that the movie was loosely based on the real-life story of Eugene Allen and asked in what ways was the movie similar to the article and book by Wil Haygood (Cultural Historian and Washington Post writer) and how was it different?
Wil Haygood described how he decided to write the 2008 Post article, and eventually the book, upon which this movie was loosely based. He said that he was covering a rally during then-candidate Barack Obama’s presidential election campaign and he came across some young ladies who were white and tearfully told him that they had angered their fathers because they supported Obama. Haygood was then convinced that Obama would win the Election and he began a search for someone who had worked at the the White House at a time when an African-American President living and working there would have been unimaginable. He also discussed late producer Laura Ziskin’s unwavering commitment to the film. Haygood talked in depth about Allen’s life, and that he had served at the White House as a butler for 34 years from the terms of Presidents Truman through Reagan and had passed away in 2010. He also commented that Allen’s wife, Helene (“Gloria” as portrayed by Oprah Winfrey), had died the day before President Obama was elected.
Russ Parr praised the movie’s excellence indicating that he was both “riveted” and “speechless.” He was particularly impressed by the fullness and richness of the characters.
Lee Daniels pondered, “What’s real?” He listed a series of movie impressions: the tie clip, the tie that then First Lady Jackie Kennedy gave him that originally belonged to President Kennedy, the existence of one son... He admitted that “certain liberties” were taken with the portrayal of Gloria (she was not an alcoholic and did not have an affair) stating that Danny Strong artfully used devices melding truth and fiction for dramatic impact.

Audience Comments: Another attendee complimented Daniels on doing a brilliant directing job and asked about financial challenges encountered while selling the idea of the film as its main character is African-American and that this idea “won’t sell to an audience.”
Lee Daniels commented that this is a GREAT story about the Civil Rights movement and Sony had provided a specific budget of $25 million. He mentioned that his movie, Precious, had a $10 million budget). He said that although he made a lot of money with Precious, he still had to be involved in discussions about this new film’s worth. Further, he stated that producer Pam Williams, determined to prove that the movie had an audience, raised the money independently.

Audience Comments: There was a question on the “stellar” cast. There are at least six Academy Award winners and nominees. Robin Williams, Jane Fonda, John Cusack, and Vanessa Redgrave, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Terrence Howard, Liev Schreiber, and Lenny Kravitz are just a few members of the cast joining Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, and David Oyewolo as the main characters. They were not paid their usual performing fees.

Audience Comments: Another audience member commented that the strength of the Black male could be seen and asked whether this was intentional.
Lee Daniels responded that this was intentional. He joked that he was originally from Philly and he wanted to pass muster in DC. He stated that he used examples from his personal life experiences. One example he said was the instance when the young Cecil observes his father being called the “N” word and he cries out, “Whatcha gonna do?”

Audience Comments: How many meetings did the authors have with the Allens? Did the family members contribute?
Wil Haygood said that he initially met with Eugene and Helene Allen for an entire day and did research over a period of 9-12 months meeting with Mr. Allen 15-18 times. When Mr. Allen was sick in the hospital he delighted in reading fan mail from as far away as Hong Kong. During filming, their son came to visit the set. He thought jokingly that they had “thrown his mother under the bus,” but got her smoking habit down correctly. He loved the movie.

Closing Remarks
Lee Daniels stated that the movie began as a story about a father and a son, but it is also a love story. When they did the bus scene, he recognized that the intensity revealed that the movie was “something bigger” and that the kids on the bus were heroes “fighting to save the soul of our country.”
Russ Parr reiterated that both black and white kids bravely participated in the Civil Rights movement and that this is a movie that Hollywood is reluctant to support. What is key, he said, is getting the word out and giving the movie recognition that it truly deserves. Like the Civil Rights movement itself, the making of this movie involved fighting a lot of battles, but we are leaving a legacy.

Lee Daniels’ The Butler is phenomenal. Truly a labor of love, this movie is a sweeping historical drama with a focus on a period not often seen in features. It opens in theaters on August 16th.

Caesar Must Die

By James McCaskill, DC Film Society Member

Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Caesar Must Die (Italy, 2012) screened at the 2012 BFI London Film Festival. The film has its Washington premiere in a free screening at the National Gallery of Art on August 31 at 4:00pm and September 1 at 2:00pm.


The Taviani brothers

The brothers Taviani have always worked together on their films as writers and directors, two of which have had international acclaim: Padre Padrone (1977) and La Notte di San Lorenzo (The Night of Shooting Stars, 1982). Their latest, Caesar Must Die received the Golden Bear at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival.

London Film Festival calls it "A vital, edgy film from renowned film making duo the Taviani brothers, this is a sort of film-within-a-film, of a play, brilliantly blending documentary and drama by using a real prison and genuine inmates."

Rome's high security Rebibbia prison, where inmates are incarcerated for mostly Mafia crimes, stages a play. The directors explained how they came to be involved with this project: "A dear friend recounted to us a theatre experience she had had a few nights earlier. She cried at the performance. We went to Rebibbia and, after passing a number of gates and blockades, we reached a stage where twenty or so inmates, some of them serving life sentences, were reciting Dante's Divine Comedy. They had chosen a few cantos of Hell and were now reliving the pain and torments of Paolo and Francesca, of Count Ugolino, of Ulysses--all in the hell of their own prison. They each spoke in their own dialects, occasionally addressing parallels between the poetic story evoked by the cantos and their lives. We remembered the words and tears of our friend.

In collaboration with the inmates, filming was done in their cells, in the prison yard, in the High Security Section and eventually on stage. The brothers wanted to contrast the darkness of their convict lives with the poetic force of the emotions of Shakespeare--friendship and betrayal, murder and the torment of difficult choices. The actors transition from their stage roles back to men confined to a cell.

When asked if they had a screenplay or allowed improvisation as the film seems to morph from a straight documentary to a drama, Paolo replied, "We did follow the screenplay. We have a written screenplay as we do with all our films; then, as it is always the case, once on the set, with the camera rolling and the actors playing, the screenplay becomes something different, thanks also to the locations, the lighting and the darkness. We took over 'Julius Caesar', dismembered and rebuilt it. We have certainly kept the spirit of the original tragedy as well as the narrative but at the same time we simplified it taking it a bit far from the traditional stage work tempos. A degenerate son that Shakespeare would have certainly have loved, Fabio Cavalli was extremely helpful in translating all the lines into the different dialect/slang of the various inmates-actors. They have understood what we intended to do and give mesmerizing performances with different degrees of emotions and involvement. Thanks to them, to the various truths they expressed and to their unexpected performances, the screenplay evolved. To make myself clear I would like to mention just an example: the soothsayer, the Neapolitan "Pazzariello" who brings his open palm to the nose and with disquieting jests tells the audience to be silent, was not in the screenplay. He reminded us of Shakespeare's character, a Yorick for instance, who has run away from his tragedies."

Why did they choose Julius Caesar? "We had never had anything else in mind. Our choice came out of necessity: the men we wanted to work with had a past--far or close--to reckon with; a past characterized by misdeeds, faults, offenses, crimes and broken relationships. Hence we had to confront them with an equally powerful story going in the opposite direction. We bring to the screen the great and pitiable relationships among humans that include friendship, betrayal, power, freedom and doubt. And murder, too. Several of our inmates-actors once were "men of honor"; and in his arraignment Mark Antony quotes the "men of honor". On the day we shot the sequence of the killing of Caesar, we asked our dagger-armed actors to find the same killer urge within them. Immediately we wished we could withdraw our words. We decided to follow them through their extremely long days and nights. We wanted our common work to take place within the tiny five-people cells, in the corridors, in the yard where they spend the only time in the open air, or while waiting for the meetings with their relatives."

Were there any problems filming in the prison? "The whole film was shot in Rebibbia. We spent four weeks there; we entered in the morning and left at night, exhausted but happy and satisfied. We were granted the freedom to take our cameras everywhere: the wards, the stairs, the cubicles, the yard, the cells and the library. The only exception: isolation cells.

"When the film was completed and we left the jail and our actors, it was a heartbreaking goodbye. Climbing the stairs back to his cell, Cosimo Rega--who plays Cassius--raised his arms and shouted: "Paolo, Vittorio: from tomorrow on, nothing will be the same!"

Shirley Jones Talks About 'Shirley Jones'

By James McCaskill, DC Film Society Member


Shirley Jones autographs her book at the National Press Club. Photo by James McCaskill

On July 26 Shirley Jones did a book launch for no-holds barred biography, 'Shirley Jones', at the National Press Club. (She also appeared at the National Archives July 25. These notes are from the July 26 Press Club appearance). She was introduced with Bosley Crowther's comment about her performance of Laurey in Oklahoma (Fred Zinnemann, 1955) "And in Shirley Jones, a strawberry-blond newcomer, he has a Laurey, the girl Curly courts, so full of beauty, sweetness and spirit that a better Laurey cannot be dreamed." That description could go for all of her Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II musicals.

"It was wonderful growing up in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, a village of 800 and still home of the brewery, Stoney's Beer, that my grandfather started. I was an only child and I'm still in touch with friends from the 3rd grade."

"I've always sang and was the youngest member of the church choir at age 6. Thought everyone could sing, didn't realize I had a special gift. I started singing lessons at age 12, that's the age that girls' voices also change."

When asked if she always thought of a career in music Shirley replied, "No, I was going to be a vet. I was that only child with everything as a pet. Even today I can't pass a dog or cat without petting them." Her fondness for animals shows, she's a member of PETA.

"That career option changed when in the summer after high school graduation, my family was in NY City on a vacation and I looked up my old piano accompanist. I sang a couple of songs for him and he told me that Rodgers and Hammerstein were holding open auditions for a new musical, South Pacific. I didn't know who Rodgers and Hammerstein were. I auditioned and they asked me to wait for Mr. Rodgers to hear me."

"I'm sitting in the theater when a gentleman came up and said he would hear me sing. I said, "And you are?" "Richard Rodgers." "He listened and called Oscar at home. My accompanist had to leave by the time he arrived so I had to audition with the full City Center Symphony. I'd never heard of a symphony. Three weeks later I was in the chorus of South Pacific. I had one line, 'What's the trouble, Knucklehead.'"

"All Broadway chorus girls at that time stayed at the Barbizon Hotel for Women. My roommate and I have stayed good friends. She gave up show business to marry a doctor from Norway. I've been over many times to visit them."

"I was the only person ever placed under personal contract to Rodgers and Hammerstein. Richard called and said they wanted me to fly out to Hollywood to audition for a part in 'Oklahoma' which they were producing. I did the screen test with Gordon MacRae. I used to drool over his voice." After the audition Gordon asked me if I had ever had acting lessons which I hadn't. "Don't change a thing," he said, "You are a natural."

"A few weeks later Rodgers called and said, 'Hello, Laurey.' I knew I had gotten the role."

"Fred Zinnemann directed this film. He was very caring about actors. Most directors at that time only cared about the film."

"I agreed to go to Paris with a production of "Carousel." Jack Cassidy was the male lead. I had been warned to stay away from him as he had a reputation as a ladies' man. I only knew him as a handsome lead. Most of those are boring as they only have their good looks. Never cared for that type as I like men who can make me laugh. We went out for dinner at the Eiffel Tower. When he brought me home he said, "I'm going to marry you." I told hem he wasn't as he was a married man. After returning to the States he called to say he was divorced and asked me to marry him. He was very bright, a connoisseur of everything."

"By the mid 50s musical were no longer popular. Thought my career was over. Had an offer to do a television play, Playhouse 90's 'The Big Slide'. Knew I wanted to do that. Got drunk in the play. Committed suicide. Big change from my musical roles."

"Burt Lancaster saw the show, called me saying, "I'm Burt Lancaster." I said, "Sure" and hung up. Luckily he called back saying he really was Burt Lancaster and that he was doing a film with Richard Brooks, "Elmer Gantry" and wanted me to audition for Lulu Bains. The studio wanted Piper Laurie. I went back to San Francisco. Burt called, "You got the part." He wanted me to come to the set every day as Brooks filmed in sequence. I didn't have my entrance until half way through the film. That scene was my most important, where I'm telling the other prostitutes that, 'He rammed the fear of God into me so hard and so fast that I didn't hear my father.' Was amazed that got by the censors."

"During my marriage I tried to be the best mama I could. Jack was not a stay at home father. My contract called for me to be at home for holidays and boy's birthdays."

"I was asked to do 'The Brady Bunch' first then offered 'The Partridge Family.' I was the first working mother on television." She was cast first and suggested that her step-son David would be perfect. David was not aware that Shirley was in the show so on the first day of shooting he turns around sees her and asks, 'What are you doing here?' "I'm your Mama."

If she were growing up today she says she would still be a veterinarian. With her coloratura soprano voice she could only sing opera, which does not interest her. "Right now I'm selling the book. Doing a movie that is destined for a Christmas Eve screening" and has another film in the works. She loved playing in "Grandma's Boy," "especially since I sleep with 20 year old boys," she candidly remarked. She is very candid in her book describing a lot of non-Marion the Librarian events in her life. She may have been a simple, innocent girl from small town Pennsylvania but she has grown up.

"Not certain I like the movie business today. I make films because I make a lot of money." There is that candid streak.

Some of her favorite leading men that she has worked with: Jimmy Stewart, Glenn Ford and "I fell in love with Richard Widmark."

Her first husband, Jack Cassidy (and she is honest about his womanizing, drugs and alcohol) died in a fire. Two years later she married Marty Ingles (that's a real switch) and they have been married, not always happy - she filed for divorce but took the papers back, for 35 years. Why? "He makes me laugh." The first time she met Marty was at an art show and he literally knocked her down.Marty showed up for their first date driving a mobile home.

Best young actor she's worked with? Ron Howard.

The studio wanted Frank Sinatra to play Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man. Oscar told them they would take Robert Preston who had won awards for his Broadway performance.

In all the years that The Partridge Family ran she only had two solos.

Her secret to looking 30 when she is months away from turning 80? "Genetics, keeping weight down and Clinique."

Future plans? "Might like to do a Broadway play but not certain I can remember all the lines."

Her favorite film role: "I loved Julie Jordan. Richard Rodgers said Carousel was the best music he wrote."

What did she think of Gordon MacRae? "Great guy. Sheila, his wife is still with us and we are still friends. Godon was such a down to earth guy and someone else for whom singing came easy. He could not wait to get off the set and play golf. Then you did not vocalize before a performance. Do now."

Why did Marlon Brando do Bedtime Story with her and David Niven? "Marlon wanted to do comedy. Marlon was the King of Retakes. He wanted 30 or 40 with every scene. No wonder he was the greatest actor. Every other actor was on the floor."

Shirley Jones, by the way, is her real name. Nothing artificial about her.

"Shirley Jones: A Memoir," Shirley Jones with Wendy Leigh, Gallery Books, 2013.

The Patience Stone: Q&A with Director Atiq Rahimi and Actress Goshifteh Farahani

By Ron Gordner, DC Film Society Member

The Patience Stone (Afghanistan/France, 2012) is a the second film directed by Atiq Rahimi whose previous film Earth and Ashes (2004) was based on his 2002 novel. Atiq Rahimi has lived in France since the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and has become a respected novelist and director. He also wrote the novel "The Patience Stone" and has adapted it for this film. The film is almost like a probing play dealing with the rights and realm of the modern Muslim world and its existing laws and rules. In a small Afghani village filled with armed men and tanks, a young woman cares for her two children and her older husband, wounded and lying in a coma with a bullet still in his neck. While many villagers are fleeing the town, she feels she must stay at her husband's side. Interaction with visitors and others and her striving for survival for days, reminds her of her aunt's words: "Tell the patience stone all your worries and it will free you," so she begins a monologue at her comatose husband. She tells him things that she could never tell him if he were alert--her fears, her childhood, her dreams, confessions and accusations. We also get a better look behind the veil and life of a Muslim wife and mother and listen to her long repressed emotions. This screening took place in September 2012 at the Toronto International Film Festival with Q&A done through a translator. The film is in Farsi with English subtitles and was selected as the Afghan entry for the best foreign language film at the 85th Academy Awards in 2013. The film should open in mid-August in the DC metro area.


Director Atiq Rahimi in the center

Audience Question: Where did you get the idea for the novel and film?
Atiq Rahimi: In 2005 I had planned to attend a literary conference in Afghanistan but it was cancelled when one of the poets who helped organize the conference died. It turned out that her husband had killed her and then injected himself with gasoline but ended up in a coma. It made me think that if she had lived and if I were such a woman I would go to his bedside and tell him all the things I never could tell him while he was awake or alert. This was the basis on my novel then. Friends wanted me to make a play out of the novel but I felt that I wanted to make a film.

Audience Question: Where and how did you shoot the movie?
Atiq Rahimi: I had a wonderful cinematographer, Thierry Arbogast, and we used digital cameras. We shot most of the exterior scenes in Kabul, but the majority of the interior scenes were done in Casablanca, Morocco. The cockfight and most of the flashbacks to her childhood were also filmed in Afghanistan. So maybe about a third of the film was shot in Afghanistan. The other issue with filming in Afghanistan was that it requires technicians or technical specialists and there aren't many to hire there. Also there is the question of safety in shooting there. A crew of at least 50 staff would be difficult to maintain in safe and secure conditions. Also many people in Afghanistan had read my novels and if they had heard about the filming it would have created havoc. We decided on using a five-person crew to shoot with a small Canon digital camera, and justified the making of the film as a documentary about cockfighting, which is included in the film.

Audience Question: What can you tell us about the casting?
Atiq Rahimi: Luckily I found Golshifteh [Farahani], who is an accomplished young actress in Iran and has done at least 18 films and also theatre performances. I was looking for a young actress with some acting experience and with more naturalistic acting. Many times theatrical actors in Iran, India and Afghanistan tend to overly exaggerate their emotions and expressions which I wanted to avoid. I had two issues to confront in making the film: (1) How to do the adaptation from novel to film and also transfer it to the screen with cinematography, and (2) Who could play the female lead? At the beginning I was advised to make the film in English since an Afghani actress would never accept the role due to religious and political reasons. When I first saw Golshifteh, I was struck by her youth and beauty, but didn't immediately say yes I found my lead actress. In fact I was afraid that her beauty may mask or overload the true role or character of the film. I rehearsed with her and quickly was convinced that she was the actress I wanted. She was not only willing to rehearse but seemed to love it and still does.

Audience Question: How did Golshifteh prepare for the role?
Golshifteh Farahani: I felt lucky to do this film. I have acted in other films in Iran and have done quite a bit of theatre. I read his novel and what was so special when we went to Morocco and shot and rehearsed was that I had the writer who was also the director there and he has a wonderful way of translating or communicating feelings and emotions of this woman in the book and then into the film which made it easier. The character also transformed her manner of speaking from a more demure manner and speaking using her nose and head downward to later fully opening her mouth to speak with her new found freedom of speech. The dialog is outstanding but having him there to direct you also was special.

Audience Question: Which scene was the most challenging to do?
Atiq Rahimi: Like the novel the challenge was telling most of the story in the small confines of this room.

Audience Question: Why was the film shot in Farsi?
Atiq Rahimi: The actress I wanted was Iranian so it was simpler and she hopes that she can represent Afghani women as well. It would have been difficult to find an Afghani actress willing to do some of the scenes and it could involve their safety later. She also did training for nearly a year to learn to speak Farsi with an Afghani accent and to learn gestures used by Afghani women. I also noticed in looking at her roles in other Iranian films that she usually played roles of women without a great deal of complexity which my role demanded. In rehearsal I found that she could easily channel and express the complexity of character needed for this role. There is an mistaken perception that Afghani women were always subservient and undereducated because of the Taliban. This is not true. My mother and sister were in the Afghan government years ago. Pashtun women in southern Afghanistan where this film is based and the Taliban are still strong produce some great poetry.

Audience Question: How did you decide on the ending which could have gone in several directions?
Atiq Rahimi: I chose my ending and followed my book; you may have your own interpretations.

The Patience Stone is expected to open in the DC area in August.

The Act of Killing: Q&A with Director Joshua Oppenheimer

By Annette Graham, DC Film Society Member

[From the press notes]: In a country where killers are celebrated as heroes, the filmmakers challenge unrepentant death squad leaders to dramatize their role in genocide. The hallucinatory result is a cinematic fever dream, an unsettling journey deep into the imaginations of mass-­murderers and the shockingly banal regime of corruption and impunity they inhabit.

Medan, Indonesia. When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, Anwar Congo and his friends were promoted from small-­time gangsters who sold movie theatre tickets on the black market to death squad leaders. They helped the army kill more than one million alleged communists, ethnic Chinese, and intellectuals in less than a year. As the executioner for the most notorious death squad in his city, Anwar himself killed hundreds of people with his own hands. Today, Anwar is revered as a founding father of a right-­wing paramilitary organization that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so powerful that its leaders include government ministers, happy to boast about everything from corruption and election rigging to acts of genocide.

A screening of The Act of Killing (2012) took place on July 17 at Landmark's E Street Cinema. Director Joshua Oppenheimer was present after the screening for discussion with the audience, DC Film Society director Michael Kyrioglou moderated.

Michael Kyrioglou: I understand that the process of making this film took a long time.
Joshua Oppenheimer: I began this film in 2005. There was five years of shooting and 1200 hours of material, a three year edit. I began working in Indonesia before that, originally began working on the 1965-66 genocide in collaboration with a community of survivors. I was living in this village of survivors trying to document with my colleague Christine Cynn what had happened to them in 1965 but also the nature of impunity, the regime of impunity, fear and thuggery under which the survivors had been living ever since. Whenever I would film the survivors the police or military would come and stop us. They would take our equipment; they would take our tapes. It was essentially too dangerous to work in this community. It was frightening for us but especially for the survivors. So we regrouped. We went to Jakarta to meet with the broader Indonesian human rights community and said, "Is this too dangerous? Is this too sensitive?" Everybody said, "You're onto something terribly important. We need a film that exposes what happened but also the nature of the present day regime which is built on mass graves and based essentially on the celebration of atrocity as something heroic." And there was a sense that what was needed was not so much a film that would expose these issues to the rest of the world but rather to Indonesians themselves. A film that would work for Indonesians like the child in the Emperor's New Clothes pointing at the king, saying, "look the king is naked," pointing out fundamentally something that everybody knew but had been too afraid to articulate. But once said so powerfully by a movie or work of art, a space opens up for people to address problems that they know exist and need to talk about urgently but had not been able to quite articulate safely. So we talked about how we could proceed and one of the survivors with whom I had been most closely working said, "Josh, you've heard the perpetrators boast. Film them. When the audience sees their boasting they will understand why we're so afraid and they'll understand the nature of the regime under which we live." So I began filming every perpetrator I could find across the North Sumatran plantation belt--that's the plantation region outside Medan--worked my way across the region, up the chain of command to the city of Medan where I met Anwar Congo the main character in The Act of Killing beyond to army generals living in Jakarta. Everybody I met was open, boastful about what they had done. I began asking, "What did you do for a living?" And people would respond with these boastful grisy stories of killing. Often they would tell these stories in front of their grandchildren, their wives, their children. And then after telling me what they had done, they would offer to take me to the places where they had killed to show me how they had killed. I would accept these invitations because I understand these things were of world historical importance. After we arrived in the places where they killed, like that first scene of Anwar on the roof where he shows how he kills with wire, they would launch into these spontaneous demonstrations of killing and often complain afterwards that they hadn't thought to bring a weapon to use as a prop, or they would complain that they hadn't brought a friend to play a victim. And my questions, as I worked my way across the region, started to shift from what happened to why are they boasting, what is the nature of their boasting, for whom are they boasting, how do they think the world will hear this, how do they want their grandchildren to remember them when hearing these awful stories, how do they think I hear them, how do they think I see them, how do they want the world to see them, and how ultimately do they see themselves? So I started to take them up on their offers to re-enact. And I was able to be very open. I'd say, Look, you've participated in one of the biggest killings in human history, your whole society is based on it, your lives are shaped by it. I want to know what it means to you and to your society. You want to show me what you've done. So show me what you've done in what ever way you wish. I'll film the process, I'll film the re-enactments. We'll combine this material and create a new form of documentary that answers these questions: what these things mean to you, what they mean to your society, how you want to be seen, how you see yourselves. And Anwar was the 41st of these perpetrators I filmed and probably the 20th whom I was approaching with this very open explanation of what I was trying to do.

Michael Kyrioglou: Is he the most famous? Are there many with a high profile?
Joshua Oppenheimer: Anwar is not the most famous. Adi [Zulkadry] was equally famous. There was a whole level of a dozen perpetrators at that level in Medan who were famous and notorious. I think I lingered on Anwar because his pain was somehow close to the surface. When he takes me to the roof the very first time, that's the very first time I met him, and he shows how he killed with wire, he dances the cha-cha-cha afterwards. And I feel as though I've been entrusted by a whole community of survivors, the Indonesian human rights community, to expose a regime of impunity for Indonesians. So as I'm seeing him dance there I'm totally outraged. How can a man dance where he's killed 1,000 people. But I also was very upset by that shoot. I took him home and dropped him off at his house after we shot that and I completely broke down. I had filmed many perpetrators by that point but it was as though he was shadowed by what he had done, by his past and his past was present in a painful way that was horrifying to behold. In hindsight I don't think I understood this at the time, but in hindsight looking at the footage, it's clear he says he's a good dancer because he was going out drinking, dancing, taking drugs to forget what he did. So his conscience is actually present on that roof from the beginning and I think became the motor for his whole process, in fact him trying to run away from the meaning of what he did. Every re-enactment is another assertion that this does not mean what it means. You can't make a cowboy scene about killing somebody and actually acknowledge the meaning of what you have done. I was really possessed by what I had first filmed with him. I screened it back to him, desperate to know if he would recognize the meaning of what he did in the movie of the footage. He watched it and he looked very disturbed. I think he was very disturbed actually but he didn't dare say why he was disturbed because he had never been forced to. Normally perpetrators in documentaries deny what they've done or act apologetic. He wasn't doing that because he had never been forced to. So he desperately, like we all would, clings to the stories he had told himself to justify what he's done. He clings to the story that this was justified. So he celebrates and acts like it's okay. So he watches himself on the roof in that early scene, he looks very disturbed. I think he's disturbed but he doesn't dare say so, so what does he do? He displaces it onto his hair, his clothes, his acting. Already there again, the motor for the embellishment which evolved organically as you see in the film was somehow his conscience or him trying to run away from what he has done.

Audience Question: At end did he make himself sick from realizing what he did?
Joshua Oppenheimer: I think by the end of the film, his body is expressing a horror that his words... He's still speaking the same kind of words. He's speaking throughout the whole film, he's still trying to do what I asked him to do which is to show me what happened on the roof. He's totally blindsided, caught off guard. It's like he's trying to vomit up the ghosts that haunt him only to find that nothing comes up because what haunts him is his past--we are our past. So it's himself. He is the ghost.

Michael Kyrioglou: Are his reactions genuine? Or was he in a cinematic mode?
Joshua Oppenheimer: I think they are genuine. But I think we have a false notion of documentary, that we catch unadorned reality as it is, or it's staged, or it's faked. In reality I think that's a false understanding of how non-fiction film works. The filmmaking process provides an occasion for people to safely express things they wouldn't otherwise express, to show emotions they wouldn't otherwise show. I think that it is not genuine just before that when Anwar says, "Now I feel what my victims felt." That's totally insincere. And I call him on that because it felt false to me. But I think when we're on the roof and suddenly.. I asked him to go back there because I had only been there once with him and the first time I didn't know what happened and I wanted him to explain what happened there. Because I thought it could be useful and I asked him to do that and he's trying to do that. And suddenly this thing hits him from out of nowhere and I'm sure if he's thinking anything about it he's probably thinking, "Oh hopefully Josh can cut this part out and get the scene he needs." But I don't think it's in any sense fake.

Audience Question: You use the terms boasting and exaggeration. How are you certain they weren't using you to promote their own hubris? How consistant was that phenomenon?
Joshua Oppenheimer: Anwar was the 41st perpetrator I filmed. It was pretty consistent. But of course I was filming people who knew each other, who all had worked in the same office. I would always interview people separately first and ask them about each other so I could make sure they would corroborate each other's stories before they knew that I met the other, before they knew I was in dialogue with the other. I interviewed Anwar and Adi separately about each other first. The same with the journalist who later in the film pretends he doesn't know anything about it. Your reaction is totally valid but there can be another part of that, which is that it is horrible, that we would wish it weren't true, we would wish that they were lying. But the message of this film, if it had one simple message, is that everybody already knows everything. And I think you know they aren't lying, we all know that. Just like all Indonesians and particularly everybody in Medan more or less knows about these events. As you see in the street, nobody is saying, "What are you talking about, the massacre of the Communists? What are you talking about I should pretend?" One of the functions of that first scene is really to show that everybody already knows everything.

Audience Question: In our area people take part in Civil War re-enactments. Have you ever thought about the connection between the people who want to re-enact horrible things?
Joshua Oppenehimer: They all know it's horrible, but they're desperately clinging to the notion that it was okay. The lower ranking gangsters--the younger generation of paramilitary youth--their power as gangsters is fear. It's based on fear. That's their capital. The reason they are able to shake down people in a market is because people are afraid of them. So they're not trying to look good, they are trying to indulge in something horrific. But there's a way we play with fascination with the realm of evil somehow. The first perpetrators I filmed--two old men--took me down to a river bank where they acted out how they helped the army cut off 10,500 people's heads at this one spot. The fact of the 10,500 people being killed there was in some army notes that I found at the National Security Archive here at George Washington University. They showed me how they went about it and afterwards the older of the two pulled out a point and shoot camera and asked my sound recordist to take pictures of him and his fellow death squad member posing with the river flowing behind them. And they give the thumbs up and the V for victory while posing. That was in February 2004 before I met Anwar. I went back to London where I was living at the time, working my way through this very painful footage and in April 2004 photographs of American soldiers in Iraq giving the thumbs up and the V for victory while humiliating and torturing people appeared in the world's media. And the question to ask there is not so much what torture is this evidence of. Errol Morris pointed out that what those photographs document may not not be exactly what it appears to document. The question you must ask is: What moral and cultural bankruptcy is at play? What moral vacuum are we living in when the photographs with the two old men posing by the river or any number of reenactments in this film can be seen as happy memories, as images we would want to remember ourselves as by the perps involved? What does it tell us about us and now that we would want to remember ourselves posing in front of a river where we know we helped kill 10,000 people or posing with the thumbs up while torturing?
Audience: Those are two different things. One is memory and one is happening at the time. When you come back 30 years later you may not remember exactly how it went and you may have an interest in overstating what happened.
Joshua Oppenheimer: I asked people to corroborate what other people said, and intereview people separately. It's on the record that 10,500 people were killed on the spot. It's wise to look at The Act of Killing not as a portrait of a distant world, a distant place across the world as a case study when we build an upside down moral universe on the basis of atrocity where black is white and white is black. Not as a distant reality but rather as the dark underbelly of our own reality. I made this film in parallel with an evolving nightmare in my view in this country where we were celebrating torture in many parts of the political spectrum. Not just condoning it but actually defensively in the right wing talk shows celebrating it. I would say we have a whole Hollywood genre that evolved based on the celebration of genocide--it's called the Western. And I point out that everything we are wearing right now is haunted by the suffering of the people who make it for us. All of them are working in places where there has been mass violence, where perpetrators have won, where in their victory they've built regimes of fear that are so oppressive that the people who make everything we buy cannot effectively struggle to get the human cost of what we buy incorporated into the price we pay. In that sense we all depend on Anwar and his friends and the reality you see in The Act of Killing for our everyday living and I think that harms us. I'm not saying we are all personally guilty in the same sense that Anwar might be but we have one chance to exist on earth and it is a shame that we have that chance at the expense of others.

The Act of Killing opened on July 26.

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