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Bruce Greenwood, Roger Donaldson and Steven Culp | Bruce fields questions |
February l3, 2001 Bruce Greenwood, Steven Culp, Roger Donaldson and Peter Almond made a special appeance at The Berlin Film Festival where their highly regarded film Thirteen Days was featured as an out-of-competition screening. The press conference that followed was broadcast in a live webcast with German voice overs that can be viewed but not downloaded on the festival's website. A full transcript of the questions & answers for Bruce can be found here within the internet interviews directory:
Berlin Film Festival Website
The Official 2001 Berlin Film Festival Photo
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Bruce fielding questions at the press conference with Roger Donaldson and Steven Culp / all photos by en | ||||||
Thirteen Days Personal Appearances Additional Pictures |
By Adam TannerBERLIN (Reuters) - The makers of ``Thirteen Days,'' a dramatization of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, defended the film Tuesday against criticism that it grossly exaggerated the role of one of President John F. Kennedy's aides.
The film, which premiered outside the United States at the Berlin film festival Tuesday, chronicled how Kennedy and his top advisers struggled to avoid war in forcing the Soviet Union to remove nuclear missiles from Cuba.
Much of the film focuses on what is portrayed as a key role of Kennedy family friend and assistant to the president, Kenny O'Donnell, played by Kevin Costner.
Leading histories of the crisis, which ended when Moscow agreed to withdraw the missiles, say O'Donnell in reality played a minor role.
``For me as a film director he was a way to get into the story, to be the everyman of the story,'' director Roger Donaldson told a news conference.
``He had a long-standing relationship with these guys, he was the de facto chief of staff in the White House, he did have the president's ear.''
It is ``a story that is about the big issues,'' he continued.
``The big issues are not who said what, the big issues are was there this conflict between the military and the elected officials about what action should be taken?,'' said Donaldson.
``Was there in this confrontation with the Soviet Union over these missiles that had been put into Cuba things that went wrong or things that could go wrong or was there human betrayal?''
Accusations Of Massaging History Hollywood has long massaged real life events for dramatic purpose. Oliver Stone faced criticism for his 1991 film ``JFK,'' also starring Costner, which presented a conspiracy theory on Kennedy's assassination as fact.
``Kenny was an admirable man, but he had nothing to do the Cuban missile crisis,'' the Boston Globe cited historian and Kennedy aide Arthur Schlessinger Jr. as saying of O'Donnell.
Despite the liberties with the real story, many film critics as well as surviving White House officials from the time have praised Thirteen Days, saying it effectively portrays the dilemmas in a crisis.
Other films have dealt with the topic before -- including the 1973 film ``Missiles of October'' -- but Thirteen Days is especially effective in recreating the policymaking discussions in the White House as well as the muscle of jets and aircraft carriers in the field.
Yet it ignores the Russian half of the decision making, and there are no scenes of Soviet leader Nikita Khruschchev pondering his next moves.
``In leaving them out we show the story as the Americans saw it,'' Donaldson said. ``They didn't know what was going on. They were working in a vacuum.''
``I wanted to show the isolation they were working in,'' he added. ``I think that adds to the tension.''
Along with good reviews, the movie has attracted some high level attention.
Two weeks ago, the present occupant of the White House, George Bush, watched the film, as did the Russian-American crew on the International Space Station last week.
http://movies.yahoo.com/hv/news/va/story.html?s=movies/news/va/20010214/098219065500.fn
