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本 屆 柏 林 電 影 節 參 賽 作 品
故 事 大 綱
紀 大 衛 ( 奇 雲 史 栢 鍚 飾 演 ) 一 生 本 著 自 己 的 原 則 和 信 念 辦 事 ， 在 家 是 慈 父 一 名 ， 在 外 則 是 備 受 仰 慕 的 大 學 教 授 、 反 對 執 行 死 刑 的 活 躍 份 子 ； 殊 不 知 ， 這 近 乎 完 美 的 人 生 ， 卻 因 為 戰 友 康 思 汀 ( 羅 娜 蓮 妮 飾 演 ) 慘 遭 姦 殺 ， 而 宣 告 終 結 ─ ─ 紀 大 衛 姦 殺 罪 名 成 名 ， 被 判 以 死 刑 ！
曾 獲 普 立 茲 獎 的 女 記 者 畢 茜 ( 琦 溫 絲 莉 飾 演 ) 為 搶 得 這 個 精 彩 故 事 ， 多 番 哀 求 紀 大 衛 讓 她 做 獨 家 訪 問 ， 結 果 在 行 刑 之 前 三 天 ， 紀 大 衛 終 於 肯 首 。 只 是 在 採 訪 過 後 ， 畢 茜 發 現 案 件 疑 點 重 重 ， 深 感 紀 大 衛 的 生 死 彷 彿 就 落 在 她 手 上 。 人 命 攸 關 ， 畢 茜 無 視 自 身 安 危 ， 勢 要 將 康 思 汀 被 害 前 後 所 發 生 的 事 件 重 整 ， 拼 貼 出 來 的 竟 是 不 為 人 知 的 駭 人 真 相 。
製 作 花 絮
影 帝 監 製 尼 古 拉 斯 基 治 X 英 國 大 導 亞 倫 柏 加
2000 年 ９ 月 ， 英 國 導 演 亞 倫 柏 加 正 埋 首 於 小 說 寫 作 ， 卻 因 為 演 員 工 會 和 編 劇 工 會 的 罷 工 愈 鬥 愈 大 ， 唯 恐 在 短 期 間 內 不 能 開 戲 ， 遂 急 於 在 工 潮 升 級 至 全 面 罷 工 之 前 找 一 個 合 適 的 劇 本 ， 趕 快 完 成 新 作 。 可 惜 ， 過 去 一 年 看 過 超 過 二 百 個 劇 本 的 柏 加 ， 實 在 找 不 到 滿 意 的 作 品 ， 柏 加 說 ： 「 一 個 電 影 會 花 掉 你 兩 年 的 人 生 ， 太 心 急 並 不 是 好 事 。 過 去 28 年 ， 我 只 拍 了 14 部 電 影 。 」 至 他 讀 了 查 理 斯 雷 度 夫 (Charles Randolph) 在 1998 年 寫 成 的 劇 本 《 鐵 案 懸 謎 》 ， 才 馬 上 敲 定 新 片 的 內 容 。 「 我 一 口 氣 便 看 完 這 個 精 彩 的 驚 慄 故 事 ， 」 柏 加 慨 道 ： 「 實 在 難 以 相 信 這 麼 好 的 劇 本 會 放 在 華 納 電 影 公 司 的 書 架 上 封 塵 多 年 。 最 後 ， 尼 古 拉 斯 基 治 取 回 劇 本 製 作 權 。 由 於 當 年 拍 《 追 鳥 》 時 導 演 見 過 基 治 ， 我 便 直 接 飛 往 洛 杉 磯 與 他 見 面 。 礙 於 有 兩 片 在 手 ， 兼 忙 於 籌 備 首 齣 導 演 作 ， 基 治 便 慷 慨 地 將 《 鐵 案 懸 謎 》 交 給 我 。 」 之 後 ， 柏 加 聯 絡 了 環 球 影 片 老 闆 史 蒂 絲 史 妮 達 (Stacey Snider) ， 想 不 到 她 亦 是 一 夜 間 把 劇 本 看 完 ， 並 馬 上 表 示 會 爭 取 劇 本 版 權 。
奇 雲 史 栢 鍚 、 琦 溫 絲 莉 致 電 導 演 爭 做 主 角
反 對 死 刑 的 大 學 教 授 竟 被 判 處 死 刑 ， 本 片 牽 涉 的 除 駭 人 真 相 ， 還 有 人 道 問 題 、 政 治 醜 惡 等 ， 如 此 錯 綜 複 雜 及 富 挑 戰 性 的 題 材 馬 上 吸 引 了 一 班 巨 星 。 影 帝 奇 雲 史 栢 鍚 便 是 在 看 過 劇 本 後 ， 馬 上 親 自 致 電 給 導 演 柏 加 ， 表 示 極 有 興 趣 演 繹 紀 大 衛 一 角 。
另 一 邊 廂 ， 琦 溫 絲 莉 亦 不 停 打 電 話 給 柏 加 ， 一 再 強 調 自 己 希 望 飾 演 記 者 畢 茜 一 角 。 柏 加 雖 認 為 溫 絲 莉 勝 任 此 角 ， 卻 一 直 擔 心 她 的 英 國 口 音 能 否 把 這 個 來 自 美 國 南 部 的 角 色 演 得 有 說 服 力 。 結 果 ， 溫 絲 莉 跟 自 己 的 口 音 導 師 苦 練 了 好 幾 個 月 。 到 快 要 拍 攝 她 戲 分 的 時 候 ， 柏 加 太 太 突 然 收 到 一 名 自 稱 是 溫 絲 莉 新 荷 里 活 經 理 人 的 電 話 ， 通 知 他 們 溫 絲 莉 突 然 有 事 ， 不 能 如 期 抵 達 片 場 。 正 當 柏 加 太 太 勃 然 大 怒 之 際 ， 對 方 竟 嗤 以 一 笑 ， 原 來 溫 絲 莉 想 證 明 自 己 的 美 國 口 音 已 完 美 無 瑕 ， 假 裝 成 洛 杉 磯 人 致 電 給 他 們 ， 以 表 示 自 己 已 做 足 功 課 ， 迎 戰 畢 茜 一 角 。
德 克 薩 斯 州 ─ ─ 美 國 死 刑 首 都
美 國 自 30 年 代 起 ， 死 刑 的 執 行 大 幅 減 少 ； 60 年 代 末 期 ， 更 失 去 民 眾 支 持 ， 於 1967 至 1977 年 期 間 甚 至 沒 有 執 行 過 死 刑 ， 與 此 同 時 ， 高 等 法 院 亦 重 新 評 估 死 刑 的 憲 法 性 。 1972 年 ， 高 院 指 死 刑 違 憲 ， 是 「 殘 酷 及 不 普 及 的 刑 罰 」 ， 抵 觸 了 「 第 ８ 修 正 條 款 」 (1791) ； 惜 於 1976 年 被 推 反 指 控 。
1982 年 ， 德 克 薩 斯 州 恢 復 死 刑 ， 至 今 已 處 決 了 285 名 死 囚 （ 全 美 處 決 了 807 名 ） 。 2002 年 ， 全 國 執 行 死 刑 的 個 案 中 ， 一 半 是 屬 於 德 州 的 ， 而 暫 時 仍 有 454 名 死 囚 等 候 處 決 。 德 州 因 此 被 稱 為 「 美 國 死 刑 首 都 」 。 。
過 去 一 世 紀 ， 美 國 執 行 死 刑 的 方 法 變 換 多 次 ， 德 州 自 1982 年 以 前 用 電 椅 將 361 名 死 囚 處 決 ， 另 外 38 個 執 行 死 刑 的 州 則 大 都 選 用 打 毒 針 來 行 刑 ， 並 盡 量 採 取 「 維 持 死 刑 判 決 卻 不 執 行 死 刑 」 的 原 則 。
重 現 德 州 兩 大 監 獄
柏 加 在 開 戲 前 到 訪 了 德 州 兩 大 監 獄 ：
由 於 德 州 監 獄 主 張 高 透 明 度 ， 柏 加 與 工 作 人 員 得 以 親 身 視 察 了 獄 中 所 有 細 節 。 而 德 州 監 獄 的 官 方 網 頁 上 (www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/deathrow) ， 更 清 楚 表 明 囚 中 所 有 細 則 ， 由 一 次 處 刑 的 成 本 （ 86.06 美 元 ） ， 以 至 每 個 死 囚 最 後 的 晚 餐 吃 了 什 麼 菜 都 一 一 列 明 。 柏 加 表 示 他 都 把 這 此 真 實 細 節 放 入 了 電 影 。
至 於 場 景 方 面 ， 在 奧 斯 汀 (Austin) 市 政 府 及 當 地 電 影 團 體 的 協 助 下 ， 攝 製 隊 得 以 在 已 經 棄 置 的 Robert Mueller 市 機 場 建 起 臨 時 片 場 ， 重 建 了 Ellis Unit 內 的 探 監 房 、 大 堂 及 走 廊 等 。 而 設 有 ７ 層 監 獄 大 樓 、 收 納 了 13,000 名 囚 犯 ， 並 雇 用 上 6,000 名 警 衛 及 員 工 的 The Walls Unit ， 則 因 為 Huntsville 市 向 來 對 媒 介 採 訪 抱 開 放 態 度 ， 讓 導 演 可 浩 浩 蕩 蕩 帶 率 領 200 位 工 作 人 員 及 50 輛 車 通 過 高 30 呎 、 厚 3 呎 的 監 獄 紅 磚 大 門 ， 更 大 膽 地 用 上 兩 架 直 昇 機 飛 越 監 獄 上 空 拍 攝 ， 造 出 震 撼 的 視 覺 效 果 。
影 射 布 殊 拍 攝 受 阻
在 挑 選 飾 演 德 州 州 長 的 演 員 的 時 侯 ， 柏 加 份 外 小 心 ， 「 我 盡 量 避 免 找 一 位 貌 似 布 殊 的 演 員 ， 雖 然 這 個 角 色 確 實 與 現 任 美 國 總 統 有 很 多 共 同 的 觀 點 ， 同 樣 是 支 持 死 刑 的 強 硬 派 。 事 實 上 ， 布 殊 任 職 德 州 州 長 期 間 ， 亦 親 自 批 准 了 達 146 宗 死 刑 的 執 行 。 」 由 於 角 色 有 影 射 布 殊 之 嫌 ， 攝 製 隊 多 次 申 請 在 州 議 會 議 事 堂 取 景 ， 均 遭 拒 絕 ， 最 後 亦 只 獲 准 在 州 長 辦 公 室 拍 攝 康 思 汀 ( 羅 娜 蓮 妮 飾 ) 反 死 刑 演 講 的 一 場 戲 。
柏 加 又 在 親 自 撰 寫 的 製 作 簡 介 之 中 引 用 了 法 國 【 世 界 報 】 (Le Monde) 的 社 論 ， 指 布 殊 的 好 戰 政 治 令 美 國 與 歐 洲 出 現 重 大 分 歧 ： 「 死 刑 、 限 制 墮 胎 及 販 賣 軍 火 ， 都 令 美 國 與 歐 洲 大 陸 之 間 的 鴻 溝 愈 來 愈 大 ， 一 個 因 不 同 的 價 值 觀 和 誤 解 分 隔 而 成 的 鴻 溝 。 布 殊 比 任 何 一 位 前 總 統 都 要 把 歐 美 之 間 的 分 歧 加 大 。 」 而 布 殊 更 被 左 翼 份 子 形 容 為 「 連 環 暗 殺 者 」 (serial assassin) 。
龍 捲 風 突 襲 溫 絲 莉 攜 女 走 難
除 了 因 政 治 敏 感 ， 拍 攝 受 到 干 預 之 外 ， 奧 斯 汀 一 場 龍 捲 風 ， 亦 令 攝 製 隊 陣 腳 大 亂 。 帶 著 愛 女 飛 來 美 國 拍 戲 的 溫 絲 莉 ， 當 時 正 在 餐 廳 拍 攝 ， 當 副 導 收 到 消 息 ， 得 知 龍 捲 風 將 直 捲 奧 斯 汀 ， 50 多 名 攝 製 隊 人 員 馬 上 退 到 餐 廳 的 小 廚 房 避 難 ， 而 溫 絲 莉 則 抱 著 她 的 BB 到 店 內 中 央 的 細 小 食 物 儲 存 室 躲 避 。 過 了 兩 小 時 ， 龍 捲 風 眼 終 於 吹 離 現 場 ， 溫 絲 莉 兩 母 女 立 即 隨 同 攝 製 隊 ， 在 豪 雨 水 浸 的 公 路 上 奔 馳 ， 趕 回 酒 店 休 息 ， 可 算 有 驚 無 險 。
奇 雲 史 栢 錫 教 書 校 園 大 興 奮
至 於 在 片 中 飾 演 教 授 紀 大 衛 的 史 栢 錫 ， 則 在 大 學 拍 攝 授 課 戲 時 遇 上 一 場 校 園 風 暴 ！ 甫 進 入 校 門 便 惹 來 一 眾 學 生 狂 歡 尖 叫 的 史 栢 錫 ， 貴 為 影 帝 卻 一 點 架 子 也 沒 有 ， 握 手 簽 名 不 單 止 ， 更 替 遞 上 手 提 電 話 的 學 生 ， 向 他 們 電 話 另 一 旁 的 朋 友 問 好 。 到 正 式 拍 攝 授 課 戲 時 ， 在 場 演 回 學 生 的 學 生 們 都 興 奮 非 常 ， 即 使 影 帝 NG 了 好 幾 次 ， 他 們 依 然 十 分 留 心 「 聽 書 」 。 拍 完 大 學 的 戲 份 後 ， 帶 著 鴨 舌 帽 的 史 栢 錫 更 有 求 必 應 ， 為 所 有 人 簽 名 後 才 離 去 。
大 導 亞 倫 柏 加 迷 信 的 規 條
大 導 演 亞 倫 柏 加 在 拍 戲 時 則 又 有 其 獨 特 作 風 。 自 言 迷 信 非 常 的 他 ， 堅 持 每 晚 都 要 把 當 日 拍 攝 的 戲 份 在 自 設 的 放 映 室 ， 用 大 銀 幕 看 一 次 毛 片 ， 而 不 是 用 小 小 的 電 視 熒 幕 看 。 而 每 個 部 門 的 阿 頭 亦 必 須 一 齊 看 片 ， 更 重 要 的 是 他 們 每 天 也 要 坐 回 同 一 個 座 位 。 柏 加 笑 言 這 就 是 他 拍 戲 的 「 儀 式 」 ， 已 沿 用 廿 多 年 ， 必 須 遵 守 。
大 導 兒 子 負 責 音 樂
柏 加 兩 位 愛 兒 阿 歷 士 (Alex) 及 積 (Jake) ， 一 直 都 低 調 地 協 助 父 親 的 影 片 創 作 音 樂 ， 而 阿 歷 士 今 次 更 為 影 片 創 作 兼 主 唱 了 主 題 曲 〈 Another Bleeding Heart 〉 。 至 於 在 原 聲 大 碟 中 收 錄 的 其 他 歌 曲 ， 則 大 都 是 柏 加 在 德 州 首 府 奧 斯 汀 取 景 時 ， 被 其 「 美 國 Live Music 音 樂 首 都 」 之 魅 力 所 吸 引 ， 索 性 在 當 地 的 唱 片 舖 發 掘 配 合 影 片 風 格 的 歌 曲 。
柏 加 對 死 刑 的 看 法
史 栢 錫 、 溫 絲 莉 和 羅 娜 蓮 妮 三 位 主 角 對 死 刑 各 有 睇 法 ， 但 導 演 亞 倫 柏 加 和 編 劇 賴 杜 夫 卻 表 明 其 反 對 態 度 。 柏 加 更 以 片 中 康 思 汀 一 段 反 對 死 刑 講 辭 代 表 自 己 的 心 聲 ： 「 當 你 殺 了 人 ， 你 盜 取 了 他 們 的 家 人 ， 不 單 止 是 一 個 他 們 心 愛 的 人 ， 更 盜 取 了 他 們 的 人 性 ─ ─ 你 令 他 們 的 心 積 聚 仇 恨 ， 奪 走 了 他 們 奉 行 文 明 、 公 平 的 能 力 ； 你 迫 他 們 嗜 血 。 這 是 殘 忍 和 恐 怖 的 ， 但 沉 溺 於 仇 恨 不 是 解 決 方 法 。 傷 害 已 成 過 去 ， 即 使 我 們 可 以 捧 走 回 一 團 血 肉 ， 我 們 也 依 然 飢 餓 ， 在 離 開 死 囚 室 時 ， 只 會 埋 怨 打 毒 針 便 宜 了 他 。 結 果 ， 一 個 文 明 的 社 會 要 與 一 個 難 以 接 受 的 真 理 共 存 ： 尋 求 報 復 的 人 ， 只 是 要 多 掘 一 個 墳 墓 。 」
死 刑 知 多 D
幕 前 幕 後 陣 容
影 帝 再 戰 高 峰 奇 雲 史 栢 鍚
在 影 圈 琢 磨 了 十 多 年 的 奇 雲 史 栢 鍚 (Kevin Spacey) ， 1995 年 憑 《 非 常 嫌 疑 犯 》 (The Usual Suspects) 與 《 七 宗 罪 》 (Seven) 兩 片 一 躍 而 成 國 際 巨 星 ； 前 者 為 他 帶 來 奧 斯 卡 最 佳 男 配 角 殊 榮 ， 後 者 則 讓 其 變 態 殺 人 狂 形 象 成 為 一 代 經 典 。 1999 年 他 再 憑 黑 色 喜 劇 《 美 麗 有 罪 》 (American Beauty) 揚 名 奧 斯 卡 ， 登 上 影 帝 寶 座 。 其 他 近 作 如 《 筆 下 有 晴 天 》 (Shipping News) 、 《 奇 蹟 從 心 開 始 》 (K-PAX) 、 《 拉 闊 愛 的 人 》 (Pay It Forward) 、 《 幕 後 嫌 疑 犯 》 ( L.A. Confidential) 、 《 半 吊 的 天 空 》 ( Hurlyburly) 、 《 情 迷 殺 人 夜 》 (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) 、 《 冇 數 講 》 (The Negotiator) 等 都 盡 顯 史 栢 錫 戲 路 縱 橫 ， 魅 力 非 凡 。 甚 至 在 《 凸 務 之 王 決 戰 金 大 支 》 (Austin Powers in Goldmember) 的 客 串 演 出 都 令 人 拍 案 叫 絕 。
於 1959 年 生 於 美 國 新 澤 西 的 史 栢 錫 ， 因 父 親 工 作 關 係 移 居 至 洛 杉 磯 ， 自 此 與 戲 劇 結 下 不 解 之 緣 ， 就 讀 Chatsworth 中 學 時 便 沉 醉 於 校 內 戲 劇 演 出 ， 紅 星 韋 基 馬 (Val Kilmer) 正 是 高 他 兩 級 的 師 兄 ， 兩 人 於 當 時 已 開 始 切 磋 演 技 ， 並 先 後 考 入 了 著 名 的 Juilliard 學 院 。 不 過 ， 史 栢 錫 提 早 退 學 ， 急 於 在 舞 台 大 展 拳 腳 。 結 果 ， 他 22 歲 便 贏 得 首 個 劇 場 演 出 機 會 ， 隨 後 十 年 都 在 百 老 匯 等 地 方 演 出 舞 台 劇 ， 期 間 憑 《 Lost in Yonkers 》 獲 得 東 尼 獎 最 佳 男 配 角 獎 。
1986 年 ， 史 栢 錫 獲 名 導 米 尼 高 斯 (Mike Nichols) 賞 識 ， 首 次 在 電 影 《 情 已 逝 》 (Heartburn) 演 出 ， 扮 演 地 鐵 小 偷 ， 兩 年 後 尼 高 斯 再 找 他 參 演 《 打 工 女 郎 》 (Working Girl) 。 從 此 ， 史 栢 錫 的 影 圈 工 作 漸 上 軌 道 ， 參 演 了 《 拜 金 一 族 》 (Glengarry Glen Ross) 、 《 換 妻 驚 魂 》 (Consenting Adults) 、 《 殺 戮 時 刻 》 (A Time to Kill) 、 《 極 度 驚 慌 》 (Outbreak) 等 多 齣 賣 座 電 影 ； 電 視 方 面 ， 亦 有 《 Wiseguy 》 及 《 Darrow 》 兩 輯 代 表 作 。
1996 年 ， 晉 升 為 A 級 巨 星 的 史 栢 錫 ， 同 時 發 展 幕 後 工 作 ， 執 導 了 首 部 電 影 《 虎 穴 龍 潭 》 (Albino Alligator) ； 翌 年 成 立 了 Trigger Street 製 作 公 司 。 繼 監 製 了 《 The Iceman Cometh 》 等 多 個 得 獎 舞 台 劇 後 ， Trigger Street 亦 開 始 投 資 電 影 ， 推 出 了 《 三 個 男 人 一 個 Show 》 (The Big Kahuna) ， 今 年 則 有 新 作 《 The United States of Leland 》 ， 史 栢 錫 身 兼 監 製 外 ， 還 會 演 繹 片 中 殺 死 自 閉 兒 的 父 親 角 色 。
最 近 ， 史 栢 錫 在 Budweiser 贊 助 下 ， 透 過 TriggerStreet.com 的 互 動 網 頁 發 掘 新 人 ， 可 見 他 對 推 動 演 藝 事 業 不 遺 餘 力 。
演 技 派 琦 溫 絲 莉
琦 溫 絲 莉 (Kate Winslet) 乃 圈 中 不 可 多 得 的 演 技 派 靚 女 ， 17 歲 憑 處 女 作 《 罪 孽 天 使 》 (Heavenly Creatures) 一 鳴 驚 人 ； 之 後 在 李 安 執 導 的 《 理 智 與 感 情 》 (Sense and Sensibility) 首 度 獲 奧 斯 卡 提 名 ； 1997 年 ， 她 與 里 安 勒 度 狄 卡 比 奧 合 演 的 《 鐵 達 尼 號 》 (Titanic) 更 是 瘋 魔 全 球 ， 成 為 史 上 最 成 功 的 愛 情 片 。
1975 年 於 英 國 出 生 的 溫 絲 莉 乃 來 自 演 藝 家 族 ， 父 母 是 舞 台 演 員 ， 祖 父 則 是 劇 團 經 理 。 秉 承 家 風 ， 溫 絲 莉 11 歲 就 進 修 戲 劇 ， 13 歲 便 初 登 英 國 電 視 ， 之 後 升 讀 演 藝 中 學 ， 16 歲 畢 業 後 馬 上 開 展 其 舞 台 劇 工 作 ， 演 出 了 《 Peter Pan 》 等 作 品 。 翌 年 ， 她 擊 敗 了 175 位 對 手 ， 被 導 演 彼 得 積 遜 選 中 做 《 罪 孽 天 使 》 女 主 角 ， 自 此 開 始 她 燦 爛 的 電 影 事 業 。 溫 絲 莉 隨 即 被 李 安 睇 中 ， 邀 她 演 出 《 理 智 與 感 情 》 ， 並 憑 影 片 獲 奧 斯 卡 及 金 球 獎 最 佳 女 配 角 提 名 ； 之 後 主 演 的 《 絕 戀 》 (Jude) 、 《 莎 士 比 亞 - 王 子 復 仇 記 》 (Hamlet) 均 大 獲 好 評 。 但 真 正 令 溫 絲 莉 成 為 萬 人 迷 的 是 橫 掃 全 球 的 《 鐵 達 尼 號 》 ， 她 亦 憑 此 片 獲 奧 斯 卡 最 佳 女 主 角 提 名 。 當 時 只 得 22 歲 的 溫 絲 莉 成 為 史 上 「 兩 度 獲 奧 斯 卡 提 名 演 員 」 之 中 最 年 輕 的 女 演 員 。
從 來 沒 被 名 氣 沖 昏 頭 腦 的 溫 絲 莉 在 《 鐵 達 尼 號 》 之 後 ， 決 不 因 製 作 規 模 大 小 而 選 片 ， 只 會 接 拍 具 有 挑 戰 性 的 作 品 ， 如 在 獨 立 細 片 《 Hideous Kinky 》 飾 演 帶 子 女 到 摩 洛 哥 尋 找 心 靈 啟 發 的 嬉 皮 士 媽 媽 。 1999 年 ， 她 更 在 女 性 主 義 名 導 珍 甘 比 安 (Jane Campion) 的 《 性 煙 》 (Holy Smoke) 有 大 膽 演 出 ， 在 男 主 角 夏 菲 基 圖 (Harvey Keitel) 面 前 全 裸 兼 小 便 ， 翌 年 又 在 《 性 書 狂 人 》 (Quills) 有 大 量 床 戲 ， 足 見 溫 絲 莉 從 不 以 偶 像 自 居 ， 反 而 豁 出 去 演 戲 ， 每 每 讓 觀 眾 措 手 不 及 。
去 年 ， 溫 絲 莉 憑 《 愛 莉 思 的 情 書 》 (Iris) 第 三 度 獲 奧 斯 卡 提 名 ； 同 時 又 主 演 了 二 戰 間 諜 片 《 Enigma 》 。 2003 年 新 作 則 有 與 尊 尼 特 普 合 演 的 《 Neverland 》 。
感 情 方 面 ， 溫 絲 莉 與 《 Hideous Kinky 》 副 導 演 James Threapleton 離 婚 後 ， 在 2001 年 年 底 公 開 與 《 美 麗 有 罪 》 導 演 森 文 迪 斯 (Sam Mendes) 熱 戀 ， 兩 人 自 此 常 以 才 子 佳 人 姿 態 出 現 。
影 象 大 師 導 演 亞 倫 柏 加
由 廣 告 界 躍 身 而 成 國 際 大 導 的 亞 倫 柏 加 (Alan Parker) ， 全 憑 個 人 獨 特 影 象 風 格 ， 30 年 來 屹 立 影 壇 不 倒 ， 他 首 部 自 編 自 導 的 電 影 《 小 鬼 頭 與 賊 阿 爸 》 （ Bugsy Malone ） 便 以 全 小 孩 卡 士 模 仿 20 年 代 黑 幫 片 風 格 ， 技 驚 四 座 ， 在 當 年 的 英 國 電 影 金 像 獎 橫 掃 了 ５ 大 獎 項 。 1977 年 ， 他 完 成 了 第 二 部 作 品 《 午 夜 快 車 》 (Midnight Express) 。 這 個 講 述 一 名 美 國 年 青 人 因 藏 毒 被 囚 於 土 耳 其 監 獄 及 後 成 功 逃 獄 的 故 事 ， 由 於 暴 露 出 政 府 受 賄 問 題 兼 恨 恨 地 挖 苦 了 大 美 國 思 想 ， 一 度 惹 來 極 大 爭 議 ， 而 柏 加 亦 憑 此 片 獲 得 最 佳 導 演 等 ６ 項 奧 斯 卡 提 名 ， 同 時 橫 掃 ６ 項 金 球 獎 。
兩 年 後 ， 柏 加 創 造 了 另 一 神 話 ， 講 述 一 班 立 志 走 紅 的 年 青 人 的 《 我 要 高 飛 》 (Fame) 不 但 票 房 大 收 ， 更 掀 起 一 股 明 星 夢 熱 潮 ， 故 事 及 後 更 被 電 視 台 重 拍 成 長 篇 連 續 劇 。 1982 年 ， 柏 加 挑 戰 全 新 類 型 ， 在 《 迷 牆 》 (Pink Floyd The Wall) 以 形 象 表 達 Pink Floyd 樂 隊 這 張 同 名 大 碟 的 概 念 ， 乃 同 類 型 作 品 的 先 鋒 兼 經 典 。 1984 年 ， 柏 加 執 導 了 講 述 越 戰 退 役 軍 人 飛 翔 夢 想 的 《 追 鳥 》 (Birdy) ， 奪 得 康 城 影 展 評 審 團 大 獎 ； 1986 年 ， 找 來 羅 拔 迪 尼 路 及 米 奇 洛 基 主 演 《 天 使 追 魂 》 (Angel Heart) ； 1988 年 ， 憑 民 權 電 影 《 烈 血 暴 潮 》 (Mississippi Burning) 贏 得 柏 林 影 展 銀 熊 獎 及 ７ 項 奧 斯 卡 提 名 ； 1991 年 ， 講 述 一 隊 愛 爾 蘭 藍 領 騷 靈 樂 隊 奮 鬥 史 的 《 追 夢 者 》 (The Commitments) 為 柏 加 帶 來 東 京 電 影 節 最 佳 導 演 殊 榮 、 英 國 電 影 金 像 獎 最 佳 影 片 、 最 佳 導 演 、 最 佳 編 劇 等 獎 項 ， 以 及 金 球 獎 最 佳 導 演 提 名 。
踏 入 90 年 代 ， 柏 加 作 品 明 顯 減 少 ， 相 信 跟 他 從 事 小 說 創 作 和 忙 於 推 動 電 影 發 展 有 關 ， 繼 《 窈 窕 瘋 人 院 》 (The Road To Wellville) 、 《 貝 隆 夫 人 》 (Evita) 及 《 天 使 的 孩 子 》 (Angela ' s Ashes) 之 後 ， 蟄 伏 四 年 才 推 出 本 片 。
作 為 英 國 導 演 工 會 創 辦 人 之 一 的 柏 加 ， 多 年 來 在 世 界 各 地 電 影 學 校 任 客 席 講 師 。 1985 年 ， 他 獲 英 國 金 像 獎 授 予 Michael Balcon Award ， 表 揚 其 對 英 國 電 影 界 的 貢 獻 ； 1995 年 ， 獲 英 女 皇 二 世 頒 發 CBE 勳 銜 ； 1999 年 ， 獲 英 國 導 演 工 會 頒 授 「 終 身 成 就 獎 」 ； 2002 年 獲 封 爵 ， 現 被 尊 稱 為 「 柏 加 爵 士 」 (Sir Alan Parker) 。
1998 年 １ 月 ， 柏 加 上 任 成 為 英 國 電 影 學 院 (British Film Institute) 主 席 ； 1999 年 ８ 月 ， 被 任 命 為 英 國 電 影 局 (Film Council) 首 任 主 席 。
影 帝 監 製 尼 古 拉 斯 基 治
超 級 影 帝 尼 古 拉 斯 基 治 (Nicolas Cage) 近 年 在 幕 後 大 展 拳 腳 ， 2000 年 首 次 擔 任 監 製 ， 以 其 下 公 司 Saturn Films 名 義 出 品 了 《 我 和 殭 屍 有 份 合 約 》 (Shadow of the Vampire) 這 部 戲 中 有 戲 的 獨 立 電 影 ； 去 年 ， 初 嘗 導 演 滋 味 ， 執 導 兼 監 製 了 《 Sonny 》 一 片 ； 《 鐵 案 懸 謎 》 （ 鐵 案 懸 謎 ） 則 是 其 第 三 部 監 製 作 品 。 演 出 方 面 ， 繼 早 前 《 烈 血 追 風 》 (Windtalkers) 之 後 ， 盛 傳 基 治 會 再 與 吳 宇 森 合 作 《 Land of Destiny 》 ， 並 將 首 次 跟 周 潤 發 碰 頭 。 另 ， 2003 年 新 作 還 有 由 大 導 烈 尼 史 葛 執 導 的 《 Matchstick Men 》 。
身 為 全 球 片 酬 最 高 男 星 之 一 的 基 治 主 演 過 無 數 賣 座 鉅 製 ， 包 括 《 極 速 60 秒 》 (Gone in 60 Seconds) 、 《 石 破 天 驚 》 (The Rock) 、 《 驚 天 動 地 》 (Con Air) 、 《 天 眼 追 兇 》 (Snake Eyes) 、 《 八 米 厘 感 官 謀 殺 》 、 (8mm) 《 午 夜 速 遞 》 (Bringing Out the Dead) 、 《 天 使 多 情 》 (City of Angels) 等 。 當 然 還 有 香 港 觀 眾 最 為 自 豪 ， 由 吳 宇 森 導 演 的 《 斷 箭 行 動 》 (Broken Arrow) 以 及 《 奪 面 雙 雄 》 (Face/Off) 。
基 治 亦 是 演 愛 情 片 的 高 手 ， 1995 年 便 憑 《 兩 顆 絕 望 的 心 》 (Leaving Las Vegas) 勇 奪 奧 斯 卡 影 帝 殊 榮 。 此 外 ， 他 初 出 道 時 ， 主 演 由 叔 父 哥 普 拉 執 導 的 《 時 光 倒 流 未 嫁 時 》 (Peggy Sue Got Married) 、 被 雪 兒 (Cher) 點 名 合 演 情 人 的 《 月 滿 抱 佳 人 》 (Moonstruck) 都 是 令 人 難 忘 的 浪 漫 小 品 。 同 時 ， 他 演 繹 奇 幻 電 影 亦 有 一 手 ， 如 高 安 兄 弟 導 演 (Coen brothers) 的 《 寶 貝 夢 驚 魂 》 (Raising Arizona) 、 及 大 衛 連 治 (David Linch) 執 導 的 《 野 性 的 心 》 (Wild At Heart) 都 盡 顯 基 治 另 類 魅 力 。
1964 年 生 於 中 產 家 庭 的 基 治 ， 是 意 、 德 混 血 兒 ， 叔 父 正 是 炮 製 過 《 教 父 》 等 經 典 的 電 影 巨 匠 哥 普 拉 (Francis Ford Coppola) 。 但 基 治 為 了 不 想 沾 取 叔 父 的 光 ， 一 早 已 由 尼 古 拉 斯 哥 普 拉 (Nicholas Coppola) 改 名 為 尼 古 拉 斯 基 治 (Nicolas Cage) ， 結 果 ， 他 憑 實 力 與 拼 搏 精 神 在 影 壇 獨 當 一 面 。 最 出 名 的 例 子 是 ， 他 在 拍 攝 亞 倫 柏 加 的 《 追 鳥 》 時 ， 不 用 麻 醉 藥 ， 當 場 脫 了 兩 隻 牙 。
基 治 其 他 賣 座 近 作 還 包 括 剛 獲 金 球 獎 影 帝 提 名 的 《 Adaptation 》 、 《 火 線 有 情 天 》 (Captain Corelli ' s Mandolin) 、 《 加 料 感 情 線 》 (The Family Man) 、 《 傾 城 佳 話 》 (It Could Happen to You) 等 。
自 從 與 柏 翠 茜 亞 雅 琪 (Patricia Arquette) 離 婚 後 ， 基 治 兩 年 前 公 開 的 新 伴 侶 乃 貓 王 女 兒 麗 莎 瑪 莉 皮 雅 士 利 (Lisa Marie Presley) ， 去 年 ８ 月 兩 人 拉 埋 天 窗 ， 昔 三 個 月 後 便 申 請 離 婚 。
哲 學 教 授 雷 度 夫 首 個 天 才 劇 本
在 維 也 納 大 學 擔 任 哲 學 系 教 授 逾 ８ 年 的 查 理 斯 雷 度 夫 (Charles Randolph) ， 三 年 前 開 始 為 電 影 及 電 視 撰 寫 劇 本 ， 本 片 乃 其 首 個 電 影 劇 本 。 出 生 於 美 國 德 克 薩 斯 州 的 賴 杜 夫 ， 繼 承 父 親 傳 教 士 的 使 命 ， 遠 赴 歐 洲 工 作 ， 實 情 是 協 助 教 會 偷 運 聖 經 到 東 歐 國 家 。 現 全 身 投 身 寫 作 的 賴 杜 夫 ， 已 辭 去 教 職 ， 並 移 居 至 洛 杉 磯 。
| 主 演 ： | 奇 雲 史 栢 鍚 (Kevin Spacey) | 《
美 麗 有 罪 》 (American Beauty) | ||
琦 溫 絲 莉 | 《 愛 莉 思
的 情 書 》 (Iris) | |||
羅 娜 蓮 妮 | 《
追 命 謊 言 》 (The Mothman Prophecies) | |||
導 演 ： | 亞 倫 柏 加 (Alan Parker) | 《 天 使 的 孩 子 》 (Angela ' s Ashes) 兼 編 、 監 | ||
編 劇 ： | 查 理 斯 雷 度 夫 | |||
監 製 ： | 亞 倫 柏 加 | |||
尼 古 拉 斯 基 治 | 《 Sonny
》 監 、 導 、 演 |
| 上 映 日 期 ： | 三 月 廿 七 日 | |
| 發 行 ： | 泛 亞 影 業 有 限 公 司 聯 合 國 際 影 片 公 司 | |
| 分 鐘 ﹕ | 131 分 鐘 | |
| 級 別 ﹕ | IIB | |
| 院 線 ﹕ | 嘉 禾 港 威 ， GH 旺 角 ， GH 荷 李 活 ， UA 金 鐘 ， UA 沙 田 ， 奧 海 城 百 老 滙 ， 嘉 湖 百 老 滙 ， 百 老 滙 電 影 中 心 ， AMC 又 一 城 ， 皇 室 ， MCL 將 軍 澳 ， MCL 康 怡 ， 華 懋 及 影 藝 |
THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE
Director's Notes
For twenty-odd years now, I have written the notes on the making of my films. Originally, it was a knee-jerk reaction to the practice of distributors handing out unhelpful hyperbole - hastily assembled info often written by someone who wasn't even around when we made the movie - usually dished up on a few sheets of stapled-together paper. Equally, as has often been pointed out to me by my journalist friends, perhaps a few sheets of superficial information are exactly what journalists and film writers require - especially if they don't like the movie! (They sarcastically tease me that when it comes to me spouting on about my film, they find that a list of cast and crew credits, preferably spelled correctly - plus a tote bag full of CDs, T- shirts, baseball caps and passes for the Universal Studios tour - to be imminently more preferable. After all, shouldn't watching the actual movie for two hours be enough?) Boy, do I agree.
But anyway, I persevere. Not least of all, because something of what I've scribbled down here, as honestly written as it can be, might be of help to anyone interested in how we made the film and, more importantly perhaps - considering the subject matter - why we made it.
This film began with a strike - well, at least the threat of one. There I was in September of 2000 tapping away at my keyboard working on a novel when my co-producer (and wife), Lisa Moran, gently pointed out that the threatened strikes by SAG and the Writers Guild could mean that I might not be making a film for a whole year. Maybe longer, as the strike, set for June 2001, was nine months away, and who knew how long it would last? In fact, as a member of the Writers Guild, I might not even be allowed to write either. Consequently I joined the frantic scramble, along with many of my fellow filmmakers, to seek out (always difficult) and get financed (always impossible) what became known as a "pre-strike" movie. In short: get your movie made before the sword of Damocles falls and the factory gates slam shut for who knows how long.
I quickly read eighteen supposedly "hot" scripts, and disliked them all. It's always agony for me to decide what to do next in normal circumstances, having been sent over two hundred scripts in the previous year - films take two years of your life to make, after all, so it's not a good idea to be hasty (I have made fourteen films in twenty-eight years) and the clock-ticking exercise didn't seem to improve my ability to decide what to do. I asked my agents in Los Angeles to send me anything that they had, even if it didn't quite fit into what the studios were snapping up in those days of frenzy or, more importantly, into the ever more debilitating exigencies for commercial success. Lisa was the first to read Charles Randolph's script, The Life of David Gale. And, like her, I then read it in one sitting, astonished that such a well-written, page-turner of a script hadn't already been made. Although the script - an original story, a fiction - most certainly had an important political issue at its core that I strongly responded to, it was also a terrific thriller. It had been gathering dust on a Warner Bros. shelf since it was written in 1998 when Nicolas Cage's production company commissioned it and the script was now in "turn-around" from Warners. Charles Randolph, originally from Texas, had written it while still performing his day job as a professor of philosophy at a Vienna university.
I flew to Los Angeles and had lunch with Nicolas Cage, who I knew, having directed him as a very young man in Birdy (1984). He had two pre-strike films lined up as an actor and a small film he wanted to direct himself post-strike and so he graciously passed the ball of The Life of David Gale over to me.
Stacey Snider, the boss of Universal, with whom I had a long-term deal, read it overnight and phoned to say that she wanted to make it and proceeded to secure the rights.
We immediately left for Texas for a preliminary recce - as always, on films at this stage, paid for on my credit card - studios being too canny to commit their dollars too readily, especially with a strike looming. I knew Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana well, having filmed there, but although I had visited Texas many times, I had never been to Austin, where our story is principally set. I also visited the Ellis Unit prison in East Texas where Death Row is set in our story and "The Walls" unit in downtown Huntsville where all executions in the state take place - at this time I was merely an observer, viewing from outside the high, red brick walls for which the prison is named. Later, I would become much more familiar with what goes on inside.
Returning to London, Stacey Snider called me to say that she thought it more prudent if we went "post-strike." Her theory being that the casting cupboard was becoming somewhat bare as actors, like everyone else, were scrambling and signing up for one, or even two, films before the feared June strike deadline. She also contended that the studio/unions strike negotiations were going well and there was increasing optimism that there wouldn't even be a strike. Ever the skeptical pragmatist in dealing with studios, who are traditionally judicious with the truth, I agreed that regarding casting, there was sense in her cautious philosophy. And as David Gale might say, "Philosophy could clip an angel's wings." Anyway, I went along with this, and we - Lisa Moran, David Wimbury, the line producer, Charles Randolph and the various key crew members who had committed themselves to the film and to myself - all found ourselves on hiatus, still without pay, for another five months until the strike was finally resolved. However, time is never wasted on the preparation of a film and the breather allowed me time to work with Charles on honing the script, to meet with actors and to briefly return to my novel.
In May the studio released a small amount of money so that we could return to Texas for a more thorough recce to inform our eventual production. The office of the new governor, Rick Perry, and the Texas Film Commission were most helpful in easing the way for us to approach the prison authorities - the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, a surprisingly (to me, anyway) open organization. With regards to Death Row and the administration of the death penalty, they have "a job to do," as charged by Texas law, and are extremely transparent and helpful in explaining how it all works. For instance, their website (www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/deathrow) gives every detail of the tasks they dutifully administer, from the cost of each execution ($86.06) to the last statements and last meals of each condemned inmate (aspects of which we put into the script).
THE DEATH PENALTY:
A SHORT HISTORY
I digress here, if I may, with a very short history of the death penalty in the United States.
Since the 1930's, executions had dwindled in the U.S. and in the late 1960's the death penalty had lost popular support, so between 1967 and 1977 there were no executions whilst the Supreme Court evaluated its constitutionality. In 1972, execution for capital cases was suspended when the Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional as "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the Eighth Amendment (1791). This was overturned in 1976 when the Supreme Court declared that, through restructure of capital trials and guiding the discretion of jurors, death sentences could once more be applied.
Texas resumed executions in 1982 and since then has led the nation (285, as of writing) out of a national total of 807. In 2002, half of all the executions in the United States took place in Texas, which still has 454 inmates on Death Row awaiting their dates. (There are 3,697 offenders under sentence of death in the United States.)
Although the methods of execution have changed in the U.S. over the last century (in Texas, 361 inmates were executed in the electric chair prior to 1982), death by lethal injection currently predominates in the 38 states that still authorize the death penalty. (Although many states still allow for, but rarely use, alternatives, namely: electrocution, gas chamber, hanging and firing squad.)
The "Walls" prison in downtown Huntsville, Walker County, East Texas, is where all executions in Texas have taken place over two centuries. On this trip, we had the advantage of being shown around by the TDCJ's public relations man, Larry Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald is an avuncular, articulate, forthright man, who is largely responsible for the open, "nothing to hide" attitude of the TDCJ when it comes to Huntsville being dubbed "the execution capital of America." Charged as he is with patiently and continually explaining to the world's media exactly what they're up to down in Texas, with their proclivity for weekly executions, I felt that I already knew him, having seen him featured in the numerous documentaries that I had viewed during our research. He and Warden Neill Hodges courteously showed us around the death chamber, housed in the low 1950's-style "Building #1835" that is nestled within the high brick walls and approached by a neat garden with the occasional sprouting flower. Matter-of-factly they showed us the cells where the inmates spend their last hours after they are transferred from Death Row at the Polunsky Unit an hour away. A plastic curtain intersected the row of seven cells (useful for when they have two executions on the same day and need to isolate the condemned men). Walking past the beige, tiled shower (the coroner appreciates a clean corpse), we were guided through the door at the end into the green brick death chamber. As we stood around the hospital gurney, the warden, who oversees and attends all executions, courteously and matter-of-factly explained the "tie down" procedure, last words, and the clinically lethal injection of the three poisons: sodium thiopental (lethal dose - sedates person); pancuronium bromide (collapses diaphragm and lungs); potassium chloride (stops the heart). Death occurs in seven to ten minutes - maybe ten at most, he said. Larry explained how the proceedings are viewed, through a partition window, by the crime victim's family (since 1996), members of the press and next to them, in a segregated room, the condemned inmate's family can watch. The actual executioner is secreted in a tiny adjacent cubicle where he injects the poisons along three tubes poking through a square hole in the wall. (Since the American Medical Association barred physicians from taking part in executions, this task is now performed by a prison employee - often by an ex-military paramedic. The attending physician only confirms time of death.)
I had thought that I could never even enter this room, if the opportunity ever arose, creepy as I thought it to be. But I soon found myself inured to the function of this place as I chatted away amiably with the same matter-of-factness as Warden Hodges. Engaging the warden in conversations as to the effectiveness or morality of the death penalty was short. He is a career correctional officer and notions of an alternative such as "life without parole" are an anathema to him - someone who has spent his life looking after violent prisoners. As for Larry Fitzgerald, who has witnessed over one hundred executions, and who personally knew many of the inmates put to death, when asked, he always shrugs his shoulders philosophically: "It's the law. And whilst it's the law, we do the best we can."
We then visited The Terrell Unit where Death Row is now housed. Until 1965, Death Row was at the Walls unit in Huntsville, when it was moved to the Ellis Unit, 12 miles north of town. Then in 1998, the first escape from Death Row in 64 years occurred when inmate Martin Gurule fled from an Ellis work detail and scaled two fences of razor wire, his body protected by thick layers of newspapers strapped around his body. He had, however, taken a bullet on escape and a week later was found dead in a nearby creek, the sodden newspapers having dragged him to the bottom. Consequently, in 1999 Death Row was moved to the more secure Terrell Unit in Livingston. To be accurate, at the time we visited "Terrell" but it is now named the Polunsky Unit. When it was built in 1993, this ultra-modern prison was named, as tradition has it, after an ex-Chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice - in this case, Charles T. Terrell. However, when Death Row was moved there six years later, they didn't consult with Mr. Terrell, who later took umbrage because, ironically, of late he has had a change of heart about the death penalty, particularly as it pertains to the potential executions of innocents. He now favors a policy of life without parole. As the prison he built was now home to the most famous and certainly the busiest Death Row in the U.S. he was displeased with it being synonymous with his family name and so he politely asked them to change it. It is now called the Polunsky Unit, not surprisingly, after the next Chairman, Allan B. Polunsky, who has no such qualms about the death penalty apparently.
The first view of Terrell/Polunsky is quite startling. Its massive (2,800 inmates) and crisp, no-nonsense architecture, with pretty flowerbeds nestling amongst the well-clipped and watered grass behind the acres of razor wire (invisible from a distance) give it the appearance of a very modern automobile factory.
Passing through the many layers of security along the razor wire tunnels, it's very impressive as the numerous automatic salle-portes zip open and whoosh shut - very shut - behind you. Through smoked glass I could see a control center that had more video screens than a CNN newsroom. We passed a reassuring sign that said, "Hostages will not exit." The shiny floors and pristine walls belie the fact that Polunsky is considered one of the toughest prisons in Texas. It's certainly the most secure. There are 450 prisoners currently awaiting execution here, in a special wing. Curiously, in spite of all the high-tech gadgetry on display, the six-foot by ten-foot cells, with solid doors, have no air conditioning. Since the 1998 Ellis breakout the TDCJ is not messing around. The work program has been suspended and Death Row prisoners now reside in solitary confinement for twenty-three hours a day, and all communication with other inmates is forbidden. For our visit, as always, the prison officer showing us around - on this occasion Major Tim Lester, the unit's "family liaison officer" - was extremely courteous and open, as he led us deep into the prison. It was a quiet day, he told us. "You should have been here last month on our busiest day - Mother's Day."
In the visitation area families were chatting away to the Death Row inmates, communicating through the solid glass via telephone handsets while children ran around and their parents worked the soft drink and snack vending machines. If they wished, for a few dollars, they could even have a Polaroid taken against the armor-plated glass with their condemned relative, courtesy of the TDCJ. It's all very ordered and matter-of-fact. As we left and looked back at the Death Row wing, with its narrow, four-foot by six-inch window slats, the duty officer said, "Give them a wave, there's four hundred pairs of eyes looking at you right now."
Back in Austin, I began looking at possible locations with my production designer, Geoffrey Kirkland, and art director, Jennifer Williams. There are 70,000 undergrads at universities in and around Austin and their culture dominates the city and its economy (as evidenced by the hundreds of music bars on 6th Street. I liked Austin. Not quite the "San Francisco of the South" as it is sometimes touted to be, but an interesting, sophisticated and tolerant city). We also traveled further afield, looking at small towns just outside Austin. I particularly liked Taylor and Elgin, where we saw many interesting possibilities.
We also returned to the Ellis Unit, built in 1963 (2,300 inmates), which had housed Death Row for over 30 years until the move to Polunsky. Charles Randolph had originally written our story with Ellis in mind and we were now allowed inside. We were escorted across the Japanese bridge and water feature to the visitation rooms, which were exactly as I had seen them in many documentaries and which we would replicate for our film. We would, however, be needing permission to film the exterior of the prison, beyond the high security areas. As always, everyone was extremely courteous, as we were shown through the central spine of the prison amongst the mass of prisoners. Lisa, wearing long trousers as required by the rules (and certainly no "open-toed shoes") kept very close to the guards escorting us. Our visit culminated with lunch in the canteen served by the inmates.
I returned to Los Angeles briefly on my way to China, where I was serving on the jury of the Shanghai International Film Festival. Whilst in China, Kevin Spacey called me to say that he had read the script and very much wanted to do the film. This was great news, not least of all because with Kevin on board the studio would now officially give us the green light and all of us who had worked on the film for seven months would now get paid. This took yet another month to achieve when we were officially green-lit (August 12th) and all finally decamped to Austin to begin the film proper.
Since January, Kate Winslet had been calling me regularly, expressing her desire to play Elizabeth "Bitsey" Bloom in the movie. Now we were in a position to offer the part to her and Kate began working with the great dialect coach, Carla Meyer, on her East Coast accent. Laura Linney had agreed to play Constance and we had the heart of a wonderful cast.
I had been casting in L.A. for many weeks to fill the subsidiary parts with casting directors Juliet Taylor and Howard Feuer. I had also been very encouraged by my local casting sessions in Texas, as actors from Austin, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio came in to read for me. Also I held a mammoth "open call" at Austin's St. Edwards Catholic University for anyone who wanted to be in the movie. Apart from finding wonderful extras for the film, I love having open calls because there is always the chance that someone new will spring out from the hundreds of hopefuls that file through the doors. A lot of the smaller parts were cast in this way.
Gabriel Mann I had cast in Los Angeles, after seeing hundreds of young actors for the role of Zack - both famous names and wannabes. Gabe has a lovely, ingenuous quality - always likeable whilst playing a character far too smart for his own good. Matt Craven (Dusty) and Leon Rippy (Gale's lawyer, Braxton Belyeu) I had also cast in L.A. - both of them terrific actors - and total gentlemen. Rhona Mitra (Berlin) I had cast in London. Almost everyone else I had cast locally from our numerous sessions in Austin.
September saw the crew grow from the handful of us who had worked on the film for nearly a year to over two hundred. In 2000, the City of Austin and the Austin Film Society had taken over the private section of the disused Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, turning it into a de facto film studio. Our production offices had dug in at the old control tower (the poshest production offices we have ever had on location), and Geoffrey Kirkland began to build our sets in the disused hangars. We built an entire complex to replicate the Ellis visitation rooms and entrance lobby and corridors of the prison as well as a number of other interiors, such as Constance's house.
We had designed our schedule around the two stories in our script. David and Constance's back story was to be filmed in the first six weeks, overlapping for a few days with the Bitsey/David interviews and then for the last six weeks we planned to shoot Bitsey and Zack's present-day story.
The last weeks of preparation were crazed as we completed sets, nailed down locations, screen-tested makeup, hair and costumes. Michael Seresin, my cinematographer and colleague for thirty years, together with the camera operators Mike Proudfoot and Ted Adcock, walked the course with me as we always do, pacing sets and locations, scripts in hand trying to figure out at least some of it in advance - before the madness of filming began. Kevin, Laura and I also read through the script many times, smoothing out any hiccups and making sure that the film forming in all our heads was not just a good one, but the same one!
Finally we arrived at our first day of filming, October 5th, a year and a month since I had first read the script.
We started with Gale's TV debate with the governor. Michael Crabtree, who plays the Texas governor, I had cast locally. I avoided the temptation to cast a George W. Bush look-alike, although our fictional character in the film does share many of the current U.S. President's views, being as he is a staunch proponent of the death penalty, having authorized 146 executions whilst governor of Texas. The state legislature in Texas, curiously, only sits every two years or so. (The very definition of less government. A hundred years ago it was mooted that they meet every five years, encouraging the concept of no government.) Whilst in session, filmmakers, with our attendant road-blocking mobile circus, were understandably unwelcome at the Capitol. Consequently, the building was a hard place to get permission to use. After many refusals, the Governor's office once again intervened, and we eventually were granted permission to shoot Laura's rally speech there.
The offices of DeathWatch, the abolitionist organization for which Constance and Gale are the principal activists, we had set in Taylor, a small, decaying town, just outside Austin. I had found a number of locations there - it's almost a movie studio back-lot, with its host of boarded up buildings and empty streets, typical of many, once vibrant, but now abandoned, small towns in the rural South.
However, most of our locations were in Austin and close to our base - Gale's and Constance's houses, Greer's house (where the party and alleged rape take place), restaurants and Gale's apartment were all within comfortable striking distance of the crew hotels. (The crew was predominantly drawn from London, New York, Los Angeles and of course, Austin.) We had planned a number of scenes at the new Austin International Airport, but one month after September 11th, permissions to film were - understandably - promptly withdrawn. As fortune would have it, Austin's previous airport was abandoned but thankfully still intact, as no one had yet figured out what to do with it. Everything had been stripped out, but the shell was there and Geoffrey Kirkland and Jennifer Williams set about refurbishing and transforming it into a modern airport. Similarly, our hospital scenes were shot in an abandoned mental hospital transformed by the art department.
For the university scenes, the students certainly made us welcome. Kevin waded into the twenty-deep undergraduate crowd of his screaming fans, shaking hands and answering their mobile phones. The great thing about Kevin - his acting brilliance aside - is that he wears his movie celebrity so comfortably. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he actually enjoys it. Not for him the baseball cap pulled over his face as he dashes to his limo after finishing a scene. Kevin won't leave until every autograph is signed. His scenes in the lecture hall had the assembled kids (all actual students) spellbound as they forgot that they were actually making a movie. It was as though they had lucked out and caught a class by the coolest lecturer on campus. The same lecturer who, in our story, falls from grace and loses precisely this student contact and his intellectual fulfillment of communicating his passionate ideas. Even though Kevin repeated this scene many times, as filming demands, he kept his young audience's rapt attention.
I would like to put a good word in here for Charles's great script. After all, it's no mean feat, in today's cinema, to promulgate the ethical importance of Lacan and also keep your audience on the end of their seats for two hours.
We had built and equipped a small screening room in a hangar close to the production office at the Austin Studios and each night we religiously watched (with my editor, Gerry Hambling) our dailies. I started out this way many years ago and still prefer to see our work projected on a large screen and not on tape on a TV monitor. I always invite each head of department to watch the previous day's work. (As long as they sit in exactly the same seats each evening - I'm very superstitious.) Because of this ritual, our days were long. Most mornings we left the hotel at 6am to travel to the locations. I've always had a rule that I ride to the set in the same van as my cinematographer (Michael Seresin), camera operators (Mike Proudfoot and Ted Adcock - I shoot with two cameras) and the first assistant director (K.C. Hodenfield). Apart from the fact that this might be another twenty-year-old superstition, it's quite useful to be together to discuss the upcoming work, or more often, discuss what's going on in the real world that we seem to leave behind the moment we start a movie. Working a sixteen-hour day, six days a week is nothing compared to what a medical intern goes through, so I wouldn't boast about it too much, but it does show how hard and unglamorous filmmaking is. My own day off, as with all directors, is usually spent on an emergency like finding a replacement location - once promised, falling through - or spent re-working a scene for the next day's filming.
We were approaching the halfway mark of the shoot when it was nearing time for Kate Winslet to arrive from London. She had been working on her accent for some months now with her dialect coach. One day in the office Lisa got a call from one of Kate's Los Angeles agents. The obnoxious person said she was new in the office and that "there was a problem with Kate's (previously agreed) arrival dates." Lisa, needless to say, was displeased, only to be answered with a screech of laughter. It was Kate herself on the phone, trying out her new American accent, convincingly impersonating a Hollywood agent.
Kate arrived as scheduled, of course - we immediately read through the scenes she would be doing with both Kevin and Gabe and I fielded her many questions. The first work she had to do was the "interview" scenes with Kevin in our giant Ellis Unit visitation area set. Geoffrey Kirkland, in the name of authenticity, had conscientiously, but not overly practically, constructed the whole thing for real out of solid steel and bulletproof glass. It was a complete replica, resulting in the fact that neither the camera assistants nor I could get to Kevin, trapped as he was in maximum security. We solved the problem by cutting a trap door in the steel wall so that I could more easily talk to Kevin, rather than on my knees through a six-inch by three-foot wire mesh grill.
Kevin's last scene was shot on 6th Street where David staggers into the crowds, drunkenly ranting about Socrates. We wrapped at midnight and our proximity to the local bars allowed for an enjoyable farewell party for him.
We then embarked on Kate and Gabe's part of our film as Bitsey begins to unravel Gale's story to get closer to the truth. I was blessed with many great actors on this film. Double Oscar-winner that he is, Kevin's reputation goes before him. A consummate actor, he is unafraid of revealing the flaws in a character. He takes these imperfections by the scruff of the neck and throws them right back at you, newly formed and noble. He surprised me with what he did every day. Laura is the actor loved by other actors and has also been nominated for an Academy Award. Everything she does is infused with her own humility - an anomaly in today's "look at me - aren't I great" acting styles. She is the most generous actor I have ever worked with. But she's also smart, of course. Her strong theater background allows her to act brilliantly while seemingly giving absolutely everything to the other actors and yet, when you see the dailies and the finished film, she still ends up stealing her scenes. That's clever.
Amongst a great cast, I'd single out Matt Craven (Dusty), Gabe Mann (Zack), Leon Rippy, (Belyeu) and Jim Beaver (Duke Grover, the prison PR man) - all of them a pleasure to watch and, importantly, a delight to have on a film set.
Which brings me to Kate Winslet. At the risk of the hyperbole I reproved of at the beginning of this piece (I'm not known as an actor "luvvie," as they call it in London) - if I ever work with a better actress, or a nicer one, it could only be Laura Linney. Kate had wanted to do this part for so long and fought to do it even when the studio, at first, saw her only as an English rose (in corsets), albeit one who had been nominated for two Academy Awards before she was twenty (and played an American in Titanic, the most successful film of all time). In short, we worked very well together - it was telepathic almost (her dubious theory being that we are connected from a previous life). And she's fun. The hard-bitten American and English crew also admired her. In between shots, she would unselfishly help them technically at every point. Sorry about this love-fest stuff. Whether anyone else likes what we did is of course up to him or her, but with an industry plagued by egocentric actors, I have to speak up for a cast who got on with their jobs and behaved, well, like the rest of the crew. It was such a calm and pleasant way to make a movie.
Then we were hit by tornado. We were filming with Gabe and Kate in a diner on the outskirts of Austin. We carried on filming as the weather reports frantically bounced around the assistant directors' walkie-talkies as the storm got closer and closer. At noon it became as black as night, and the storm ripped into the electricians' lights outside, shattering the two-inch thick fresnel lenses as the giant steel lights were snapped from their harnesses and bounced down Highway 183. K.C., the first assistant director and the crew's designated DGA safety officer, made the decision to abandon filming as we were surrounded on three sides by the sheet glass windows of Jim's Diner. We crowded together in the small inner kitchen - over fifty of us - as the tornado grew in intensity. We put Kate, clutching her baby, into the inner food storage room for extra safety. After two hours the eye of the storm had passed us by and we limped back to the hotel, driving through the flooded highways.
It was then time to move the entire unit to Huntsville for the Walls and Ellis scenes. Curiously, I didn't feel so intimidated as I had on my previous visits. Standing outside the thirty-foot high, three-foot thick red brick walls of Huntsville prison with the whole film circus of 50 vehicles, two helicopters and a crew of two hundred (dressed in their L.L. Bean combat gear), I felt like Attila the Hun at the gates of Rome.
Huntsville is a typical East Texas small town. (Apart from the mammoth statue of Sam Houston that you see as you drive into town. It's an extraordinary structure - part Soviet statuary, part Colonel Sanders.) Huntsville is also also a "company" town - its principal industry being "the correctional business." In Walker County alone, where Huntsville is situated, there are seven large prisons housing 13,000 inmates and employing 6,000 local security and support staff. Because of Huntsville's high profile as an execution center, the town is quite used to large-scale attention from the media. Consequently, Larry Fitzgerald of the TDCJ was undaunted by our presence and smoothed the way as we shot our scenes with our helicopters buzzing overhead and the hundreds of inmates inside the prison courtyard shouting and waving at the helicopters, possibly hoping for an early release.
Larry Fitzgerald was having dinner at a local restaurant during filming when a friend came up to his table. "Hell of a noise out there today, Larry," he said. "Must have been a big one. Who got executed?" The worlds of film and reality had collided. Larry generously told me this story as a compliment to our recreation. No one died in our version.
On December 22nd, after 61 days of filming, right on schedule and miraculously on budget, we completed filming in Texas. The crew could now go home for Christmas.
Returning to London with 300,000 feet of film, Gerry Hambling and I began the editing process. Gerry has cut every one of my films. He's a great editor, to which his many awards testify - but he's not what you'd call fast. He shares with Michael Kahn (Steven Spielberg's editor) the distinction of being the last to cut on film rather than computer, and these great masters cannot be hurried.
We still had to complete the Barcelona sections of the film and the opera scene. Scarcely having unpacked our mountain of boxes of paperwork from Austin, Lisa Moran and David Wimbury began to prepare the Barcelona shoot and the "Turandot" opera. There were also auditions for sopranos and tenors. We recorded Liù's aria at Abbey Road Studios, replete with an 80-piece orchestra, and the soprano was Janis Kelly.
In Barcelona we shot Dusty's and Sharon's (Gale's wife) scenes and went into the Barcelona opera house to shoot the reverses, principally the audience scenes. We weren't allowed to use the stage area, which was in the midst of another production, and so, back at Shepperton Studios, Jennifer Williams, our art director, recreated our version of "Turandot". The final sound mix was done by my long-term colleague, Andy Nelson, at Fox Studios in Los Angeles.
I showed the completed film to Stacey Snider at Universal five months after we had left Austin and with her helpful comments on the cut, the finished picture was locked just three weeks later.
Frankly, it's a miracle that this film even got made in today's climate, with the ever-present pressure on studios to deliver mega-buck successes to their owners. Our film is a thriller with a polemical heart. I am very grateful to Stacey Snider and to Universal for having had the courage to make it.
Alan Parker, November 2002
The Death Penalty: The Political
Argument
By Alan Parker
Our film is a thriller. It would be hypocritical to pretend otherwise, cognizant as we all are of the commercial demands of the contemporary movie business. Perhaps, because of this alone, I still would have made the film. But I would also be remiss in pretending that this was the only reason that I was attracted to this project. Personally I am very much against the death penalty for several reasons, which I will explain below. Charles Randolph, the writer, is against it because he believes that it doesn't work. The actors - principally Kevin, Kate and Laura - have varying views, which probably mirror the myriad of current popular opinions.
Nevertheless, our film is not a political diatribe. It is a story about people who would go to great extremes because of their beliefs, and to that end the film is biased on their behalf. However, I most certainly hope that the film will provoke debate. Here is my personal understanding of the "for" and "against" arguments with regard to the death penalty.
There are literally thousands of anti-death penalty websites on the internet (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org) as patently pointed out by one of the few pro-death penalty sites (www.prodeathpenalty.com).
As of writing, the most recent U.S. survey (Gallup, May 2002) shows that 52% approve of the death penalty as opposed to 43% who favor "life without parole." The "for" figure has grown steadily since an all time low in 1965, with a high in recent years of 61% (1997). When the question is asked without an alternative of life sentence, the figure in favor is a good deal higher (www.gallup.com).
Compassion for the victims of violent crime is paramount in all views on the death penalty, whether for or against it. A cursory glance at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's comprehensive website (www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/deathrow) revealing the actual crimes for which many of the residents of Death Row have been convicted makes for pretty gruesome reading. The most "bleeding heart" liberal could not argue with the litany of heinous crimes scrupulously recorded there. These people, if guilty of their crimes, undoubtedly should be punished. But should they be put to death? Are they all guilty? In the last twenty-five years, 102 condemned prisoners were released from Death Row in the U.S. because they were discovered to be innocent. (A few due to the advent of DNA, but mostly they were victims of dishonest witnesses.)
The possibility of an innocent being executed is the single most important argument that could possibly sway public opinion (and hence is the crux of our movie). Of those polled by Gallup, 90% stated that they thought that probably as many as 10% of those executed were innocent. As the American Bar Association has repeatedly pointed out, individuals prosecuted for murder, predominantly from the bottom end of the economic scale, cannot afford to pay for lawyers and consequently, in the vast majority of cases, do not have adequate legal representation.
Popular support for the death penalty in the U.S. is linked to the considerable increase in violent crime. Little has to do with its effectiveness as a deterrent. The overwhelming evidence is to the contrary. (The Texas crime rate rose 4% in 2001, nearly five times the national average, with a 7.6% increase in homicides. At the same time, the total number of executions in Texas was more than three times that of any other state. The Northeast - the region with the lowest murder rate - had no executions in 2001.) There is also a view that the sheer brutalizing effect of the death penalty doesn't deter, but actually aggravates, crime. The polls state, however, that most people don't even care if it is effective. The argument appears to still be fueled by retribution: that vindication is a moral imperative - that only execution can fulfill a society's will - "it fits the crime." To be against the death penalty becomes an expression of fear: of being "soft on crime," or oblivious to the horrendous rise in crime, violent or otherwise, that affects everyone's daily lives.
Since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated in the United States, there have been 807 executions. In 2002 the figure (as I write) was 66 - down from a high of 98 in 1999. In theory, the death penalty exists in 38 states and Death Rows swell around the country (from 691 in 1980 to 3,697 currently). However, except for the southern states - led by Texas (285), Virginia (87), Missouri (58), and Florida (53) - many states seem reluctant to administer it. The view seemingly being that it's important to have the death penalty as long as it's rarely used. California, for instance (with the country's highest number of homicides), has the most populous Death Row (613) and yet since 1976 has carried out only 10 executions.
Another key issue in the debate is that of racial discrimination. While blacks represent 12% of the U.S. population, 35% of those executed are black. This is an issue that continues to divide the Supreme Court. As does the execution of juveniles and the mentally ill and retarded. (Once again, for the pro-death penalty view on this, see www.prodeathpenalty.com/articles.htm. For the abolitionists' argument, see http://dev.aclu.org/DeathPenalty/DeathPenaltyMain.cfm or www.amnestyusa. org/abolish.)
With regard to the "life without parole" solution, most people have a deep concern that this doesn't actually mean "forever," and that one day a murderer will be back on the streets. There is also the belief that this solution is too expensive - a waste of taxpayers' money. (In fact, the cost of lifelong incarceration is actually one quarter of that incurred by a death penalty case - legally complex and with the state paying for both prosecution and defense costs. In Texas, the average time that a prisoner spends on Death Row is ten years while the legal appeals process takes place).
The Supreme Court has also grappled with the issue of "cruel and unusual punishment" - the phrase contained in the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1791) taken from the English Bill of Rights (1689). The Supreme Court's inability to come to an agreement on this led to the decade-long moratorium on executions from the 1960's into the 1970's and the opinions of 1972 and 1976 when the court, during a period of considerable obfuscation, declared the contrary decisions which have plagued the tenuous legality of the death penalty ever since. For example:
Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun: "Intravenous tubes attached to his arms will carry the instrument of death, a toxic fluid designed for the specific purpose of killing human beings...no longer a defendant…but a man, strapped to a gurney and seconds away from extinction."
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, not known for his munificence (comparing lethal injection with the brutal rape and murder of an eleven-year-old girl): "How enviable a quiet death by lethal injection compared to that!"
Supreme Court Justice Blackmun: "The death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice, and mistake."
Supreme Court Justice Scalia: "If the people conclude that more brutal deaths may be deterred by capital punishment, indeed, if they merely conclude that justice requires such brutal deaths to be avenged…the court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence should not prevent them."
Apart from the shibboleth of deterrence, Justice Scalia probably got it right regarding public opinion: revenge is what it's all about. Certainly lethal injection is a lot less "cruel and unusual" than "Old Sparky" - the electric chair, which preceded it for seventy years. You find the vein, a little choking, a sigh and they're gone. Scalia has been at the center of the death penalty debate as a leading conservative on the Supreme Court since 1986, hence my attention to him here. For Scalia, retribution, not vengeance, is achieved, just as it says in the Bible (which often figures in the debate - Matthew 5:7). Scalia quoting Paul: "If you do wrong, then you may well be afraid: because it is not for nothing that the symbol of authority is the sword." Needless to say, Scalia, a Roman Catholic, wasn't exactly in tune with his church, which had odd notions of "turning the other cheek" along with fifty other quotes from the Bible not included here. In fact, the U.S. Catholic bishops had a go at influencing the justice with Ezekiel: "And the Lord said, I swear I take no pleasure in taking the life of a wicked man." Scalia was unimpressed by Ezekiel, because anyway, he wasn't saying he took any pleasure in it, merely that he was "part of the machinery of death." Pope John Paul II asked the U.S. to stop this "cycle of violence" to no avail. Scalia ignored them all in the name of American democracy. It wasn't just the Pope who was worried about all the executions in the U.S. - so was the rest of the world. Not that it made a jot of difference to U.S. popular opinion. The U.S. suddenly found itself out of step with every modern democracy, all of whom had long before abolished the death penalty. Justice Scalia, however, had his own take on this. He said, "The more Christian a country is, the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe and has best support in the church-going United States. I attribute this to the fact that for a believing Christian, death is no big deal."
It goes without saying that Scalia's characterization of Europe as "post-Christian" wouldn't go down too well at the Vatican or with the European Union's 254 million Catholics. Also, Scalia's hypothesis doesn't really fly, considering the conduct of atheist China and Muslim Iraq (the two countries that perform more executions than the United States). Although one could allow Scalia's argument that both of those countries do not consider death "a big deal." In April 2001, the United Nations passed a resolution calling for all members to abandon the death penalty. (Currently, 110 countries have already done so.) The U.S. was subsequently ejected from the U.N. Human Rights Committee for the first time since 1947, when the organization was formed. The U.S. suddenly found itself among odd bedfellows on a list of most executions in 1999:
1. China, 2. Iraq, 3. Congo, 4. U.SA., 5. Iran.
The "pro" argument says that it's churlish for Europeans, like myself, to get snotty about this. After all, the homicide rate in the U.S. is ten times higher than it is in Western Europe, so maybe stiffer sentences are in order - and so the debate becomes more turbid. However, it is clear that America's apparent insensate and obdurate position on the death penalty has considerably degraded the image of the U.S. in democratic Europe, perhaps negating its moral leadership in the world. An editorial in France's Le Monde accurately summed up European feeling: "The death penalty, along with limits on abortion rights and the sale of firearms, is digging a gulf between America and the Old Continent, a gulf of values and misunderstanding that drives them apart. In this domain, President Bush, more than any of his predecessors, incarnates an America that is more and more distant from Europe." Amongst considerable opprobrium, Bush is often described by left-wing politicians as a "serial assassin" (authorizing as he did 146 executions during his tenure as governor of Texas).
International criticism, of course, goes unheeded in the traditionally inward-looking United States. Scalia even postulated that, "Secular Europe's thought on this matter is the legacy of Napoleon, Hegel and Freud." Europeans would argue that Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin probably had a greater influence on their present thinking.
The oft-held view in Europe is that the U.S.'s barbaric avidity for execution is just a reflection of a brutal society. But claiming the moral high ground isn't that simple. Okay, the U.S. is in violation of the U.N. Resolution on Human Rights, and there are more firearms in private hands in the U.S. than in the entire Chinese Army, but in truth, popular opinion in Europe doesn't always accurately reflect the views of its politicians and representatives.
When polled, people's opinions are remarkably similar to those held in the U.S. For instance, in the U.K., support for the return of capital punishment grew to 70% in the late 1990's in the wake of highly publicized murders of children. (It currently stands at 60%.) In the Netherlands, the most liberal of societies, the figure is 52% in favor. In France and Italy, support sits at 50%. The new Eastern European members of the EU have all abolished capital punishment as a prerequisite of membership, even though 60% of people favor its retention. Boris Yeltsin commuted 700 prisoners on Russia's Death Rows to "life imprisonment" in order to gain membership to the Council of Europe.
It is argued that it's not so much a divide in U.S. and European public opinion as a difference between political cultures. The difference in Europe is that governments decided to abolish capital punishment for intellectual and moral reasons, despite the will of the populace. This couldn't happen in the U.S. It can't just be explained away as the Faustian bargain that American politicians strike - votes being more important than principles. As reasoned in Stuart Banner's excellent book, The Death Penalty: An American History, it could be argued that the United States is more, well, democratic. After all, no U.S. politician would run for office on an issue if the polls said that the electorate was against it. Increasingly, this very issue actually defines a candidate to the voters. And so the effect on government, and the law, becomes most directly the will of the people. Hence, the moral high ground is not easily yielded.
Whatever side of the debate we all sit on - whether you see it as an abasement of all civilized human values or as a necessary evil in an increasingly evil society - it's obvious that it's not a clear-cut issue, and if it isn't 100% clear, we have no right to so readily take the lives of other human beings.
Once again, Justice Blackmun's words of 25 years ago: "The death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice and mistake." Nothing has changed. Too many of those that are sent to their deaths have been black, Hispanic, uneducated and poor. The execution of juveniles and the mentally ill or retarded cannot be acceptable in a civilized society. A patently flawed and fallible justice system continues to send innocents to their deaths. Even Justice Scalia agrees with this: "Death is no big deal," he said. "But the execution of an innocent is."
The overwhelming evidence shows that the threat of Death Row, and ultimately many years later the threat of injection of lethal poison, certainly does not deter violent crime. But the fear of crime - all crime - affects everyone's lives and this real concern causes people to continue to demand the greatest retribution.
My own views are probably close to those expressed in Constance's speech outside the Texas State Capitol in our film:
SCRIPT EXTRACT
Constance:
When you kill someone, you rob their family. Not just of a loved one, but of their humanity - you harden their hearts with hate, you take away their capacity for civilized dispassion, you condemn them to blood lust. It's cruel, horrible thing. But indulging that hate will never help. The damage is done and once we've had our pound of flesh we're still hungry, we leave the Death House muttering that lethal injection was just too good for them. In the end, a civilized society must live with a hard truth: he who seeks revenge digs two graves. About the cast
KEVIN
SPACEY
(David Gale)
Kevin Spacey exploded onto cinema screens seven years ago when he starred in three films back to back: Swimming with Sharks, The Usual Suspects, for which he won his first Academy AwardR, and David Fincher's Seven. He went on to star in such films as L.A. Confidential, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Looking for Richard, The Negotiator, Hurlyburly, K-PAX and Lasse Hallstrom's The Shipping News opposite Judi Dench, Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett. He won the Academy AwardR as Best Actor for his performance in Sam Mendes' American Beauty opposite Annette Bening.
Prior to this, he co-starred in Glengarry Glen Ross with Jack Lemmon, Consenting Adults for director Alan Pakula, and The Ref opposite Judi Davis and Denis Leary, directed by the late Ted Demme. His work in television has included Darrow for American Playhouse and the CBS series Wiseguy.
Spacey is also a Tony Award-winning stage actor, appearing on Broadway in such productions as Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon, for which he took home the Best Supporting Actor Tony.
In 1997, Spacey formed Trigger Street Productions, which produced O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh with the Almeida Theatre at the Old Vic in London. Spacey won the Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in this production. Trigger Street then produced the play on Broadway with Emanuel Azenberg where the production was nominated for five Tony Awards. Trigger Street also produced the Off-Broadway production of Lee Blessing's Cobb at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, and recently re-staged it at Garry Marshall's Falcon Theatre in Los Angeles. Spacey continues to be associated with the Old Vic Theatre in London where he plans his return to the stage in 2004.
Trigger Street has also produced the feature films The Big Kahuna starring Danny DeVito and, most recently, The United States of Leland, written and directed by first time filmmaker Matthew Hoge and starring Don Cheadle and Ryan Gosling. Spacey made his feature directorial debut with the film Albino Alligator, starring Matt Dillon, Faye Dunaway and Gary Sinise.
Most recently Spacey helped launch TriggerStreet.com, an interactive web site dedicated to the nurturing and development of undiscovered talent, sponsored by Budweiser.
KATE WINSLET
(Elizabeth "Bitsey" Bloom)
Kate Winslet grew up in a family of actors and began performing on British television when she was thirteen. At the age of seventeen, she made her name internationally in Peter Jackson's feature film Heavenly Creatures. She followed that in 1995 with her role as Marianne Dashwood in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility. Winslet received her first Academy AwardR nomination for this performance and was also nominated for a Golden Globe. She then went on to win the BAFTA and the Screen Actors Guild Award.
In her next film, she co-starred with Christopher Eccleston in Michael Winterbottom's Jude and then as Ophelia in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet. She then went on to appear as the amazing Rose in James Cameron's Titanic opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. At the age of 22, Winslet received her second Academy AwardR nomination for this role, and the honor of being the youngest actress ever to be nominated for two Academy AwardsR.
Up next in 1997, Winslet starred as Julia in Hideous Kinky directed by Gillies MacKinnon, and in 1998 co-starred with Harvey Keitel in Jane Campion's comedic drama Holy Smoke. She also starred in Philip Kaufman's Quills along with Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin Phoenix and Michael Caine.
Winslet was most recently seen in Iris, for which she received Golden Globe and OscarR nominations and Michael Apted's Enigma, a spy drama about code-breakers during early WWII. She will next be seen in Neverland with Johnny Depp.
LAURA
LINNEY
(Constance Harraway)
Laura Linney received an Academy AwardR nomination in 2001 for her performance in Kenneth Lonergan's widely praised independent film, You Can Count On Me, opposite Matthew Broderick and Mark Ruffalo. She was awarded Best Actress by the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics, and was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Golden Globe Award and an Independent Spirit Award. Most recently, Linney won an Emmy Award for her portrayal of Iris Bravard in Showtime's Wild Iris. In addition, she was recently nominated for a Tony Award for her role in The Crucible on Broadway.
Prior to this, Linney appeared in such films as Primal Fear opposite Richard Gere, Peter Weir's The Truman Show, Clint Eastwood's Absolute Power and The House of Mirth, based on Edith Wharton's turn-of-the-century novel of the same name. Linney made her feature film debut in Congo. Most recently, she re-teamed with Richard Gere for The Mothman Prophecies, which was released in 2002. She recently completed production on the romantic ensemble comedy Love Actually, as well as Clint Eastwood's Mystic River, starring opposite Sean Penn.
A graduate of the Julliard School, Linney starred on Broadway in Phillip Barry's Holiday opposite Tony Goldwyn, and in John Guare's Landscape of the Body at the Yale Repertory Theatre. Other Broadway credits include Gerald Gutierrez's Honour opposite Jane Alexander, Six Degrees of Separation, The Seagull and Hedda Gabler, for which she won a 1994 Calloway Award. She won a Theatre World Award and a Drama Desk nomination for her performance in Sight Unseen.
GABRIEL MANN
(Zack)
Gabriel Mann recently starred in The Bourne Identity with Matt Damon and in Stephen Gaghan's Abandoned opposite Benjamin Bratt and Katie Holmes. He will next be seen in Buffalo Soldiers opposite Joaquin Phoenix and in Exorcist: The Beginning, directed by Paul Schrader.
In addition to the critically acclaimed Sundance winner High Art, Mann's credits include Allison Anders' autobiographical story Things Behind the Sun, Josie and the Pussycats, Mike Tollin's Summer Catch, Michael Corrente's Outside Providence, How to Make the Cruelest Month, Antonio Tibaldi's Claudine's Return, Alfonso Cuaron's Great Expectations, Parallel Sons and I Shot Andy Warhol.
RHONA
MITRA
(Berlin)
Rhona Mitra, who recently completed filming Highwaymen opposite Jim Caviezel, landed her first feature film role in Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man shortly after arriving in Los Angeles from her native England. She was then cast as Scott Wolf's girlfriend in the television series Party of Five. Subsequent credits include Get Carter, starring Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine and Miranda Richardson, the British film comedy Ali G Indahouse, the ABC television series Gideon's Crossing and the BBC mini-series The Maid Who Made Husbands Jealous. Mitra was most recently seen in Sweet Home Alabama opposite Reese Witherspoon.
MATT CRAVEN
(Dusty)
Matt Craven can be seen in three films in 2003 - Bandido, The Clearing and Timeline - as well as The Life of David Gale. His other feature film credits include Dragonfly, Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her, Paulie, Crimson Tide, K-2, Indian Summer, A Few Good Men, Jacob's Ladder, Tin Men and the critically acclaimed independent film, Bulletproof Heart. Craven made his feature film debut in Ivan Reitman's hit comedy, Meatballs, and subsequently starred in Bravery in the Field, which was shot for the National Film Board of Canada and was nominated for an Academy AwardR.
Craven starred in the Showtime film Bleacher Bums and has recurring roles on E.R. and the new hit series Boomtown. He was a series regular on L.A. Doctors and the Steven Spielberg drama series High Incident. Other television credits include Nuremberg, Varian's War and the mini-series From the Earth to the Moon.
LEON RIPPY
(Braxton Belyeu)
Leon Rippy was born and raised in North Carolina. Introduced to acting at an early age, he has appeared in more than 70 plays. He has also founded and operated two professional theater companies, traveled with the circus and was foreman of a cattle ranch.
Rippy's feature film credits number more than 30 and include The Patriot, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Beyond the Law, Moon 44, Kuffs, Young Guns II and The Color Purple. He was most recently seen in Eight Legged Freaks. Rippy and his wife live in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles with their two children, four cats and one dog. Whenever possible, they enjoy spending time at their Carolina farm.
Who's who behind the scenes
ALAN PARKER
(Director/Producer)
Alan Parker wrote and directed his first film, Bugsy Malone, in 1975. The film was a musical pastiche of 1920's gangster films with an entire cast of children. The highly original film received eight British Academy Award nominations and five awards.
His second film was the controversial Midnight Express (1977) which won two OscarsR? and six Academy AwardR nominations, including one for Parker as Best Director. The film received six Golden Globe Awards and four awards from the British Film Academy. This was followed in 1979 by Parker's film Fame, a celebration of youth and the arts, which won two Academy AwardsR, six nominations, four Golden Globe nominations and was later adapted into a successful television series.
In 1981, Parker directed Shoot The Moon starring Diane Keaton and Albert Finney, and the powerful Pink Floyd The Wall, the feature film adaptation of the successful rock album, which has become a classic of the genre.
In 1984, Parker directed Birdy, based on the William Wharton novel, starring Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine, which won the Grand Prix Special Du Jury at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.
His next film, Angel Heart, written and directed by Parker in 1986 and starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro and Lisa Bonet, opened in the United States amidst a storm caused by the X rating initially imposed on it by the MPAA.
In 1988, Parker directed the Civil Rights drama, Mississippi Burning, starring Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe, which was nominated for seven Academy AwardsR including Best Director for Parker and winning for Best Cinematography. Parker was also awarded the D.W. Griffith Award by the National Board of Review for directing. The film was nominated for five British Academy Awards, winning three. It also won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
In 1989, Parker wrote and directed Come See The Paradise, a love story set against the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, starring Dennis Quaid and Tamlyn Tomita.
The Commitments, a story of a young Irish working-class soul band, was awarded a Golden Globe Nomination for Best Picture in 1990 and won Parker the Best Director prize at the Tokyo Film Festival, as well as British Academy Awards for Editing, Screenplay, Director and Best Picture.
In 1993, Parker wrote and directed The Road To Wellville, based on the novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle, and starring Anthony Hopkins, Bridget Fonda, Matthew Broderick, John Cusack and Dana Carvey.
In 1996, Parker directed, wrote and produced Evita, based on the successful stage show by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and starring Madonna, Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Pryce. The film won three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Picture.
Angela's Ashes, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning memoir by Frank McCourt, was written and directed by Alan Parker in 1999 and starred Emily Watson and Robert Carlyle.
In 1974, Alan Parker directed the BBC Television Film The Evacuees, written by Jack Rosenthal, which won the International Emmy Award and a BAFTA Award for direction.
In 1984, to celebrate British Film Year, Parker wrote and directed the provocative documentary A Turnip Head's Guide To The British Cinema, which underlined Parker's fiercely independent and outspoken views as he lambasted the British film establishment and film critics. It won the British Press Guild Award for the year's best documentary.
A compendium of Parker's satirical cartoons, Hares In The Gate, was published in 1982 and another collection of his cartoons on the film industry, Making Movies, was published in 1998.
A founding member of the Directors Guild of Great Britain, Parker has lectured at film schools around the world. In 1985 he was honored by the British Academy with the prestigious Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema, and in November, 1995 Parker was awarded a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II. In 1999, Parker was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Directors Guild of Great Britain and in 2002 he was honored with a knighthood for services to the British film industry.
In January 1998, Parker took up his post as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the British Film Institute. In August of 1999, Parker was appointed first Chairman of the newly-formed Film Council, a position he still holds.
NICOLAS CAGE
(Producer)
Nicolas Cage made his debut as a producer with Shadow of the Vampire in 2000 under his Saturn Films banner. Nominated for two Academy AwardsR, the film starred John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe.
Cage is known as one of Hollywood's most versatile actors, having proven his talent in every genre, from action thrillers to poignant dramas to romantic comedies. His daring performance in Mike Figgis' Leaving Las Vegas brought him an Academy AwardR for Best Actor. He also received a Golden Globe and Best Actor awards from the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Chicago Film Critics and the National Board of Review.
Currently, Cage is starring in Adaptation, for which he has earned a Golden Globe nomination. His recent roles include the moving holiday film The Family Man, the auto theft thriller Gone in 60 Seconds and Martin Scorsese's gritty story of urban paramedics, Bringing Out The Dead. In 1998, Cage starred in the box office success City of Angels opposite Meg Ryan. He previously starred in John Woo's critically acclaimed action-thriller Face/Off with John Travolta. The role earned him numerous accolades including the Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Best Actor and three MTV Movie Award nominations. Cage starred opposite John Cusack and John Malkovich in Con Air, and opposite Sean Connery and Ed Harris in the blockbuster action film The Rock.
Cage has also proven himself adept at handling romantic comedy, receiving a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in the offbeat romantic comedy Moonstruck, in which he co-starred with Cher. He followed it with a second Golden Globe nomination for his comedic role in Honeymoon in Vegas. His other film credits include Guarding Tess opposite Shirley MacLaine, the highly acclaimed film noir Red Rock West, David Lynch's Wild at Heart, which won the Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, It Could Happen to You, Barbet Schroeder's Kiss of Death, Birdy, Valley Girl, the Coen Brothers' Raising Arizona, The Cotton Club and Peggy Sue Got Married. He most recently starred in John Woo's Windtalkers and John Madden's Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
Cage recently made his directorial debut with the drama Sonny. Upcoming projects include Matchstick Men for director Ridley Scott.
CHARLES RANDOLPH
(Writer)
Charles Randolph began writing for the film and television industry three years ago. Previously, he was a philosophy professor for eight years in Vienna, Austria. A Southerner and the son of Church of Christ missionaries, Randolph originally left the United States for Europe to work for an evangelical group smuggling bibles into Eastern Europe. Randolph now makes Los Angeles his home. The Life of David Gale is his first feature film screenplay.
MICHAEL SERESIN
(Director of Photography)
Michael Seresin has served as cinematographer on many of Alan Parker's films including Angela's Ashes, Come See The Paradise, Angel Heart, Birdy, Shoot The Moon, Fame, Midnight Express and Bugsy Malone. Seresin received a BAFTA Award nomination for Angela's Ashes. His other credits include Mercury Rising, City Hall, Sleeping Dogs, The Ragman's Daughter and Domestic Disturbance for director Harold Becker. Seresin directed the film Homeboy.
GEOFFREY
KIRKLAND
(Production Designer)
Geoffrey Kirkland joins Alan Parker for the ninth time, having collaborated on Angela's Ashes, Mississippi Burning, Birdy, Come See The Paradise, Shoot The Moon, Fame, the Academy AwardR-winning Midnight Express and Bugsy Malone, their first film together, which also earned Kirkland a BAFTA Award for Best Production Design. Kirkland's other film credits as production designer include Desperate Measures, Space Jam, Renaissance Man and The Right Stuff, for which he shared an Academy AwardR nomination.
GERRY HAMBLING, a.c.e.
(Editor)
Gerry Hambling has been Alan Parker's editor since 1971, when Parker was a commercials director, moving with him in 1975 to edit Bugsy Malone. Since that time, Hambling has edited all of Parker's films: Angela's Ashes, Evita, for which he received an OscarR nomination and an ACE Award, Midnight Express (an OscarR nomination, a BAFTA Award and British Guild of Editors Award), Fame (an OscarR nomination, BAFTA nomination and British Guild of Editors Award), Shoot The Moon, Pink Floyd The Wall, Birdy (British Guild of Editors Award), Angel Heart (British Guild of Editors Award), Mississippi Burning (OscarR nomination, BAFTA Award and ACE Award), Come See The Paradise, The Commitments (OscarR nomination, BAFTA Award) and The Road To Wellville.
RENÉE EHRLICH
KALFUS
(Costume Designer)
Renée Ehrlich Kalfus most recently designed the costumes for director Lasse Hallstrom's The Shipping News, and has also collaborated with the director on his four previous films: Chocolat, The Cider House Rules, Once Around and What's Eating Gilbert Grape? She was nominated for BAFTA and Costume Designers Guild Awards for Chocolat. Kalfus' other film credits as costume designer include Scott Hicks' Snow Falling on Cedars, Tim Robbins' Dead Man Walking, Griffin Dunne's Addicted to Love, Mimi Leder's Pay It Forward, Martha Coolidge's Crazy in Love, Robert Harling's The Evening Star, Robert Allan Ackerman's Safe Passage and With Honors, directed by Alec Keshishian.
Kalfus studied painting at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Music
When I first got to Austin, one block's walk away from my hotel I soon discovered 6th Street, where for ten blocks on either side it was jam-packed with bars - all of them blaring out live music. The banners across the street proclaimed Austin to be "the live music capital of America," and although some other cities might boast the same claim, you couldn't deny the quantity and diversity of music on offer. Catering as they do for the eclectic tastes of a student population of 50,000, I pored through the shelves of the local record stores to narrow down the source music relevant to The Life of David Gale.
At the same time, during the pre-production period, I began to experiment with the music that would become the score of our film.
Over the years, I had worked with my two sons, Alex and Jake, on the music for many of my films. Often they have helped me, without credit, with temp scores and on Come See the Paradise they provided the main theme. Both are very different in their musical backgrounds. Jake is classically trained, having earned his Masters degree in composition at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Alex, who trained in audio engineering, and who plays many instruments, has mainly been involved in contemporary music. However, my films over the last ten years have involved different musical situations - with The Commitments (soul music); Evita (Andrew Lloyd Webber) and Angela's Ashes (John Williams) there had been little opportunity for us to work together since.
During the preparation and shoot of The Life of David Gale I asked Alex to experiment for me in areas where I thought the score might go. I wanted a modern, rhythm-driven score to serve the thriller aspect of the movie and I also wanted it to echo the themes within it. I sent Alex a pile of research materials to do with the political heart of the film and included some biblical quotations, which had been often used both for and against the death penalty. He sent me many demos in Austin, which were very promising.
When I had completed the shoot and returned to London to edit the film I showed Alex and Jake the scenes that we had already cut and the hours of footage that we were still working on.
The first thing that we completed musically was the song that Alex had been working on - Another Bleeding Heart - and which he then took into the studio. Jake wrote the string sections for the song and we were suddenly off on a musical experiment. I have to say now, that as proud as I am of my sons' accomplishments, I would always be far too selfish with regard to my film to mess it up with notions of nepotism. But, little by little, we started to nudge towards a score that I felt was fresh and original, and one that I couldn't possibly replicate with a more starry-named composer. Universal were very patient during this period: "Who's doing the score, Alan?" they asked weekly. "I'm experimenting," I would answer. "All will be clear when I show you the finished film." Alex and Jake would immediately work on each scene as it came off the Moviola. Jake took the scenes that needed more traditional, orchestral pieces and Alex worked on the rhythmically driven 'thriller' scenes. It was a completely organic process - the music was created at exactly the same time as we cut the scenes, something that I had never been able to do before on my films. They adapted their work as we cut: Alex, in his back room studio, layering dozens of complex tracks to affect the scenes and Jake, working to picture on his Clavinova, adjusting his music bar by bar.
There came a point when the film required them to work together - something they hadn't done for some time. Alex's contemporary multi-tracks had to fuse with Jake's classical themes. The cues they had named from the script, so Jake's Lacan theme (named from the French philosopher in David's first lecture) suddenly became musically and nominally Ominous Lacan as Jake's cello pieces fused with Alex's less elegantly entitled cues, i.e. Ominous House Vibe. The very titles themselves are a reflection of their different musical educations. The two of them worked through the night to work and rework their stuff for my film: Jake's pieces Almost Martyrs and Huntsville Epitaph and Alex's pieces Shack 2 Cell, Dusty's Cabin and Media Frenzy. I doubt that any director ever got so much work out of his composers, especially as they hadn't been paid a cent at this point. (We were still in the experimental zone, as far as Universal was concerned.) And, as closely entwined as we are as a family - and also, it has to be said, as opinionated as we usually all are with regard to our different musical tastes - miraculously we got through it without a single argument. Finally, Universal saw and approved the film with its (up to now, electronically recorded) score. We then had to finish the music. At Abbey Road in Studio 1, Jake - who had orchestrated his pieces for a 70-person orchestra - received a round of applause at the end of the sessions from the collected players (not usually known for their altruism). Alex worked away in Studio 3, laying down the dozens of tracks he had created himself in his backroom studio and augmenting them with live musicians.
Needless to say that, family connections aside, I am immensely proud of the score Alex and Jake did for my film.
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