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| Director Doug Liman Photo Courtesy Hypnotic Productions |
Doug Liman: Reckoning With Torture
SUSAN CLOKE
Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror
June 8, 2012
Doug Liman, the Director of the Bourne Identity, Swingers, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, is directing a film
about torture, specifically government-sanctioned torture.
He and I talked about making the film, Reckoning With Torture. Here is what he said about the film, how
he decided to make a film about torture, and his thoughts on American values.
SC. When
you think about making this film what do you hope for?
DL. I
am a perpetual optimist. You can’t
be in the film business unless you are and I have great hopes for the change
film can provoke.
I’m
not naïve and I know the odds are against us. But they’ve been against every film I’ve ever made.
SC.
When
did you first start to become aware of American use of torture?
DL. It
wasn’t that long after 9/11 that I started seeing the horrible events of that
day being exploited by our government and I became aware that our government
was crossing lines that, in my memory, it had not.
I’m a commercial filmmaker and I spend most of
my time putting together Hollywood style films. When 9/11 happened, I was making the Bourne Identity.
During the Iraq war I was making the OC.
SC. Do
you remember a specific incident or moment in time when the issue of torture
became something you felt you couldn’t ignore?
DL. Even
though I mostly worry about wondering if I can get a particular actor to cut
his back end and even though I wasn’t looking for trouble, the photos and the
information from Abu Ghraib were hard to ignore.
For me, like most Americans, once Abu Ghraib,
the mistreatment and even torture of prisoners by American soldiers got your
attention it was hard to ignore.
And when you realized that this was not just a couple of bad apples
going against the rule of law, this was institutional policy, I couldn’t escape
knowing that this was not consistent with the values I associate with being an
American.
SC. There
is a big divide in American thinking on the use of torture. Many will argue that we have no
choice. We have to protect
ourselves. It is a question of
public safety. Many will argue
that it is against the principles of America, its values and its laws.
DL. I
don’t come from national security work, so I don’t know if torture works. What I do know is that people who work
in National Security say it doesn’t.
It would be a more complicated issue if it did. If we had to argue the morality of
hurting someone in the hope that you might get information that would help save
someone else we might be having a different discussion. But since it doesn’t and the people, whose
job is security, consistently confirm that it doesn’t, then the people who are
pro torture are coming from a place of ignorance.
SC. Was
learning about Abu Ghraib the genesis of the idea to make the film?
DL. What
happened was that, like most Americans, I might be outraged, but had my own
life to think about. When I
was making Fair Game, I ended up in a
meeting at the ACLU and they showed me some of the documents they had obtained
through the Freedom
of Information Act, documents written by the American
government.
Those documents described, very specifically,
torture practices – a “How To Manual” – and they were distributed to detention
facilities under U.S. control.
They condoned and institutionalized the practice of torture.
If you believe in the rule of law you should not
do this. The United States is
signatory to the Geneva Conventions and the actions at Abu Ghraib and all acts
of torture are against International Law.
It would be very hard to read documents created
during the second Bush Administration and to learn what it was the country was
doing and be okay with it.
SC. Why
are the documents so compelling?
DL. These
are not biased reports. Consisting
of 1000’s of pages, for the most part the documents
consist of internal memos and reports of internal investigations. Reports and investigations that were
initiated because people within the Justice Department, the CIA, the Department
of Defense, and the NSA saw actions that they believed to be wrong and outside
the law and they wanted these actions investigated and stopped.
Thankfully, we have these documents. It’s hard to imagine any other place
where these damning documents would be released.
SC. What
is the idea behind the film, Reckoning With
Torture?
DL. The
Freedom of Information Act works. It allows us to heal ourselves. Justice hasn’t been done yet. There has been no punishment, no
restitution, we haven’t reckoned yet with the atrocities committed. But there is a mechanism that creates
healing and we need to acknowledge it.
Any parent knows that when a kid does something
wrong it has to be acknowledged to be truly over.
The same is true on a large, public scale. This was shown in South Africa with the
Truth and
Reconciliation Commissions.
SC. How
do we heal the division in American thought on the use of torture?
DL. The
first step is to show it is not a political issue, not an issue to take sides
on, it is an issue of what it means to be an American.
We live in such a polarized world that we can’t
separate the storyteller from the story.
If Robert
Redford is reading a torture memo verbatim people who
don’t want to believe it will dismiss it as the ramblings of a left wing
Hollywood movie star.
The only way to get past this is for people to
read the documents for themselves.
To hear many, many Americans reading the documents is so moving.
SC. I
understand that is exactly what you plan to do. You have made the documents available for people to read aloud,
to make videos of the readings, and to send them to you to be used in the
film. What are you doing to get
readings from people?
DL. We
have a website. http://reckoningwithtorture.org/ Any one can go on the website,
pick a declassified document from among the documents we have posted on the
website, make a video of themselves reading, and send it to us. It’s all on the website – what to do
and how to do it. Any one with a
cell phone can do this, and that’s just about everyone in the U.S.
We have gotten tons of responses so far and we
will continue to gather more material during the summer and then begin editing
in the fall.
SC. How
will you choose which videos to use?
DL. I
am so moved by the idea that people will take the time to be part of this
film. My goal is, through good
editing, to use everybody who sends in a video.
SC. Is
it your hope this will change how Americans are seen in other parts of the
world?
DL. I
travel a lot for work and even when the U.S. was at an all time moral low in
world wide public perception, people would still come up to me and say that
while they didn’t agree with the American government’s actions they loved the
American people.
Having said that, there is something amazing
about a project that allows Americans to apologize, to say, “I don’t condone
this.” I think it will be amazing
for the people who make the videos and amazing for the people, all over the
world, who will watch this.
I make Hollywood movies and so I’m always
looking for good endings.
SC. Does
this work make you feel close to your parents, and especially to your father, Arthur
Liman, who was well known for his work at the Senate
Iran-Contra Hearings.
DL. I
feel like my dad and my mother were both great role models for civic
responsibility. I’m not limited by
the examples of my parents but they factor in. My father believed so strongly in public service but he also
loved my movies.
SC. I
think the idea for this film of many, many Americans reading from the documents
and the concept of healing through acknowledging the truth is brilliant. Kudos to you for your work.
LINKS
Reckoning with Torture website
http://reckoningwithtorture.org/
http://reckoningwithtorture.org/
Reckoning with Torture: Sundance Film Festival
January 29, 2011 | Sundance Film Festival | Park City, Utah
http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5542/prmID/172
January 29, 2011 | Sundance Film Festival | Park City, Utah
http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5542/prmID/172
Abu Ghraib article in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
ACLU documents released under the FOIA
http://www.aclu.org/accountability/released.html
http://www.aclu.org/accountability/released.html
US. Department of Justice Freedom of Information
Act http://www.justice.gov/oip/foia_updates/Vol_XVII_4/page2.htm
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/
http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/18/nyregion/arthur-l-liman-a-masterly-lawyer-dies-at-64.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
