World Trade Center - Oliver Stone interview
Compiled by Jack Foley
OLIVER Stone talks about the challenge of making a movie about 9/11 and why he wanted to tackle the subject as a filmmaker.
Q. You’ve received some of the best reviews of your career from American critics for this movie, haven’t you? Was that a surprise?
A. They couldn’t find Alexander’s wig or sexuality in this movie, so I think we’ve dodged the bullet, and I mean closely because it was a minefield that could have blown up in our face. We had political considerations in New York, I think the producers spent hours and hours having dozens of meetings with all kinds of groups – widows groups and political groups.
We shot in New York but there were many limitations. And then, of course, technically we depended on Will [Jimeno] and John [McLoughlin] and the rescuers for very complicated technical advice. Building these sets was extremely complicated. We had to make our sets seamless with the collapsed computer imagery that we used.
Q. 9/11 was said to have ‘looked just like a movie’ – how do you go about recreating that?
A. I remember that on the day itself, all that TV imagery. I’m old enough to have lived through the Kennedy assassination too, so I’m familiar with the television techniques. They were even comparing it to a Jerry Bruckheimer movie on that day, which is precisely what we didn’t want to do.
I’m sure there could be a Towering Inferno made out of this and they could make a hell of an exciting movie, I’m sure. It would probably be a big popcorn movie. But the beauty of this, and the originality of it, was that it was apolitical, a microscosmic story. Going into Noah’s Ark with the whole human race getting sucked down and then out of the belly of the whale so to speak, these two are spat back.
Only 20 survivors is a very amazing ratio. And these two had a coherent story. It was a chance to do something that’s very rare. As an artefact of history these two men are very special, as are their watch.
Q. Can you talk about the importance of the female characters in the film?
A. I always thought that Andrea did a great job of starting this process, of creating four characters who don’t really spend that much time together in the film – they’re all in different quadrants. But I feel like they were all equal. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello are equally strong as Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena. Each one carries that section of the movie for me. I was lucky to find these actresses, they’re very talented.
Maggie’s very new, Maria’s unknown but she’s been around for a long time. She’s coming into her due. Above all, I think we worked with Andrea on the idea of looking for those moments, those familiar, almost banal moments in a domestic relationship which we overlook. That feeling when you don’t have your spouse coming home, the little things that you do whether it’s smelling the sheets or doing his blue jeans….. those moments make you realise that we take so much for granted. It was, for me, a process of discovery and I very much went that way.
Q. How did you go about finding the right balance between those who survived and those who died?
A. I honestly think the feelings of the 20 survivors are somewhat covered by the feelings of these two survivors and their wives. And at the same time I do feel that those who are dead are honoured by these feelings, because it’s a way of remembering them in a positive way. This is a memorial and the function of a memorial is to remember. Believe it or not in America, many people have already forgotten 9/11. They’re living with the consequences of it, which are nightmarish. But that day itself, and the raw feelings of that day, they ought to put up a memorial at that place. I hope this will be another form of memorial.
Q. Do you have any particular rituals for dealing with the trauma of these events yourself?
A. I’ve never been asked that question. I have my own spiritual practices, I have a support system around me for a film. I’m not superstitious in that sense, but I do believe in good planning. I have a good First Assistant director and a good Director of Photography and that’s my inner core with my producer. We plan, plan, plan and always try to have a fallback position for the day. We try to achieve so much every day and we go in knowing that we may be defeated, so it’s important to have a Plan B.
Q. Is it true that you became unexpectedly ill at the end of the film?
A. I had an allergy condition in my lungs that set in – the director does not have the luxury of wearing a mask because he has to talk all day. So I was sucking in a lot of smoke, it was non-toxic smoke, but there was a lot of rubble and debris. It was an ugly situation. But it did raise the question of the lung situation of the rescuers.
Q. Did you find turning 60 to be a milestone?
A. Actually, I’m very proud of turning 60. I think the Asians are right – the older you get the better. I think that age should be more respected in this community, in this world. There’s too much emphasis on beauty and youth.
Q. Was it time to take stock of your own life then?
A. I’m going to concentrate on my beauty and youth. And of course I’m going to take the anti-ageing stuff . I hope to look like this at 90! [Laughs] No, what I’m saying is that it’s good to age, and it’s good to age – hopefully – with health, because I’m really enjoying the overview. I feel like I know much more because I’ve experienced much more and I’m coming to terms with my experience.
Q. With the benefit of your wisdom what might you do differently in the future?
A. Avoid some of the excesses of my youth. But not abandon them entirely. There’s a line in The Doors actually, based on the Blake poem: “The road of excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom.”
Q. Do you think your own combat experience gave you an insight into the experience of Will and John?
A. I believe it did. I believe that it’s been noted in my work in the past that I’ve been interested in death states and I think in this movie it was a chance to really talk to two men who had been as close to death as most men have ever been in their lives. What brings them back? What is the thing that connects them to the Earth? I choose to believe, and I may be dead wrong, but I think they survived because of metaphysical reasons, not only physical reasons. I think there’s an inner life going on, I think the brain works a certain way. John had beliefs in family and a faith, and Will was similar, and their helping each other contributed to it. The mind is what kept them alive.
Q. Do you think more films should begin to address the consequences of 9/11?
A. I think that’s happening, there’s work going on all the time all over the world. It’s hard for us, we’re dramatists, to be journalists. We just can’t chase the news. Every year since 2001 there’s been another couple of books describing what really went on in the Iraq planning, in the war on terror, in the constitutional infringements that we see.
For the JFK film, it was 30 years [later], there was the body of work of maybe 20 researchers, private citizens who had done all that work on Kennedy. That’s what made that film possible. Every year I’ve learnt something new. But it’s time, soon, to address this situation.
Hopefully, a film will do so before the 2008 election, in the way that Michael Moore’s film addressed the national security fear. We’re in a hurry, there’s not much time.
Q. What was your own memory of 9/11 itself?
A. That’s a boring answer. I was simply in bed, asleep in Los Angeles. My wife woke me up and put the TV on.
Q. Were you watching in horror?
A. Yes and no. I knew what was going on. You do keep some perspective at my age. I’ve been through the JFK assassination on television, Vietnam, Watergate, the Oklahoma bombing, the 2000 election was a bad one – that was a nightmare.
When this thing happened, I really feel strongly that if the President had had a little more sense of history and had been a little bit more mature – an Eisenhower, a Roosevelt or even a Kennedy – there would have been a more moderated response to this and we wouldn’t have lost our head, in a sense, as a nation.
Read our interview with Will Jimeno