Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Hotel Ruanda
Interview with Terry George
Director Terry George doesn't really look like an activist for the needs of Africa, as you would imagine one, in his jeans and a black shirt that makes him seem paler than he already is. A leather jacket he will not take off for the whole duration of the interview, finishes up his dress for today. But the Irish writer of Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father knows what he is talking about, when Rwanda is the topic.
OutNow.CH (ON): During the Berlinale there is an emphasis on Africa. There is another film at the festival about Rwanda. Can you explain this?
Three's a crowd
Terry George (TG): Yeah, I know. Hopefully it is that people recognize that there is a wealth of great and dramatic stories. But it's a strange thing. If I would have made a film about sheep dogs in the hills of Donny Hall, I'd had discovered that there would be two more movies around that in the cinema at the same time. It is like traffic jams on the highway. You get to the point where it brakes out and you don't know why. But it is great that it is. Let's hope it continues. There is a wealth of topics to be investigated.
ON: How did you react when you first heard of the conflict in 1994?
TG: I was making Some Mother's Son. When you make a film, a house could fall down on you and you wouldn't notice. I was getting the BBC news and they stayed throughout the genocide and reported really well on it. I was able to get some sort of scope of it. Then when there was that huge exodus into the Congo and into Tansania you really got a sense of what was going on. What have two million people left behind to flee across the border? Only when I began investigating in Africa that's when I started to get the reality of that cruelty.
The perception in the West was that two tribes of savages emerging from mud huts and clouting each others to death. That was one of the challenges of the film. There was a middle class sophisticated man who had a comfortable life as did many of the people around him in Kigali. And suddenly this complex political situation rode over them. One of the aids to explain that was the fact that we stayed in Kigali and not featured the rural genocide. Because then you get to see a modern city. To convey that to Western audiences is really important since the perception of Afrika is still steeped in this post-colonial notion of the dark continent.
ON: Why did you chose Paul Rusesabagina as your main character?
With Paul Rusesabagina
TG: For me in crafting the script Paul becomes the audience. I tried to channel his comprehension, his fears about what is going on into a person that becomes the audience. Jim Sheridan and I did it with In the Name of the Father where the father became the audience. In Some Mother's Son Helen Mirren was the audience in that she was a bewildered middle class mother. That does allow you to inform people in a different and more intimate way than documentary or news footage can. I think it's a vital part of the education and the function of the film.
ON: Why did you choose Don Cheadle to play the role?
TG: I choose him from the start. When I wrote the script he was the actor I had in my head as Paul. I'd seen a lot of his movies, starting with Devil in a Blue Dress. Particularly when he played Samie Davies jr. in the HBO-Movie about the "Rat pack" and Traffic and in Boogie Nights. Each time along with the excellence of the performance itself, Don also has that ability to disappear inside the character. I could line up four characters that he played and you almost wouldn't recognize that he was the same actor. And that was important for me. Sophie (Okonedo) has the ability to do the same thing. If you look at Dirty pretty things, where she plays the hooker, and watch this film and you don't recognize her. Initially when I was trying to raise the money in Hollywood, the various studios suggested other actors, the obvious ones. I had the caution going, though I wanted to cast Cheadle, the first obligation was to get the film made. If somebody was putting up the money for Denzel (Washington) and he wanted to do it, then I would have had to give it a serious consideration. But luckily we eventually raised the money and it liberated me to cast the movie they way I wanted.
ON: How did Nick Nolte come on board?
TG: He contacted us. He wanted to do it. He read the script. I think he is a great actor particularly for this film he was able to evoke poignancy and a impendence, and a pathos for this character that I thought helped pretty well. Joaquin Phoenix is friend of mine and I asked him to do it. He did it for free pretty much. Likewise with Jean Reno. There was solidarity among the actors with the story.
ON: Your movie shows some horrific scenes. But you also had to tone down a little.
TG: I had to tone it down a great deal. The particular nature of the violence of the genocide in Rwanda was so horrific. There were several reasons for that decision. First of all I am a believer in the fact that leaving the audience to imagine things. If you watch Reservoir Dogs you never actually see him cut the ear. Also I wanted to make this film accessible to the widest possible audience. Particularly important to me was that high school teenagers and students could watch the film as an educational device, especially in the United States. If I would have got a cut, that they call an "R-Rating", there is no way they could have seen it. The other thing was that the closest scene I could imagine from a film reference to what you would have to recreate, was the sacrificial killing of the buffalo in Apocalypse Now. Who wants to watch that on screen with a human being? Other filmmakers may have decided otherwise. The violence in my film is implied rather than shown.
ON: Since you wanted it to be an educational peace shouldn't there have been more on the background of the conflict in the film?
TG: A fact in a film is essentially a distillation of information. I made the decision already early on that the camera would never leave Paul. I had to find a way to get across the basics of the information and yet still stick with the drama. I also made a decision that I didn't want to go into the political drama outside of the hotel - the debate of the UN if they should intervene or not. You know they have withdrawn. I have a theory about this sort of filmmaking that the more complex the issue the simpler the film has to be. If you get drawn into try to explain the details of the conflict you are liable to lose the audience very early on. You are trying to get across the basics at least and not the nuances. There is a trap you can fall into when you start explaining that nuance and the audience switches off. With this subject matter I had to keep them persuaded that this was a good peace of entertainment, a dramatic thriller and a romance and keep them with that all along. Otherwise I risked not getting the wider audience that I we hope to get.
ON: You are going to Rwanda with film. Are you looking forward to that?
TG: I am excited about that. I don't think they have a formal cinema there. I'm anxious that it is not perceived as taking one side or the other. One of Pauls great talents was to always create the sense of neutrality when he was in the hotel. I wanted to continue that tradition with the film. The people in Rwanda deserve to see the film. It is an homage to them. I'm looking forward to it and to go to South Africa. Because they were the major contributors and the major supporters of getting this film made.
Out of Africa
ON: Is that why the film was shot in South Africa?
TG: Partially that. But also because I felt with the scope of this film and the intensity of it that the climate in Rwanda was not right to shoot it there. Now, Raoul Peck subsequently shot Sometimes in April there. I haven't scene that film yet but I don't think the scope of it was as wide as our film. The recreation of those riots would have been very difficult to carry out there for me.
ON: Do you think that in Rwanda there could be the same reconciliation process as it happened in South Africa?
TG: It is taking place now. The have a thing called the "gacaca". It's working. It's all they can do. Last year they had some 70'000 genocide prisoners. "Cacaca" means "under the trees". It's a sort of people's court where the villagers sit under the trees and they listen to the plea of the accused person that asks for forgiveness and that he has come to some sort of understanding. It's still too slow for the necessity of the country. But it's a step toward bringing the community back together again.
ON: Paul said there was no lasting peace.
TG: There isn't. Just by the nature the genocide was stopped and how the rebel army triumphed you are now in the reality again that a Tutsi elite is essentially running the country again with a Hutu majority underneath them. And to answer that the rebels have reformed into a guerrilla force in the Congo and allied themselves to some Congolese warlords. The threat at the border is still there. I don't think the genocide could reignite into the ferocity there were before. But the elements for a conflict are all there. In order to resolve that there needs to be massive aid from the west. Ultimately financial stability and some sort of wealthy economy will help Rwanda to come to peace.
ON: Do you think movies can change the way people think about something?
TG: Yes, in motivating people to think more. The big impact of the film itself is when people leave the cinemas. They have two emotions. How can we not have known about this and a collective shame about how the world has treated Rwandans and abandoned them. Then through speaking across the United States and through establishing a dialogue with politicians and through a website that we have set up we've tried to make people to do more. Not to do what Joaquin Phoenix says in the film, saying that it is horrible and the continue eating your dinner, but actually voice your indignation or to help, to be involved. We were working very close with Amnesty International. They have set up a fund for Rwanda to try to provide for widows and orphans. We also try to establish a film department at the university there. So that there can be voices that combat that radio station if that should arise again. That for me is living cinema, using it as a rallying point.
ON: What are you doing next?
TG: I am doing a script with John Sheridan. It's very difficult to find another project or to focus on anything when you are still talking about this film all the time. Because you can't complain we ignored this thing for ten years and then not go on the road to sell it. There is an obligation to go on the road and sell it.
