The Messenger - BEHIND THE SCENES

"The Messenger"
BEHIND THE SCENES
by Tim Nasson
October 29, 2009

Watch "The Messenger" Trailer

IT STARTS WITH THE SCRIPT

Like so many memorable films, everything begins with the script. THE MESSENGER came together after Los Angeles-based producer Alessandro Camon (THE COOLER, THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, AMERICAN PSYCHO) suggested to Oren Moverman, that he write a screenplay about casualty notification officers. “No one was talking about that side of the war in 2005,” says Moverman. “Alessandro knew that I knew war. He knew I knew about casualties and notifications. He knew this subject made for instant drama. There was obviously something there.” Moverman asked Camon to write it with him, out of respect for his original idea and due to the fact that Camon, the son of writers, possessed the necessary creative mind to help bring the writing to fruition. Camon immediately agreed to the collaboration.

Both Camon, an Italian living in Los Angeles with his family, and Moverman, Israeli by birth, saw themselves as “foreign men looking to cry in a story about hurt and loss and love on the American home front,” in the words of Moverman, describing the initial goals for the project. “We developed a pitch that went from three pages to ten, discussing every aspect of the story, and then we pitched it around town.” Continues Moverman: “We got on the phone with a few production companies and they were all concerned — it sounded like a war movie! They were fearful. ‘Love the idea, hate losing money,’ went the typical reply.”

A PRODUCER STEPS IN

Co-producer Lawrence Inglee wasn’t afraid of the material after he received a treatment from Moverman and Camon outlining their basic elements for the film, which would remain constant during the production’s circuitous route from script to screen. While working with producer Mark Gordon (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, WONDER BOYS) Inglee brought THE MESSENGER to his colleague’s attention before bringing to the table Reason Pictures (now known simply as GOOD). GOOD paid for development and Zach Miller came on as producer with Inglee and Gordon.

“The subject matter of the film was, and is, controversial and from that point it was very harrowing to try and obtain financing for the movie,” explains Inglee. “The spate of films about Iraq haven’t done well in the marketplace — people haven’t gone to see them. The idea that this trio of producers was trying to make a film that was related to the Iraq war seemed crazy to every studio and financier in Hollywood. In this initial phase, THE MESSENGER its was developed over the course of two years and went through a series of director attachments, including Roger Michell (NOTTING HILL, ENDURING LOVE, VENUS) , Ben Affleck (GONE BABY GONE) and Sydney Pollack.

Moverman and Camon, meanwhile, wrote the script quickly and efficiently, “playing bi-coastal ping-pong with it,” as Moverman describes the pair’s working method. “We had the same goal and the same vision” the director and co-writer admits. “We were shining a light on the people who lived with the consequences of war and telling just a few stories out of thousands.” They were working on a non-political war movie about the politics of getting back to life after combat. They aimed for a universal story, one that wasn’t solely about grief and how to overcome it, but how to transcend that grief into love and friendship.

A DIRECTOR IS HIRED (FROM WITHIN)

Moverman was about to leave for Berlin to direct a feature film that suddenly fell apart three days before shooting, leaving him open for another directorial assignment. After initially refusing the offer to direct THE MESSENGER, insisting that an established director make the film, Moverman agreed to take the helm of his own screenplay. “I wanted a great humanist to make this movie — I thought it was too important in terms of its subject matter to give to a first-timer like myself,” Moverman confesses. “But Lawrence Inglee told me to shut up and just do it, so I accepted the job. Writing for me is putting the film on paper but directing is putting it on film — it has the same concerns, the same issues and the same problems as the writing process, only a different set of limitations. And more people standing around checking their watches.”

THE CAST ASSEMBLES

When it came time to cast the film Moverman sought the expertise of casting director Laura Rosenthal (WHATEVER WORKS, THE HOAX, DEAD MAN), who put several gifted actors in front of him for auditions, several of whom responded enthusiastically to the script. “It wasn’t the military angle or the love story or even the narrative,” Moverman explains. “It was the emotion. The actors felt it. They identified with it. They shared their own private stories. It was all there from the beginning.”

After watching the remake of the classic Western 3:10 TO YUMA, and marveling at Ben Foster’s ability to convey warmth and charisma even while playing a villain, Moverman arranged to meet with the rising young star in downtown Manhattan. “I knew he was my guy from the moment he sat down,” Moverman recounts. “He was underdressed on a cold December day with just a thin leather jacket over a white t-shirt and jeans. He ordered Irish coffee and looked me in the eye with such seriousness and humor — I knew that Ben could not only inhabit the character of Staff Sargeant Will Montgomery, but he could also make him anew.” Director and star spent six hours drinking and shook on the collaboration later that same week.

Moverman worked with Foster for several weeks developing the character of Will Montgomery before shooting started in New Jersey. “We’d sit with the script and go over every line,” Moverman remembers. “What made me realize that Ben was going to be great was when he’d tell me ‘I don’t need to say that, give it to Woody, it’s a great line.’ I knew he was searching for something for himself, so that he could be true to this character and not worry about anything else.”

Moverman praises Foster as one of the few young actors of his generation who does not strive to remain a boy in a man’s body. Instead he is a real man, fascinated with exploring the darker corners of life. “There is a maturity and longing to his acting that is so layered,” Moverman says. “It’s sympathetic but it’s also challenging. You can see the drive in Ben to achieve wholeness, which is precisely what Will Montgomery is trying to do.”

But who is Will Montgomery and what does the casualty notification process represent to a wounded and scarred young man returning home from unseen combat horrors? Moverman likens Will to someone in limbo, suspended between normal, everyday life and the hell survived in Iraq by the young soldier. “Casualty notification is a constant reminder to Will that he has to choose to keep living or be done with,” insists Moverman. “Ironically this makes him stronger. He’s able to get back to living through the help of his commanding officer and one of the widows he notifies. He’s not the kind of character who has become cynical or bitter because of the war. On the contrary, he’s looking for a reason to live after surviving that war.”

It is Moverman’s belief that it’s simple to play a soldier if you’re a good actor. But it takes an actor’s keen intuition to bring to life a character as intense and yearning as Will Montgomery’s. Foster went above and beyond the call of duty for this movie, elevating the character to an altogether rare humanity. Adds Moverman, himself a combat veteran after serving as an Israeli soldier in Lebanon during the first Intifada: “You wear the uniform and you feel it — it makes you feel powerful, strong and special. I think Ben felt this immediately. He found a way to think like someone in the service. But then he had to do the opposite: take a guy who had lived inside a very ordered universe and then break people’s hearts. It’s probably the hardest thing to do in the military — harder even than going to war. You have to confront death in an entirely different way and bring it to these families.”

Foster, whose on-screen intensity in Alan Ball’s SIX FEET UNDER and Nick Cassavetes ALPHA DOG, among other films, has already garnered him accolades as one of the finest young actors of his generation. Approaching the role of Will Montgomery and not knowing much about Moverman’s intentions — that the script was from the writer of JESUS’ SON and I’M NOT THERE was enough for Foster, himself a fan of both Moverman scripts. After Foster signed on, Moverman arranged to take him and co-star Woody Harrelson to the Walter Reade Hospital in Washington, D.C. in order to prepare for their dual roles as casualty notification officers.

REHEARSAL

Military adviser Paul Sinor accompanied the trio around the Walter Reade facility, introducing them to veterans, doctors, casualty notification and casualty assistance officers — and of course returning soldiers, some of whom were grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder after having lost limbs in combat. One soldier in particular was named Will. Recalls Moverman: “This guy was suffering from head trauma. One of his legs had been left behind in the Middle East and the other was barely hanging on to what remained. Ben kneeled down and spoke softly with him and they bonded immediately. Will told us that he wouldn’t see our movie unless the characters depicted were believable as soldiers.” Foster and Harrelson knew then and there that they had their work cut out for them. Foster even insisted on the spot that his character’s name — which was Derek in earlier drafts — be changed to the more poignant and sobering Will.

Foster was devastated both during and after the hospital visit. “The reality of it hit me so fiercely,” admits a rising talent already infamous for his intense, go-for-broke performances. “Whatever political view you hold about war, loss is loss.” He describes walking into one room at Walter Reade and discovering a board filled with names — something the visitors later discovered they were not meant to see as part of their tour. “We saw names and places marked in red as PENDING — name after name,” Foster explains. “Anyone who has died while in service gets thrown up on the board and ‘pending’ means the family hasn’t been informed that their loved one has died. That’s when the reality of the situation hit home — we were sitting in this room play-acting, researching for this picture, and it’s someone’s job to locate the next of kin. That was sobering to say the least.”

Woody Harrelson was offered the part of the volatile Captain Stone after meeting with Moverman at a vegetarian restaurant in Lower Manhattan. “He was both funny and tragic,” Moverman recalls of the meeting. “He was Tony, I couldn’t argue with that. He even ate off my plate. He looked me in the eye three times over the course of our two-hour dinner — I guess he was figuring me out. Then he pounced. And I was game. He told me he was going to cry for real on film for the first time in his career.”

For Harrelson’s part, the trip to Walter Reade left the alumnus of NATURAL BORN KILLERS deeply affected, despite having mixed feelings about the Iraq war. “I’m an outspoken peace activist,” Harrelson admits. “I won’t say I’m anti-war because I prefer to couch it in positive terms — I’m pro-peace.” But one can be opposed to the war and at the same time grow to love the warrior, which is what the actor experienced while preparing for the role, especially during the hospital visit. “We met a bunch of vets there who had come home injured with missing limbs and so forth,” continues Harrelson. “It opened up my heart to meet these incredible people, these warriors, who are getting very little pay for putting their lives on the line for their country. I developed profound respect for them.”

Harrelson had no idea what to expect in terms of casualty notification other than his conversations with several Army officials, who admitted it was the toughest job in the military. “I tend to be one who can keep his emotions in check fairly easily and in fact I almost never cry,” Harrelson concedes. But from the first of six notifications delivered with co-star Foster over the course of the film, Harrelson knew it was an unforgettable experience. Continues Harrelson: “Somehow my imagination latched hold of the reality of the situation and it became this incredible emotional journey through the delivery of all six casualty notifications — I can’t remember being so deeply affected by a role.”

In terms of working with co-star Foster, Harrelson was aware of the young actor’s talents and had even spoken briefly with his future co-star during a meeting with Sean Penn some months earlier. But there was no no prior contact until both roles had been cast during the pre-production phase. It wasn’t until Moverman and Foster met Harrelson at New York City’s Penn Station for the train journey to Washington D.C.’s Walter Reade Hospital that the two co-stars could finally get to know one another. “Ben’s a very intense guy with a twisted sense of humor, which I love,” Harrelson recalls of the first meeting with co-star on the train. “I found him to be incredibly articulate and smart and we got along great from the beginning. When we started working together on set it suddenly hit me that this guy could probably go on to win prizes for his work in this film.”

Foster in the role of Sergeant Montgomery saw his on-screen relationship with Harrelson’s gruff, tee-totaling Colonel Tony Stone as something akin to love at first sight — at its heart, THE MESSENGER is also an unexpected love story between two men, albeit a platonic one. “There’s that terrible word,” Foster volunteers. “It was a full-fledge bromance with Woody! I wish there was a better word for it. It’s tricky material because the script that Oren co-wrote is so human; it would have been easy to get overly precious (in developing the on-screen bond between Will and Tony). Oren kept pushing us away from that while at the same time encouraging Tony’s manic energy, which is a very specific kind of energy coming from Woody. As an actor, he’s just so full of life.”

Moverman already knew Samantha Morton from her critically lauded work in Alison MacLean’s JESUS’ SON, which he scripted from the short story volume by Denis Johnson. “There’s no one else like her,” Moverman admits of the U.K.-born talent. “She’s an actor’s actor and she is sublime. She goes in deeper than anyone and comes out smiling. Her brother was in Iraq during production on the film, she had just had a baby and even breast-fed on the set. She made everyone fall in love with her. And she had so much on-screen chemistry with Ben that I could see, for the first time, how easily we could have made it into the forbidden love story that Sydney Pollack originally suggested.”

A STRONG SUPPORTER

Before the shoot began a copy of the script was submitted to the U.S. Army, which became interested in the project — much to the surprise of the filmmakers, who were initially wary of seeking official military approval. “We never expected the Army to support the film,” co-producer Inglee admits. “We were so nervous about showing it to them the first time. We wanted to get the story just right, because everyone is afraid of death anyway. This was about what happens when you go to war — you could die, and the people who love you could be left without you.” But Army officials saw it as an honorable film, appreciative and respectful of the fact that it was the first movie of the Iraq crop to be directed by someone who had actually been to war as a soldier. “They also liked the fact that the hero didn’t bed the widow,” Moverman adds.

Authentic texture was added to the project in the form of invitations sent by the filmmakers to Iraq war veterans, who visited the set during production and even became involved in the filmmaking process itself. “For most people in our country this type of character is an abstraction,” Inglee explains. “Just having similar veterans on our set, shooting our photographs and talking to us every day, was a major plus. What didn’t come into the film just on the basis of hard facts instead came in on an almost spiritual level with the participation of actual veterans — it would not have been the same without them.”

THE CREW

THE MESSENGER filmed for 28 days in New Jersey under director of photography Bobby Bukowski (ARLINGTON ROAD, THE DYING GAUL,), with whom Moverman watched several films together in preparation for the shoot, including the Mayles’ Brothers SALESMAN, key works by the Belgian filmmaker brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, not to mention such ‘70s classics as BOUND FOR GLORY, M*A*S*H, THE LONG GOODBYE and COMING HOME. “We decided on a stylized naturalism,” Moverman admits. “Nothing flashy — we wanted the film to look like Todd Hido photographs by way of documentary film,” in reference to the San Francisco Bay Area photography maverick who specializes in shadowy and meticulously lit suburban exteriors that exude a casual, disturbingly mundane feeling of malevolence, as though horrible revelations were lurking around every corner.

AND... FINALLY!

“This film is not about casualties of war, really,” adds Moverman. “It’s more concerned with the people left behind who have to deal with life after the casualties of war have gone away. THE MESSENGER may say a thing or two about war, but ultimately it’s about the desire to live; to let life into the darkness and to laugh, even. It shows that there are people who have to deal with war in a way that is not strategic or political, but personal.”

“This war that has no end in sight — how you address something like an unjust war as an artist is a tricky thing,” Harrelson concludes. “You can come right out and say how wrong the war is. But what about the people involved in the war, over here and over there? They deserve our support. That’s the great line that this movie crosses. It supports the soldiers wholeheartedly. I tip my hat to the Army for getting behind it and encouraging people to see it rather than trying to sweep it under the rug.”