Proof Of Life: In Print Page Two

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|| How to Succeed in the Kidnapping Business (10/8/00) || Taylor Made (11/00) ||

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The Most Chemistry-Conscious Director: Taylor Made
By Stephen Rebello
Movieline, November 2000

Director Taylor Hackford is renowned for teaming sexy co-stars in hit movies like An Officer and a Gentleman, Against All Odds, and The Devil's Advocate. Now he pairs Hollywood's onetime couple du jour -- Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe -- in the adventure drama Proof of Life

DIRECTOR TAYLOR HACKFORD IS PROBABLY MOST CELEBRATED FOR THE PALPABLE ELECTRICITY HE HAS GENERATED BETWEEN HIS LEADING PLAYERS -- think of Richard Gere and Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman; Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward in Against All Odds, Dennis Quaid and Jessica Lange in Everybody~ All-American; and Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron in The Devil's Advocate. With his new film, Proof of Life, Hackford has, once again, cast major stars with major potential for chemistry. Meg Ryan (who received $15 million, her highest paycheck yet, for her efforts) plays the wife of an engineer (David Morse) taken hostage by South American insurgents, and Russell Crowe is the negotiator who falls in love with her as he tries to rescue her husband. While the drama on-screen unfolds against a panorama of war-ravaged Chechnya and a politically volatile South American country (modeled on Colombia), there was drama in Hollywood, too: Ryan and Crowe generated as much heat offscreen as they did on film, despite Ryan's nine-year marriage to Dennis Quaid. Their affair appears to be over but the tabloid coverage of the romance continues to heighten the film's pre-release buzz.

Proof of Life is an especially important movie to Hackford because of its strong international flavor. He studied international relations at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in the mid-'60s before ever becoming involved with film, and he lived in South America as a Peace Corps volunteer, a location to which he's always wanted to return on-screen. Hackford began his career at a Los Angeles public TV affiliate making documentaries, and won a 1978 Oscar for his live-action short Kenage Father. He then moved into feature films, starting with The Idolmaker in 1980, and quickly going on to the blockbuster success of An Officer and a Gentleman in 1982. He has since covered a diverse range of territory--with Against All Odds, White Nights and Everybody's All-American in the mid-'80s, 1993's Blood In Blood Out, 1995's Dolores Claiborne and, two years later, The Devil's Advocate. Hackford is married to acclaimed British actress Helen Mirren, with whom he's lived for 15 years. Since 1998, the couple has resided mostly in London, England.

STEPHEN REBELLO: The idea for Proof of Life sprang from a feature story in Vanity Fair, right
TAYLOR HACKFORD: That's right. We saw something in the story that was unique because it's very seldom you discover a new profession in the world like a "professional hostage negotiator." The process of drama that occurs in a kidnapping can have an adventure quotient and a very personal, human quotient, which seemed to me quite rare in a film. With our one-world economy, most corporations are now international and they're sending people all over the world. Suddenly, the dangers associated with living internationally are giving rise to interesting, dramatic situations.

Q: How did the script process play out?
A: Tony Gilroy [the screenwriter] and I did Proof of Life from scratch. Sometimes scripts done that way can take a long, circuitous route, but this came together fairly quickly. Castle Rock and the actors committed to the first draft, which doesn't happen unless you've got a damn good script.

Q: You had Meg Ryan in mind to star from the outset?
A: Yes, and Mel Gibson. With the two of them, it would have been an incredibly expensive movie, but at the same time, one with a big box-office quotient. But Mel decided it wasn't for him. I had seen L.A. Confidential and liked it very much, and I'd thought Russell Crowe was an interesting actor. I'd heard he had two films in the can, so I called upon his directors, Michael Mann and Ridley Scott, who allowed me to come into their editing rooms and see chunks of their movies, The Insider and Gladiator [respectively], before the studios had even seen them. I found it fascinating that Russell could give two distinct performances so beautifully. He was able to hold Gladiator together and maintain a certain dignity, and he was an incredibly physical presence. Though he wasn't a domineering physical presence in The Insider, he was a cerebral one.

Q: But Russell Crowe isn't Mel Gibson... especially back then.
A: Right. Which meant I had to fight to get him on the picture. Castle Rock wanted a much bigger star. I said, "You're going to have to take my word for it." Q: And so they did but you must have had a plan B, C and D. A: I wanted Russell. He had read and liked the script, and I believe in the passion of an actor. I especially designed this movie to be international, so I was particularly looking for someone non-American to play the male lead. Russell hadn't been able to use his own Australian accent for years. I think, in the end, he was thrilled to be who he is for the first time.

Q: It must have furthered your case with Castle Rock to point to the boosts you've given the careers of, say, Richard Gere, Debra Winger, James Woods and Charlize Theron.
A: I told them, "If I have any experience in terms of knowing who was going to become a star, I'm telling you: this guy is it." Beyond that, I designed the movie for Meg. You don't make a movie with Meg without her approving her costar, and she had a very strong feeling about Russell--she too had seen L.A. Confidential heard good things about him and felt he was someone she wanted to work with. That helped me immeasurably because I could go to these executives and say, "Not only do I feel he's right, Meg will do the film with him."

Q: Opinions vary wildly on working with Crowe. What's your take?
A: It's a very complicated and challenging experience to work with Russell. He's the real thing--a wonderful actor who's capable of nuances and who is, at the same time, a really physical performer. He did his own stunts in this film, in very difficult situations. In the cold, bitter winter of Poland, for example, I had him hanging off a helicopter, and in a South America jungle setting--a very hard location because it's pissing rain all the time--he was right there, too. We went up to nearly 14,000 feet and I had 35 people carried out in a week. You can take stars to a place like this and they can say, "To hell with this." But Russell went in and did it. He's thorny. He challenges you right back. And he keeps everything alive. He has lots of ideas--a lot of which are damn good and he wants to be heard. I think he nailed it. Is he complicated? Is he difficult? Absolutely. It was worth it.

Q: How was it dealing with his escalating star status?
A: When he did Gladiator, he was challenging Ridley, while at the same time, he wasn't a star. I'm sure DreamWorks was saying, "Why the hell is this guy giving us such grief?." Russell comes to acting as a character actor with years as a journeyman in preparation to becoming a star. I don't know what it'll be like in five films, but he's primed and ready and I reaped the benefits of that.

Q: How did it go with you and Meg Ryan?
A: She truly deserves her due. She's a wonderful and very specific actress. Once the script was done, there was some trepidation, like "What if her ideas aren't any good?" But she met with Tony and me and bang!--she said all the right things. Meg knew there was a wonderful character here, but she also knew she had to define the role in her own terms. She infused her personality and style into the movie, and those are the things a star should do. You'd be stupid as a director not to understand that what Meg is contributing is really valuable. It was not egocentric.

Q: How did she respond to being out of the romantic comedy field?
A: It was a challenge for her. She's brilliant and internationally celebrated because of comedies, and she came to this with a hunger to prove herself in another context.

Q: Did Ryan and Crowe's offscreen relationship have any negative consequences on the set?
A: Both Russell and Meg were incredibly professional on this film. They were there every day, working and focused on their characters.

Q: How do you think their offscreen relationship affected the end product?
A: There are two different points of view on that. I'd like Proof of Life to be seen and judged on the film--not on some paparazzo view of the world. On the other hand, name identification of Proof of Life is rather strong at the moment. [Laughs]And that's a help.

Q: You've got real potential for steam in some of the scenes in this movie. How difficult are those to direct?
A: There's no pleasure in doing those scenes. They can be embarrassing and boring--and that's not what they're there for. There's got to be excitement and titillation. Everybody knows what a love scene is, and when you present one, everyone can feel whether it's real or not. Everybody's All-American has a fabulous love scene where Dennis Quaid sees his wife after all these years in her prom dress and crinolines and goes down on her, and ir's a fun and funny scene I'm proud of. There's also a very good love scene in The Devil's Advocate in which Keanu Reeves makes love to two women--one in reality and one in his mind.

Q: How do you get chemistry working so well between the costars on your pictures?
A: Chemistry is on the page. It comes to the screen with the collaboration of the actors and the director working from the chemistry that's written into the script. You've got to cast somebody who's close to the character because the actor takes the character on the page and mixes it into their own personality. So it goes back to casting. Then the actors have to know what you're going for. What you ask them to do is open a window, the window being their eyes, that lets you see what's inside. Whatever I work on individually with one actor, I never share with the other, because if everybody knows what's going on, there's no sense of discovery. You want the other actor to be surprised. When you're in a romantic or relationship movie, the chemistry is the crux of the movie and the actors are going to have to open themselves up. Whether or not they like each other or get along or there's antagonism, you've got to use whatever there is in the scene. I've seen chemistry work when people were best friends and when they didn't like each other.

Q: Do you think you have an especially good feel for casting?
A: I consider myself a performance director. I choose my lenses on a picture and I know what I'm doing, but I'm much more interested in performances than in trying to show off with film technique. I cast terrific actors-not just the leads, but the support players, too. Jimmy Woods had done The Onion Field before I cast him in Against All Odds, and his performance in my film was very important. Christopher Plummer and Judy Parfitt are as important to Dolores Claiborne as Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh. If you're telling a story and trying to flesh out and exemplify unique characters, you need performers who bring interesting nuances--not just broad strokes. Meg and Russell are fantastic in the movie, but they're also surrounded by wonderful performers. As I see it, the process of making a movie is long, complicated and painful, and I tell actors, "Hey, if your concern is the size of your trailer, that's the wrong priority. We have the opportunity to put something on the screen that will live for 20 or 30 years. Your grandchildren can tell you later-based on what you've done--'You're a wanker' or 'Wow, that was you?'"

Q: David Morse, who plays Meg Ryan's kidnapped husband in Proof of Life, seems to be the secret weapon of many good directors like Robert Zemeckis and Frank Darabont.
A: Yes, and Sean Penn, who's a colleague and friend, has also used David several times in his films. I've admired David as a character actor, but Proof of Lift is a three-character piece and he's got a costarring role. While the negotiator and the wife are on one side trying to get David's character back, the film takes you into the Andes to watch his evolution. In very large part, the adventure in this film is his, and it's a strange adventure because here's a normal professional guy, an engineer, who wouldn't normally experience being put through such an extraordinary situation. I think David is going to surprise a huge number of people.

Q: You shot this film in some really exotic locations.
A: Ever since I was in the Peace Corps in Bolivia in '68 and '69, I've always wanted to return to the Andes. We shot in Ecuador, which is an extraordinary canvas. I traveled to all the major South American cities casting my South American roles. When you make a film like this, you want a general audience to be able to appreciate it, but you also want the people the film is about not to be put off by its being just a Hollywood surface job. We also shot in Poland, where there are a lot of Chechens. My extras in the film were, in fact, Chechens speaking Chechen. Probably a general audience won't know it, but they'll sense it.

Q: The projects you've chosen to make don't follow an obvious pattern or game plan. How would you characterize yourself as a filmmaker?
A: As a populist. I come from a working-dass background and all my characters share the quality of being focused on achievement; they want to make a mark in life. It goes through every film I've made, starting with the role Ray Sharkey played in The Idolmaker and the one Richard Gere played in An Officer and a Gentleman.

Q: As a "populist" director, is it personal for you when one of your films doesn't reach a wide audience?
A: I've had films that are very successful at the box office, and that's what you want, of course. But the films that didn't receive that kind of attention are no less dear. Dolores Claiborne did OK, but thank God for video--it's been discovered more and more as a video and on television. It's really one of my favorites. It was my "woman's" movie, and my chance to make the location a character. Films find an audience today one way or another. Blood In Blood Out was a small, Chicano gangster movie I made with a lot of ambitions about it. But during production, the riots in L.A. took place, and afterward there was a lot of paranoia. The studio had great fear that if you got groups of people of a particular lets call it "background"--in a theater, it could be cause for violence. Disney just threw the film away. Now, though, it is seen a lot on video, and any Latino I meet has seen it and comments on it.

Q: Your first big hit was An Officer and a Gentleman. What is your memory of working with Gere?
A: When I met him, I said, "I've seen your movies and you've got a fantastic presence, but if you show only the presence, it isn't going to work. We've got to get into this character. He's hard as a diamond and shut off to the outside world, but he gets cracked. I'm telling you that right now, so don't take the role if you don't want to do that." He said, "Let's go for it," and that's what we did. In the movie, when he says, "I've got nowhere else to go," I think that's a true moment, a great one, for Richard Gere.

Q: Your most recent film before Proof of Life was The Devil's Advocate. Were you happy with how that turned out?
A: That's a movie I'm very proud of, especially the director's DVD version, which has added scenes. It's one of the great Pacino roles, which is saying a lot. The idea was to do a commentary--a social satire--on the nature of the world right at the turn of the millennium with its narcissism and worship of self. What better opportunity than to have the Devil as a major character who's able to look at the world and say, 'I'm winning"? It's a fantastic chance to let man just do what he does, which is to luck up every time.

Q: What can you say of Pacino's costar, Keanu Reeves?
A: Keanu is a very complex, very, very pent-up guy with lots of demons in him, and I was trying to tap and utilize that. He acquitted himself very beautifully in that film, and it's something different from anything he'd done before.

Q: What about his costar, Charlize Theron?
A: She's a pretty damned talented person. I got a performance from her that put her on the map. When The Devil's Advocate was screened, the word got out and she was signed to three films.

Q: Of all your projects, are there any that have really fallen short of your expectations?
A: I've never made a film I felt reached its ultimate potential. There's no such thing as a perfect film. There are moments you never quite get. As a director, you try to put something special on the screen within the level of budget and time you have to do it. Sometimes you hit it better than others.

Q: What, then, are your best hopes for Proof of Life?
A: People haven't seen a film like this for a long while. The exteriors are real and have scope--from barren, tortured landscapes to the most unique building in all the U.K., the Lloyds Building, to the fantastic views of South America. And yet it's a personal piece about family, about a marriage being tested, and about individuals who are frozen and thawing and discovering who they are again. I want audiences to be entertained by something unique and to be transported by something intensely personal. I've tried to do a very ambitious film. You tell me whether or not we've succeeded. © Copyright Movieline, 2000

(Thanks to Wanda!!)
Photo: Warner Bros.

How to Succeed in the Kidnapping Business
By Seth Mydans
The New York Times (10/8/00)

BANGKOK -- In the security business, there is a technical term for the Muslim rebel kidnappers of the southern Philippines, draped in new gold chains, conspicuous in pristine Nike sneakers and Ray Ban sunglasses, racing around on -- and often falling off -- their new motorcycles. The term is "decadent guerrillas."

Having taken their remote region's age-old avocation of kidnapping for ransom to new heights this year with the abductions of dozens of foreigners, they now have more money than they may ever have dreamed of or, clearly, know what to do with: some $15 million for two dozen hostages.

Cash rich, these few hundred rebels are buying sophisticated weaponry and recruiting new followers, and they have acquired a speedboat faster than anything in the Philippine navy. They are even kidnapping, and then paying "dowry," for new brides. Clearly, they are more interested in their decadent new luxuries than in their fight for a separate Muslim state.

And they may live to enjoy their spoils. A two-week-old military offensive against the kidnappers, who call themselves Abu Sayyaf, or Bearer of the Sword, appears to have accomplished little besides leveling several villages on the remote island of Jolo.

Not a bad business proposition for local bandits in one of the poorest regions of the Philippines -- or for a growing number of hostage takers around the world. More and more these days, dollar amounts are being placed on human lives.

"It's clear that this is a growing industry worldwide, though there is disagreement about how fast it is growing," said Paul Wilkinson, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. "And it's affecting many parts of the world, like the former Soviet Union, that have been relatively free of it in the past."

Statistics are elusive in an arena marked by secrecy, corruption and sometimes the collusion of government authorities. Most often cited are the surveys of the Hiscox Group, a London-based insurer that tallied 1,789 kidnappings for ransom last year worldwide, almost all of them in 10 high-risk countries. That number shows a 6 percent rise from the previous high of 1,690 in 1998.

Brian Jenkins, an expert on terrorism at the RAND Corporation, a research and policy group based in Santa Monica, Calif., said Latin America accounted for two-thirds to three-quarters of the world's ransom kidnappings, with Colombia making up about half, followed by Mexico and Brazil. The next largest area of concentration is in Asia, he said, with the largest numbers in the coastal cities of China and in Pakistan and India. The former Soviet republics make up the next block, especially, he said, in the Caucasus. (The United States records fewer than a dozen ransom kidnappings a year.)

Security firms and anti-terrorism agencies increasingly focus on kidnapping, and kidnap and ransom insurance now generate $150 million a year in premiums worldwide, though companies that take the insurance are cautioned not to tell their employees for fear it might make them more attractive targets. Such policies provide money for ransom, and can also pay for the fees of kidnap negotiators -- which can run to $15,000 a week -- and even for psychiatric treatment for victims and their families.

As foreign embassies step up their precautions, experts say, kidnappers are looking for "softer" targets. As more business travelers and tourists venture into out-of-the-way areas, they say, more are being seized for ransom in what one analyst called "the dark side of globalization."

"I do think it's fair to say that with respect to terror as a whole we are going to see a major shift from government targets to the private sector -- to tourists or businessmen," said the analyst, Frank Cilluffo,at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Some kidnappings are intended to publicize a political view. These -- like the Iranian hostage-taking of American diplomats two decades ago -- can draw the most publicity. Other goals are to gain concessions from an enemy, to sow terror or even to dramatize a personal grievance. But in most cases, experts say, the bottom line is money, sometimes for a political cause but more often simply to enrich the kidnappers.

In the southern Philippines, for example, after seizing 21 mostly foreign tourists and workers from a diving resort in April, the kidnappers at first couldn't seem to make up their minds. They demanded a separate Muslim state, a renegotiation of fishing rights, the release of imprisoned terrorists in the United States and even a local ban on Christmas celebrations. After weeks of talks they reached their bottom line. What they wanted -- and received -- was money.

THE great playground of decadent guerrillas is Colombia, where Marxist rebels control huge areas of the countryside. "They are free to do their stuff apparently untrammeled by security forces, who are not allowed to enter, and they are making vast sums of money out of the kidnapping business," said Mr. Wilkinson.

Kidnapping techniques are changing, too, spawning a colorful new jargon among security experts. Increasingly common, particularly in Latin America and southern China, is "express kidnapping," said Neil Gane, a division manager with the Hong Kong-based security firm Hill & Associates. Kidnappers take victims from one automatic teller machine to another, withdrawing the maximum amount of cash each day until the accounts are empty. Then the victims are freed.

In "tiger kidnappings," which have grown particularly common in Britain, illegal immigrants are held -- sometimes in groups -- while ransoms are demanded from their relatives at home, Mr. Gane said. "Bad-on-bad kidnappings" are an emerging tactic in business disputes among rival criminal groups, particularly in Asia: just grab some of the other guy's men and hold them until he agrees to your demands.

Security experts say the most difficult category is what they call "amateur kidnappings," in which freelance opportunists try their hand, oblivious to unwritten rules that can help assure a safe release. "They are more erratic, more dynamic and therefore more difficult to deal with," Mr. Cilluffo said. "You don't necessarily know what's going on in their minds and they may be itchier with the trigger finger."

The Abu Sayyaf kidnappers have behaved like amateurs, but they seem to have profited from it. They changed their demands, squabbled among themselves and beheaded two hostages -- both Filipinos -- when the mood took them.

But they grasped a fundamental principle of the kidnap business: hostages are not only a source of revenue but a human shield against retribution. Even as they released some hostages, and even after the military launched its attack last month, the Abu Sayyaf rebels seized more victims.

Chart: "Ransom Sampling: The Price Per Head"

Around the world, kidnappers are usually driven by the desire to force concessions from governments or to make money - or both. As many as 75 percent of kidnappings are intended to force political change, according to Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation. About 30 percent are for financial gain, he said. He gave the following examples:

Sept. 5, 1972, Munich
Kidnapped: Israeli Olympic Team
Abductor: a P.L.O. faction, Black September
Demands: political concessions and safe passage
Status: 7 athletes, 4 Israelis and 5 Palestinians killed during rescue

Dec. 6, 1973, Campora, Argentina
Kidnapped: Victor Samuelson, Exxon executive
Abductor: Ejercito Revolutionario del Pueblo
Demands: $14.2 million
Status: ransomed after 5 months

Sept. 19, 1974, Bueno Aires
Kidnapped: Juan and Jorge Born, grain magnates
Abductor: the Montoneros guerrillas
Demands: $65 million
Status: Juan released after 3 months, Jorge held for 9 months and ransomed for $65 million

March 16, 1978, Rome
Kidnapped: Aldo Moro, prime minister
Abductor: Red Brigades, left-wing terrorists
Demands: government reforms
Status: killed after 55 days

March 14, 1994, Mexico City
Kidnapped: Alfredo Harp Helu, bank executive
Abductor: unknown
Demands: $90 million
Status: ransomed after 105 days for $30 million

Dec. 17, 1996, Lima, Peru
Kidnapped: almost 600 dignitaries
Abductor: the rebel group M.R.T.A
Demands: Political recognition, changes in policy, reforms for the poor
Status: 225 released within first month, last 72 held for 126 days, then rescued by force

Aug. 3, 2000, Bangalore, India
Kidnapped: Rajkumar, matinee idol
Abductor: Veerappan, rebel
Demands: release of comrades
Status: unresolved

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Co.