An Inconvenient Truth

Directed by David Guggenheim

Predictions of impending hurricanes along the eastern seaboard come as no surprise to An Inconvenient Truth director David Guggenheim, nor for that matter, to the film’s principal protagonist, Al Gore, whose current mission is to inform the public about the dangers of global warming.

Indeed, An Inconvenient Truth, the cinematic platform for Gore’s global warming warning, presents a veritable end-of-days scenario, but unlike conjectural doomsday thrillers currently on the boards, it’s based on carefully researched scientific data. Actually, it’s a filmed version of the very convincing global warming lecture that Gore delivers in person—in laymen’s language—to audiences worldwide.

Guggenheim uses news footage to put the alarming message into context, and his reveal of deeply moving, intimate moments in Gore’s life—the death of his son, the chad-counting fiasco that ripped the presidency from his grasp and others—makes the former president-elect’s environmental message all the more compelling.

“There were things he didn’t want to discuss because they were so personal. It took time for him to feel he could open up and trust me because he’s been beaten up about these events and personal things, and unfairly accused of exploiting them,” says Guggenheim. “There were intense times—he would say painful—when I’d push to get to the emotions, to his true feelings about things.”

MERIN: How’d you get involved in the project?

GUGGENHEIM: The producers said Al Gore does a slide show; let’s make a movie of it. I thought it was a terrible idea. How do you make a movie of a slide show?

And I thought he had baggage. I mean, I voted for Gore, was disappointed he lost the election but I didn’t know where he was at politically. But I went to his presentation in a hotel conference room, with waiters shuffling plates and rubber chicken. It was an awful place to see it, but it was Al Gore.

First thing, he made a funny joke, and I realized, OK, he’s not bitter. He’s moved on. Then he told this soulful, thoughtful, fair story. The information was so compelling, so strong I’d never understood global warming the way he described it. In the newspaper, you read about problems here and there there’s science and politics, and it’s confusing. The points of data are so spread out. He pulls it together. That’s so powerful. By the end, I was hooked. I knew we had to get as many people as possible to see this.

So, how’d you make a film out of a lecture?

To me, films are personal. So, I had the idea to tell Al’s story–describe how he got involved, how he learned about global warming, the times he was ridiculed for speaking out. Showing why he’s invested in this issue enables audiences to hear, understand and believe what he’s saying. His biggest campaign is delivering this message. You feel that when you’re up and working at 2 a.m., and he’s outlasting everybody half his age.

He’s presented his lecture over 1,000 times without pay. He’s in another hotel every night. He’s rolling his bag through another airport. There’re more glamorous things a former vice president and historical icon can do.

How much of the script was yours and how much was his?

You’re the first person who’s asked that, and it’s taken so long. I’m impressed. Actually, the script is a collaboration. Many people wanted to make this movie with him.

His friend, Tommy Lee Jones?

Perhaps. But he chose us. It was clear from the start that the science, the data which he researched and which is precious to him must be carefully described. I couldn’t alter it; I’m not qualified. And, it’s his, he’s the author. But together we adapted over 500 slides, animating, enhancing them to make them more effective for film and clearing rights. That was our mutual responsibility. I determined how we’d tell his personal story. These lines were clear. Basically, he did the science; I worked on biography.

What was most difficult to exclude?

Trimming the presentation was challenging. There’s a lot of science. We had to avoid information fatigue: Most films don’t have this much information in them. And there were many more anecdotes that fortify the argument. It was hard to exclude them. And I should say, the hardest thing to include was the 2000 election.

You can imagine his trauma about it. But I didn’t anticipate my own trauma or how raw the wound was for me. Not just because I’m a Democrat. There’re Republicans who feel the same way. You think that as a storyteller you can cover anything easily, but we all have taboos, things we avoid. I unconsciously avoided thinking or talking about the 2000 election because I just couldn’t deal with it. And still, in the film, with the footage of Tom Brokaw announcing the election for Gore, then Bush, then Gore, it kills you. Audiences hiss and scream. So, that was hardest to include and to get it right.

Your father, [filmmaker Charles Guggenheim], directed Al Gore’s father’s political campaign ads. Did that help create the bond between you two?

It wasn’t the clincher. But my father was a great filmmaker and had a real ethic. He quit the political advertising business because it was getting so smutty. But, I think it was more that Al saw we were genuine and had no other agenda. How could you have another agenda, when this is so important and urgent? We have to tell the story.

Who came up with the title, An Inconvenient Truth?

I did. He said it in an interview, and the minute he did, I knew that’s our title. It was a hard title to sell, though. No one liked it. It’s hard to say and it doesn’t exactly scream, Go see this movie! And maybe it sounds a little pretentious, but thematically, it’s right. It’s down.

What does it mean?

An Inconvenient Truth is the fact that all the choices we make in our lives, everything we take for granted in some way has some connection to global warming. The cars we drive, the electricity we use, the computers we use, the way our homes are heated. All these things that come so easily, without any conscious thought, have an effect on global warming, and it’s inconvenient to acknowledge that truth. Some of us rant and rave at the current administration because of their environmental policies, but the inconvenient truth is that it’s all of us. Most of our Democrat politicians aren’t dealing with this issue either, not taking it as seriously as it needs to be taken. It’s inconvenient to think of taking the bus instead of a car, or to second-guess my lifestyle. And it’s the most urgent issue in our lives, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Wednesday, November 23,2005

Emmy Award–winner Ric Burns’ latest is his homage to the Society, where behind the beautiful-but-almost-blank neo-classical exterior exist paintings, photographs, maps, manuscripts, diaries and objects.

As a kid, Martin Scorsese wandered uptown from Little Italy and discovered the archive, which became a lifelong haunt. Burns found it while assisting his older brother and fellow documentarian, Ken, on projects that diverted Ric from becoming an English professor.

Burns: While assisting Ken, I sort of had an out-of-body experience in an editing room, realizing how deeply film’s manifold power—images, words, sounds, music working together—effects audiences on an emotional level.…

Filmmaking is much more galvanizing than a career that involves writing three or four books for an audience of 3,000.

Merin: Have you thought of doing features?

Burns: Yes, but different skills are required for features. I’d have to learn new aspects of the craft—which I’d be happy to do, but there’s a positive feedback loop in all our lives. Not so much for better but perhaps for worse, the more we do something, the more we do it. I’m more devoted to film as a medium than to history as a discipline.

Merin: What would your feature be about?

Burns: The Donner Party. I made a documentary about it. The story is true-life nightmare poetry about the American experience. In documentaries, straying from historical record breaks your contract with the audience, so there were aspects I couldn’t cover—because there were no images, and I’d guess characters’ interior experiences.

But based on the record’s tantalizing clues, I developed an imagination about several people who were on that doomed trip, and I’d like to revisit them. However, Donner Party feature projects—even Horton Foote’s and Roman Polanski’s—seem doomed.

Merin: How do you feel about documentaries that preach?

Burns: Directors make choices, so films aren’t objective. That said, audiences are tremendously sophisticated, and filmmakers must trust them to know what kind of film they’re watching—be it eyewitness accounts or something tongue-in-cheek—like Michael Moore’s Roger and Me.

A film immediately establishes a tone that’s part of the contract with the audience. Michael Moore’s true to his own tone. If mistakes occur in his movies, he’s not been true to his tone, and he’s lost track of his contract with the audience.

Merin: Does one focus characterize your films?

Burns: Moments or events of transfiguration—in a person’s life or in society—where things go from being one state of affairs to, often violently, another state of affairs. But that’s what a good story is—be it the Donner Party, or films I’ve done on Coney Island or New York history, culminating in 9/11.

Merin: Why is there increased interest in documentaries?

Burns: Audiences hunger for reality, particularly in a society inundated with disinformation from commercially or politically-biased sources that attach ulterior—money or power-related—motives to image and word. Any construct which is clearly not out to make money or accrue power, but represents only the humble vocation of reporting reality—boy, people feel that like rain falling on to their souls.

“These guys and I use gothic motifs to explore fundamental human emotions,” explains del Toro. “The idea that the strength of internal reality can affect external reality, and that childhood is painful and plagued with disease. The Orphanage, like Pan’s Labyrinth, is a child’s narrative—like Peter Pan—played out with the trappings and aesthetic of the horror genre.”

NYPress: I understand you agreed in pre-production to unconditionally “present” the film. That’s an enormous expression of faith in these first-feature filmmakers. What gave you that level of confidence in the project?
DEL TORO: Actually, this has the feeling of fate about it. I’ve known Juan Antonio since 1983. He was a kid pretending to be a journalist to get into the movies, but he asked smart questions about technique, so we went for a coffee and talked. He was tiny and endearing and said he was a filmmaker, and we stayed in touch. Later—well, it’s bizarre, convoluted: Another guy showed me his short films and I hired him to storyboard Blade II. Based on that gig, he got a gig directing a movie in Canada. That movie’s producer was in Cannes and saw Juan Antonio’s shorts, but they were the films this other guy used to get the Blade II gig. The producer called the other guy, who confessed. Juan Antonio’s shorts were terrific—I knew he could make this film. I loved the idea and Sergio’s script.

How much guidance did you give?
We talked. I offered maybe 10 ideas; they rejected six of them. I tweaked some of the scares. But it’s completely their film and, actually, very different from the movie I would have made.

How so?
Well, I’d make the husband a stronger presence—but not to make the film male-dominated. This must be a female-centric film because, ultimately—well, I believe that the female gender transforms the world, gives it a different spin, is the creative force. In The Orphanage, the mother wants her son back, and she wills the world to bend to her perceptions—like the girl bends the world to her perceptions in Pan’s Labyrinth. That wouldn’t change. But I think a stronger husband creates an interesting triangle, a dynamic balance between the mother, son and husband in this creepy house, which is also a character.

And I would treat Simón differently. I didn’t imagine him as Juan Antonio cast him—full of zest and temper tantrums. The kid who plays Simón is perfect in this movie, but I would have gone another way—with a pale, withdrawn kid. And, he has AIDS, so I’d explore where it came from, how it resonates with the history of the parents, feelings of survivor’s guilt and the legacy of the orphanage, where the mother grew up.

Mainstream cinema discriminates against children as characters: They’re either spunky skateboarding kids or sweet-loving chocolate-covered faces, but I say make them as complex, imperfect—mortal—as any other character. I’m interested in exploring that. If this movie had taken the mainstream route, the mother would have arrived at the cellar in time to give the kid mouth-to-mouth, and he would happily cling to her and they’d run into the forest as the house explodes in a ball of flames. What moves me about the ending of this film is that it’s very different—even from what you’d expect in this genre. That’s what I’m interested in exploring: The child has equal possibility of danger as any adult character.

And I’d treat the supernatural elements a little differently—expand them. Actually, this script, this story, fascinates me so much, I’m gonna do this film again—my way. That’s a first for me because I don’t like remakes. But this is different.

Will you direct?
No. I have someone great in mind, but I won’t say who because if I do, it will never happen.

Will Belén Rueda star again? She’s so strong in this version. Were you instrumental in casting her?
I’d be delighted to work with her again. She was Juan Antonio’s first choice, and if he’d wanted to cast a Spanish scream queen, I wouldn’t have been interested in the project. But Belén’s a really solid actor, and audiences empathize with her. Some actors have that quality. Others, you say, “That’s a fabulous actor, and I don’t give a fuck what happens to her.” But Belén has brutal empathy with the audience. From the moment she enters, you want her to do well, prosper, be happy. In horror, if a character’s walking down a corridor, and there’s a presence at the end of the corridor—if there’s no empathy, it’s a horrible scene. If there’s empathy it’s a great scene. Belén has empathy in spades.

This film, Pan’s Labyrinth and the upcoming 3993—the project you’re developing with Sergio Sánchez—are all set in and made in Spain. Why is your connection to Spanish cinema so strong?
Well, I’m Mexican, and we have Spanish roots. But the actual connection is because of Almodóvar. He’s my mentor, my inspiration and he gave me the possibility to make The Devil’s Backbone. Now, I’m passing that on to Juan Antonio and Sergio. There’s such talent and vitality in Spanish cinema now. It’s exciting to see where it’s going, to be part of making it happen.

Juan Antonio and Sergio were halfway into pre-production and completely out of money when they came to me, having the problems I’d had when Almodóvar backed me: Their funding sources doubted the effective interplay of the horror genre and emotion-based drama. They were finding that good actors they wanted to cast didn’t want to make horror movies. I knew I could bump open some doors for Juan Antonio and Sergio, and that felt right. The freshness they bring to the genre excites me. Sure, it’s great to watch the masters—the new Cronenberg or Romero—but I love seeing the new guys come in and say, “I’m here, and I’m gonna stay.”

Getting back to your connection with Almodóvar, you both have such strong commitment to the female as the creative force…
Yes, it’s very strong and that commitment, that mutual belief, really connects us strongly. But female isn’t always gender specific. I mean, it’s possible for the female creative force to be more present in men sometimes than it is in women. But that female creative force is what transforms the world, and female characters in Almodóvar’s films and mine—and in The Orphanage—do have the power to bend reality to their will.

I think you have some of that, too. What’s next for you?
I’m going back to London to finish editing Hellboy II, which will be released in July, 2008. But, that’s a male-centric film.

“It was an intense experience. Daniel Day Lewis was always in character, so he was in a wheelchair, and we had to feed him lunch. Then, at the end of the day, I’d be shocked when I saw him walking around. The line between reality and fantasy was very blurred in our house,” she says. “In a funny way, my dad lives in stories. That’s the way he communicates. I guess I followed him.”

August Rush, her first Hollywood film, is about a boy genius who hears the world as though it’s music and tries to use music to find the parents from whom he’s been separated.

“I decided to do August Rush because the first image I read was the baby’s hand coming up, conducting music in the air, and the first scene of the first film I did was two babies who look at each other and join hands. It was this crazy moment, and the two images were totally matched. And because it was a challenge to turn the camera into music—which is the spirit—and to have to visualize the invisible.”

NYPress: You did a marvelous job of that when August (Freddie Highmore) conducts the wheat field, but how’d you achieve that with the other actors?
SHERIDAN: I explained to Jonny [Rhys Meyers] and Keri [Russell] especially that something made [their characters] turn away from life and music, to lose their ability to feel, and it slowly starts coming back. I told them to imagine hearing music that opens them up.

[Also], I’d roll camera when they didn’t know I was doing it—there’s the scene where Jonny finds Keri on the computer and decides to go to her. The camera was slowly pushing in on him, and just for the crack—for the laugh—we turned on the radio. Suddenly it’s the Stones, and you hear “Brown Sugar!” out of nowhere. Jonny, he freaked out. It worked really well. He got a mad whoosh of energy from the music. All the time, we tried to make the acting stem from the music: They’re opening to the music. That’s the invisibility in the film and the spiritual element of it.

There seems to be a kind of balance between genius and madness in your work as well as in your dad’s. Is that characteristic of the Sheridan domain?
Yeah. I come from a mad family. [She laughs]. That’s so funny. You should come around for Sunday dinner!
My dad’s talked about this in interviews concerning In America. When he was a kid and his brother died, they put on a show. My father played the son, so suddenly, from a very real—I mean you can’t get more real than the death of a child, right?—place, they turned that into drama to be able to deal with it. And that’s the only place they could deal with it—to be father and son on stage. That runs very deep with him, less so with me because I didn’t have that kind of tragedy. But that’s kind of mad I think.

How has your father influenced you?
The way he works with actors. Actors always stayed with us; it was the ’80s, and we were in theaterland. So, I got to know them personally, which many directors don’t do. They’re scared of them, actually, because actors can smell bullshit a mile away. They know if you’re pretending to be the director but don’t have a clue. Then they don’t trust you, and you don’t get good performances.

But back to Dad’s influence: I learned his intensity. He works in chaos, courting the organic rather than a controlled pre-thought out situation. He likes that madness, but if it feels fake, he actually feels physically ill.

Have you known anyone who hears the world as though it’s music?
I haven’t, no. I wish. But maybe I’m lucky because I might have had a preconceived notion… There was a kid in Julliard when we were shooting—he was 12—who said music comes to him as a complete score playing in his head, and he writes it. But August heard everything like music—he took it in as opposed to conceiving it.

You’ve mentioned that your dad lives in stories. Does he talk in parables?
Not parables: It’s more communication through stories. We improvised In America, and I’d be Samantha Morton’s character—my real life mother—but he’d tell me I was Granny now, because you’re my mother. Then he’d jump in and play my father. It was a Freudian nightmare [she laughs]—like very strange therapy. So, he lives in stories.

When you’re writing or directing, do you act the parts?
I’d love to be an actress, but I’m not good enough. When I’m on the other side of the camera, I’m not on sure footing. Maybe eventually I’ll be brave enough to flourish in that unsure thing. As a director, I’m learning to have more confidence and be less controlling. Now, I’m more open to let it grow—not force it into a corner. The magic happens when you let go and see what happens.

You mean like accidents in painting?
Yeah, exactly. I suppose accidents in painting are unconscious strokes of the hand, and isn’t that the strongest thing—the unconscious? But it’s a scary void.

But the invisible is really where it’s at. In August Rush, the most important thing is the space between the frames: You see Jonny here and Keri there, and when she looks out a window, the next cut to him shows he feels that—that’s the invisibility between cuts. That’s where the mystery and magic is. That’s the message of the film.