Harry here, check out this huge interview that Chadwell did with Randall Wallace and man... This'll chime you in on everything concerning WE WERE SOLDIERS. Well, I've got to get to bed, Oscar Noms in the morning.... Adios... enjoy....
"We Were Soldiers"
A Spiritual Journey of a Lost War ©
By John Chadwell
This was the second time I've had a chance to talk to Randall Wallace. The first was before the release of "Pearl Harbor," which he wrote. In March, his newest project, "We Were Soldiers," which is based on the book "We Were Soldiers Once... And Young," by retired Lt. General Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway, will be released. With a slew of World War II-related films still in the pipeline, it struck me as pretty amazing that any studio would seriously consider being involved in another war film, particularly one based on a little-known battle in the opening days of the Vietnam War.
I had just seen "Black Hawk Down," which I felt was extremely well done and had a remote sense of connection since I was still in the military when the actual event took place. But Vietnam has had a particularly long-lasting affect on me. I served three tours aboard a Navy ship, taking part in numerous amphibious operations early on in the war and saw some of the ravages of the fighting on the men who served in-country aboard the hospital ship USS Repose. In 1968, I came home to a greeting similar to the one depicted in the film -- I was invisible. One day I am in a plane full of metal coffins and a deranged soldier still covered with the muck and blood of the battlefield. The next, I'm stateside and it's as if there is no awareness of what is happening in Vietnam. In the months and years that went by, no one ever asked me about Vietnam. It was like they didn't want to know. Now they will know, thanks to Randall Wallace and his effort to bring "We Were Soldiers" to the screen.
I had the opportunity to see the film at a screening at Paramount Studios. Randall was there to talk to us beforehand. I only wish every moviegoer had the same chance to hear him talk about his motivation for making this film. It was a very personal journey for him that began when he went into a bookstore to buy some "light reading" before heading to the airport to catch a plane. He noticed the book "We Were Soldiers Once... and Young." That was eight years ago.
You said General Moore and Galloway had turned down others for the rights to the book. What did they tell you was the reason they decided to go with you?
I told them that they had never heard of me or my work (this was before the release of Braveheart). I would send them copies of two scripts to show them the kind of work I did and what I believed in and what my values were. I wanted to show them that I approached my life and my work with the same point of view as they approached theirs. It was a sense of kindred spirits more than it was anything else.
They could tell that just from reading the scripts?
I think it was from the way I approached them and the scripts that I sent them. They can give a better answer than I can. But Joe would tell you a story that he asked if I believed in heroes. I said I do, but that, in and of itself, does not explain it all. Most everybody can say they believe in heroes. I think Joe was describing the sense of what I believe a hero is. Not someone who is unafraid. Not someone who is bigger or tougher than everyone else, but someone who has character, qualities that we all share, but who affirms those.
Why do you think it was important to do this project?
I got involved with this project in the same way that I get involved with everything else, which is it moved me. It was something that spoke to my soul, and something I believed in. It was a challenge. It was dangerous to do.
It wasn't politically correct in Hollywood, I wouldn't think.
Certainly not. But it was like picking up a flag that had fallen, but a flag I believed in. I didn't get involved in an intellectual way. I got involved because I was stirred.
Was it more spiritual?
I was captivated by the power of the story. I want to be careful how I describe my spiritual sense of things. To me, something spiritual is a combination of your physical, emotional and mental being. It's the unity of things. This story had all of that. It had powerful emotions, physical drama, and it also had lasting meaning. Beyond that, it had a sense of justice about it that these men -- I've been thinking about this lately -- now, in the wake of September 11, America uses the word hero to apply to almost everyone who had anything to do with that date. There are certainly many heroes, but we use the word readily. But the men in this unit who went in 1965, to fight communism in Vietnam, believed as much that they were fighting evil as the soldiers who went to Afghanistan this year. Yet, the men who came back from Vietnam in 1965, were treated as villains. There is a sense to me that there was injustice.
I came back in 1968, and know exactly what it felt like. The airport scene brought back disturbing memories.
To me, one of the most resonant parts of the film is to see those two guys get back home, one in a wheelchair with half his brain gone, and nobody meets them. No one salutes them. No one respects them. How different is that from now when you consider what the men who went to Vietnam gave. Did every one of them take a machine gun nest? Of course not. But what they went through was patriotic and in the service of their country.
How did you convince the studio to go for it being that this was Vietnam and not World War II?
I did not go through the studio process. I invested my own money. I did not go and ask the studio to buy the project for me. Going back to your previous question of how did I convince Joe and Hal. I think what I said to them was that I'm going to put my own money into this. They understood completely that I was talking about making my own commitment, not someone else's. I was putting myself on the line and they recognized and appreciated the implications of that. The benefits of that not only helped me bring them onboard, it also helped me dealing with the studio because I had the project and put together a deal with Mel Gibson and his company. Once I had the project, and I had Mel and his company, the studio just fell in line.
You were going with Revolution Studios at first, weren't you?
I'm sure it's not intentional misquoting, it's just a lack of understanding of the nuances of the business. It has been reported that Revolution had optioned the picture. That's not true. I had the rights and had had a wonderful experience with Joe Roth and the way he did business on "Pearl Harbor." I went to Joe and told him I had this project. I let him read the script and he said he was interested and wanted to make the movie. We began to discuss who I wanted to do the movie with, whether it would be Mel or someone else. Once Mel came onboard, Revolution was not able to make a deal with Mel's company. Therefore, I was free to go anywhere I wanted because I controlled the project, not Revolution. I did not develop the project there. Revolution had never put a dime into the project. It was all mine, so there was no argument about me being able to go wherever I wanted to go. I like those guys there a great deal. I was not aware of their involvement with a somewhat similar picture called "Black Hawk Down" at that particular time.
I believe you once said something to the affect that "I hate war but love the soldiers." Where does that emotion come from?
That sentiment comes from Hal Moore. I don't know if it's strictly true about Hal hating war in that he has been trained his whole life to deal with it. When I heard Hal say that, I felt that that certainly expressed my feelings. War is a human tragedy, but like every tragedy there are those individuals who rise through it to affirm something lasting. It is those people who rise up to affirm loyalty and sacrifice that I love.
You did say once that you had thought of going into the military as a chaplain, so these feelings must go back beyond this project. It seems to me, you must have felt this way for quite some time.
My own personal progression about all this is, I went to Duke University in the late 60s. In my freshman year, I had decided I was going to join the platoon leader corps, which was a Marine Corps program in which you would enlist and do ROTC during the summer, Then when you graduated, you would be commissioned a second lieutenant and would be a platoon leader. I had the papers, I had discussed it with my father, he was in agreement with it, and I was ready to go. Along about that time, the My Lai Massacre happened and I began to rethink about it. It all came down to a cab ride. I had a friend whose father was a general. He had told me about the platoon leader corps, and he was going in, as well. We were on our way to a movie and the cab driver was recently back from Vietnam. We asked him what was the best way to go to Vietnam. He said the Air Force because they have the best duty at the best locations. We asked what else. He said, Navy. We said we weren't sailors. He didn‚t realize we were fishing for something, but he started to at this point. He said if you got to go into the Army, you've got to go. We said we were going to be second lieutenants in the Marines. The guy stopped the cab and looked around at us and said, "Boys let me tell you something. The number one death rate in Vietnam is Marine second lieutenants. And it‚s not the Vietnamese who kill them." Whether that was accurate or not, it was certainly a powerful indication that this was not the war that we had taken it to be. I would have been a second lieutenant in 1971, had I gone through this. This was no longer the Confederate cavalry at the gates of Richmond, guarding the southern women from Yankee rape. This was a different war. We began thinking about My Lai and all the other things happening. I was a religion major and planned to go into the seminary. I decided that maybe I wasn't going to be a platoon leader, but I owed my country service and I identified with the guys who were going. So I thought I should go as a chaplain. The war seemed to be dragging on forever and I thought I'd do that. But the war started to wind down about the time I graduated and, ultimately, I decided I wasn't going to be a minister, so I never had to make that decision.
What was your relationship like with Moore and Galloway as you worked on the script?
I have two things to say about that. In a general way, they have been one of the great likes of my life and career because they're inspirational. I started writing the script and then got the opportunity, unexpectedly, to direct [Man in the Iron Mask]. I'd been preparing to direct. Doing all my planning, but the "Man in the Iron Mask" opportunity opened up and I called and told them, me directing this film is going to set back some of my time table for when I might be able to direct "We Were Soldiers." I don't want to hand this project over to someone else to direct. I want to do it myself. But as my very first film project it will be difficult. There's a great deal I need to know, need to experience. For me to delay the possible timetable, because no one knows when I'll actually be able to pull together the financing for "We Were Soldiers." If I go and direct this other film, it could conceivably set back the timetable for me directing "We Were Soldiers." In the long run, it would help a great deal because I'll have the experience. They both understood that. But I went to France to begin to direct „The Man in the Iron Mask," and during that process, I would write e-mails to General Moore and describe issues that I had in handling the set. I had an extremely difficult situation in front of me. I and one other person were the only Americans on the project. Then we had English managers and French crewmen. It was like we had American generals, English officers and French foot soldiers.
Like Pershing during World War I.
Exactly. It was a very difficult situation and I'd write Hal and describe what was going on and ask for his advice and how to handle certain issues. We really developed a wonderful relationship through that practical way. He continued throughout the process of the film to inspire everyone. Hal would write letters to me and ask me to convey something to the entire crew. In one case, I had the letter copied and put it in the pay packets of everyone involved with the film so they would get a message from Hal. It would inspire them all during the making of the film. I ruptured my Achilles' tendon and I got an ecstatic e-mail from Hal. I'd been in the hospital until about three in the morning and I was back directing on crutches the next day at 5:30 a.m. Hal heard about this and he wrote me "I hear you've been wounded in action and refused to be medivaced."
In a specific way, I would have to say they were respectful and fairly hands off when it came to the actual writing of the script. They would raise issues and point out technical problems that did not fit with the way the military operated. How a unit would move in or what the commands would be; how they would be stated. The specific words. They did not make any extensive commentary about my approach to the material. For one thing, I think they respected the fact that it was my battlefield and I had to make a movie, and I was the filmmaker. I think they thought I was getting it correctly. The other thing, though, the book was a collection of anecdotes and my job was to forma a narrative that conveyed the essence of that battle and captured the characters. That was a formidable job. They wanted me to make those decisions. They had written the book and it stood for everything they wanted to say. I had to be the one to decide how to take the book and form it into a movie. For example, I decided to focus on LZ X-Ray and not to discuss LZ Albany. The reason for that is it‚s two different sets of characters. I felt the story of LZ Albany had been told before in terms of other stories about confusion and divided leadership, and a tragic and somewhat pointless loss of life. Whereas, LZ X-Ray was a story of a Vietnam we didn't know -- inspired leadership, a group of soldiers who had trained together a long time before going, and the families back home. They left those decisions to me.
From a writing process and emotional sense, how was this project different from "Pearl Harbor" and "Braveheart?"
With Braveheart, I was essentially recreating the legend. There was almost nothing known about William Wallace. His legend as it existed among the Scotts is what inspired me. I felt freer to create than any of the other projects. In "Pearl Harbor," I had an event around which I created fictional characters. For this story, I could not create events, nor could I create characters. Not only because many of the people are still alive, but also because I felt that these soldiers -- soldiers are always betrayed by politics -- I could not allow them to be betrayed one more time through an accusation that I had let politics shape the story. I wanted to keep political questions out of this and say unambiguously this is what these men did, and I am not choosing events or interpreting events because of my own politics or anyone else's. This is not a political movie. Therefore, I had to be extremely accurate about events and careful how I told them. Beyond that, there was the personal sensitivity of what I chose to include in the story. There were extraordinary acts of individual courage covered in the book that had occurred during the battle. But if they did not support the narrative strand, I had to only indicate those acts as part of the overall heroism that people portrayed. There were four winners of the Medal of Honor involved in the battle. Three at the time and one of the pilots [Ed "Too Tall" Freeman] was recently upgraded. Yet these specific acts that won those medals, I did not portray mainly because they were individual incidents. I was trying to create a shape of the entire battle. I feel that anyone can look at this and know that individual acts of heroism occurred. But I had to describe the battle in a way that made what was really a confusing and desperate incident, comprehensible even to the non-soldier.
Did you meet with the families prior to beginning filming?
Yes, I did talk to the families. Not only to the families, but to Joe and Hal a great deal. Many of the powerful moments in the movie were not specifically in the book. One, for example, is the story of Joe Galloway's great grandfathers and how they met. That story is true, but it's not in the book. I learned that from talking with him. One of the most powerful relationships in this whole process for me has been getting to know Barbara Geoghegan, the wife of Jack Geoghegan. Their story was so beautiful and so heartfelt and inspiring. This young couple who had been to Africa to build orphanages as part of the Catholic Relief Services and who where spiritual, committed and a beautiful young couple. This idealistic, young lieutenant goes to Vietnam. I identified with him and I got to know Barbara, and her story was so inspiring and moved me so greatly that I knew I had to use that character because he and she represented something that I profoundly relate to. Talking with all of them made this movie much richer.
Did you feel you owed the families anything beyond just getting the story right?
That's an excellent question about simply telling their story. If I could tell it well and honestly, in the first place, I would be doing something that no one had done before, to truly tell their story. Beyond that, what I felt I owed them, if not a kind of a formal obligation, but certainly an obligation of the heart, was to listen to them and let them feel [that they were] a part of the process. I wanted them to know what I was doing and why I was doing it and how I was approaching it. These are people who, for many good reasons, felt unappreciated and betrayed by the process. They went to Vietnam, they served their country, did their duty in the best way they knew how to do it, and yet were unappreciated for it and even reviled for what they had done. I couldn't go make this movie and ignore them once again. So in the process I wrote a letter to all of them to explain, as best I could, what I was doing and how I was making the choices I was making, and why some names of soldiers would appear in the context of the movie and the actions and names of many would not appear. I wanted them to understand I was making those choices as a filmmaker and I was trying to make a film that represented not only all of the men who had fought in the Ia Drang Valley with the 7th Cavalry, but, in some ways, would represent the heroism of the people who had fought all throughout Vietnam. To do that, I had to be more universal and less specific.
Is there any specific moment with the families that stands out?
One of the most powerful moments for me was when were filming at Fort Benning. We were filming a scene inside the house with Jack (Chris Klein) and Barbara (Keri Russell) Geoghegan and the baby, and I looked outside the house where the real Barbara Geoghegan with her daughter, now a beautiful woman in her 30s, were standing under the trees, and I thought I hope Jack could see them from heaven. I believe he can; I sure hope he can. It was a beautiful moment.
How has being involved in this project affected you?
I hope and pray that I am a better person for having been involved with these people and this project. I know I am. I believe that that is the essence of this project. The people who are touched by this story will be better people. It's not just to set the record straight. In some ways it's my hope to give these people the appreciation they never received. The much broader feeling about all of this is that this story will touch the lives of millions of people around the world because the people involved in this story are transcendent. Their character will inspire others.
What was the toughest hurdle in getting the film produced?
Making a movie is a constant illusion of crises. As Hal Moore would say, it's important for a leader to keep his head and inspire his people through his confidence. I found the best way to approach this was to stay in touch with my basic belief that this was a story worth telling and that it would be told.
You mentioned that you were proud of the fact that very little CGI was used and that no one was hurt in making the film.
People have been killed making movies. I don't want to say that making movies is a particularly dangerous job. It is very stressful. People don't understand just how hard we work in the movie business. I've been working mostly 16-hour days for 16 months. You start at 5:30 in the morning and go to sundown or later on many days, and when you're not working, you're dealing with all of the different production crises that rise up. The combination of stress and physical danger can cause mistakes and lack in judgment. Actors have been killed using helicopters. A director was killed a few years back when he got out of a helicopter and walked around totally preoccupied with something he was trying to explain and walked right into the tail rotor. I wanted to make sure that everybody had their priorities straight. It's easy in the context of filmmaking to act like the most important thing in the world is to get that particular shot. People will throw themselves at it. In this film we had many soldiers involved whose fathers had been in Vietnam, and they took this as a holy crusade. I was responsible for them. I told them repeatedly I can always remake this shot but I cannot give you back your head, your arm or leg. I could stand people getting nicked or bruised and a sprained ankle or two, but I was not going to let my people get hurt if there was anything I could do to prevent it.
The other thing was, I wanted to do this movie in a fashion that caught the excitement and the spirit of the film. I did not believe I could do that as well using computer graphics, when I had assembled a cast and crew and trained them together to do it in an actual, physical sense. In so much of what is done in modern movie making, actors are trying to act against a mental image. There might be three Styrofoam balls that they're looking at that represent something. To me that actor does not have the advantage that he would really have if he were in the wash of a helicopter. We had the helicopters, we had explosions, we had hundreds of gallons of gasoline. We had the best people in the world to do this safely and effectively. So I wanted to film it that way. To film it in its totality, so we did not break the thing down into separate shots or elements. Okay, now we're going to film the fire, then put the actors in front of the fire, and we'll film the helicopters coming and we'll find some way to marry all that together. I had a group of people and we worked to form ourselves into a committed team that was able to recreate this battle as a unified experience at a given moment. That is what gave us an energy and an actuality to our battle that no other technique would have given us. I'm proud of that because a lot of people thought it was impossible. Most people never even attempted it.
How do you think your peers will judge your work on this film?
Someone who had seen the film sent an e-mail to Joe Galloway and he forwarded it to me. It said Randall Wallace must be the least cynical person in Hollywood. I'm willing to accept that label. I think our peers in the movie business will recognize what we accomplished in this film. I think the filmmaking community will recognize what it took. As far as critics, I don't know. Critics did not embrace "Braveheart" widely, at first. There tends to be a cynicism and anti-romanticism. I was not willing to sacrifice what I believe in order to appeal to what critics want. I don't particularly expect them to like it, but I haven't thought about them very much.
What do you think the Vietnam vets and their families will come away with after seeing this film?
I hope they will come away feeling that their story has been told accurately. I think that audiences will say, "I had no idea." Just the other night, a couple came up to me crying. It's not that I'm hoping for tears, but I am hoping that veterans feel a sense that somebody has finally understood and appreciated what they went through, and told the truth. I hope that some people who have never been able to talk about it, not only because they couldn't, but because other people had no frame of reference to understand what they were talking about, will be able to do so.
What's next?
We're going to start up the publicity machine, let people know our film exists.
Has Paramount given you any indication of how they will support the release, how they feel about it?
They say to me this is their most important film of the entire year and they're going to promote it as hard as "Black Hawk Down" has been, which is the hardest I've seen any film promoted. We're going to screen it at Fort Benning. We're going to try and make it available to the veterans of this battle at Benning and Fort Hood, which is the home of the 7th Cavalry now. We want to be able to show it so the vets know that this is a film that is different.
What's your next project?
I'm going to try and take a break for a while and think about that.
The one I'm specifically wondering about is the one everyone refers to as the "Good Nazi" project (With Wings as Eagles). The one based on your father-in-law's experience in the POW camp. That sounds exciting.
I do not plan to do that one next. What I will do is something that I've written. I've got three or four projects that I have written that are as ready to go as We Were Soldiers was. I just want to take a break and decide which one to do next.
What do you love most about the filmmaking process?
The experience of sitting in a theater with an audience as a member of that audience and looking at a film that is the result of a whole group of people who came together, contributing their talents and united hearts in making a movie whose heart speaks to the audience. I'll give you a specific example. When I would sit in a theater and watch "Braveheart" and the William Wallace that I wrote say a line that I wrote, "They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom." I'm not thinking of myself as having written it. I'm feeling the thrill of that affirmation. Or when I sit in a theater now and watch Hal Moore say, "I will be the first to set foot on the field and I'll will be the last one off, and I will leave no man behind," and I feel chills up and down my spine. It is not because I wrote those words in a script and said, "action," and directed the scene. It's that that moment is now speaking to me as an audience member and I'm a participant in something I believe in that so many people have done and I feel united with God.
After I talked to you last time, I have to admit I was surprised when Mel Gibson came onboard because you seemed to feel that he took more credit for the success of "Braveheart" than he should have.
I understand now how these things happen. So often it doesn't come from the person it's contributed to. I had seen an interview that said Mel Gibson had hired me to write "Braveheart" because my name was Wallace and he thought I'd do a good job. I know for a certainty that Mel didn't say that. That some writer interpreted it that way or just made it up. Those things can leave you feeling left out, but I also understand, having directed, how completely a director has to live in a project and what he contributes. The focus turns more on the director and it's easy for the media to ignore the contributions of the writer. In "Braveheart" they knew Mel and had no idea about me, and as far as they knew I was just one more disposable writer that Hollywood seems to think writers are. I don't feel under appreciated for "Braveheart" now, but at the time I felt the media had not appreciate what I had done.
One of the things I do want to say, Mel and I discovered during the making of "Braveheart" and really during this film is that the guy who grew up in Australia, and the guy who grew up in Tennessee, have something fundamentally in common, which is the belief that human beings are spiritual beings and that if you look at a story like "Braveheart," which is so powerful and physically vigorous, at its basic level it's a story about spiritual values, like courage and love and loyalty. That's what this story is about. Mel and I have a particular resonance in this. While "Braveheart" was a fantastic learning experience for me, this movie has been tremendously gratifying because, together, that belief that Mel and I share, was necessary to make a film like this because Hal Moore is a character that embodies those traits˜physical courage based on a spiritual awareness.
Any last thoughts?
My hope for this movie is that it will help heal wounds left by that war. And that those healed the most are those who were wounded most. The soldiers and the families of the soldiers who fought there. I also want to say that September 11th reminded us that there is such a thing as evil in the world, as well as such things as duty, honor and country. I want it to be a healing and uniting experience. That people who said get our boys out of Vietnam, and those who said let's support our boys in Vietnam, can join hands and say amen at the end of this.
