Making a moviemaking Statement

Oscar-winning Canadian veteran filmmaker Norman Jewison tackles Nazi criminal in new film

Norman Jewison epitomizes Hollywood North. With over 50 Oscar nominations under his belt, including the prestigious 1998 Irving Thalberg Memorial Award, the Toronto-born filmmaker is so well-known around the world that Americans still can't believe he's not one of their own.
For more than three decades Jewison has created films that defied Hollywood convention with themes that ranged from racial intolerance to social injustice. Although he never won a directing Oscars, his films walked away with nine statuettes including 1967's In the Heat of the Night, The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! (1966), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), and Moonstruck (1987). He also directed And Justice for All, a satire on the American legal system starring Al Pacino; A Soldier's Story, again touching on racial intolerance; Agnes of God starring Jane Fonda; and The Hurricane, starring Denzel Washington as jailed boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter.
And though he runs the Canadian Film Centre, designed "to develop the artistic and technical skills of talented directors, writers, and producers in Canadian film," the 77-year-old filmmaker still has time to churn out movies, the latest being The Statement, based on Brian Moore's novel.
The movie stars Michael Caine as Pierre Brossard, a French man who collaborated with the Nazis in the execution of French Jews during World War II, and then sheltered from prosecution by right-wing elements within the Catholic Church for nearly 50 years afterward. But international human rights organizations are now on his tail for having committed crimes against humanity.
Norman Jewison talked to us recently about The Statement.

What was the compelling reason that attracted you to this subject matter?
"I think it was the first time I read the book. Brian Moore - not only was one of the more brilliant Canadian novelists, or Irish-Canadian novelists - but he was always finding big themes upon which he could write stories that dealt with kind of a moral consciousness and he always made them exciting. From the first time I read the book, I thought it would make a wonderful film and it was about a subject that I was old enough to relate to, shortly after World War II, and the problems with the Vichy Government, and the cover-ups and before it became a De Gaullist France. So, I think it was the book and I found that [producer] Robert Lantos had acquired the film rights to the book and so when Robert and I talked about it, I was very anxious to make the film."

Did you rely completely on the book, or did you do some of your own research as well?
"I do the research. I mean, when you see a guy like René Bousqué who was in charge of the police rounding up all the Jews under Vichy France for so many years and then he ends up being a banker and a respected industrialist, and Maurice Papon who actually became the prefect of police in Paris and was even given the Légion d'honneur - if you can believe it. Here's a man whose signature is on sending thousands to perish. I mean there was 77,000 French Jews that perished. Somebody did it. Who rounded them up, who did all these things? Not everyone worked for the Resistance. I think when Pompidou pardoned [Paul] Touvier - which the book is based on and was the inspiration obviously for Brian Moore - when he pardoned him there was such an outcry that that's where they brought charges against humanity. Touvier was finally imprisoned and died in prison I think in '94."

What about the complicity of the Catholic Church in regards to war criminals?
"It's in the book. Touvier, although he's small potatoes - he's just an old man on the run so to speak - the people who are really responsible are all above him. That's why they were very concerned about him. That's why he was protected, because of what he knew. But he was very young when he was involved with the police in 1944. I think his devout, his deep, deep faith and commitment to the Catholic Church and to his religion is a very important aspect to the story. There's no racist in the world who thinks he's a racist. There's no anti-Semite I've ever met who thinks he's anti-Semitic."

What did you think of Brossard?
"Well, when I finished the book, curiously enough I started to root for him. Then I realized what it was - you always empathize with the fugitive. Curiously enough we still have enough empathy to try and understand how people could do things like this and justify them."

Brian Moore's books are particular. What were the complications in bringing The Statement to the big screen?
"Brian Moore's books are always a little bit better than his films usually. I'm hoping that we did him justice this time. It's simply because he writes in the first person and you're inside his characters' minds constantly throughout his book. Therefore, there's very little dialogue. He'll jump from character to character and then you go inside. So you get to know all of these people. This film couldn't have at all been made without [screenwriter] Ron Harwood inventing and enlarging characters for people to talk to each other. For instance, the part of the judge that Tilda Swinton plays in the book is hardly there. And yet Tilda Swinton is probably the second lead in the film. But none of this could have been done if I hadn't had an actor like Michael Caine."

What made you choose Caine to play Brossard?
"Well, I remember one of my favourite films that Michael did was Sleuth. I knew he had a dark side. (Laughter) There's a dark side to Michael and it's always a little bit humourous. There are times when he chills me - when he turns and he says 'I have to make another call' - because you know where his mind is going and I couldn't think of anyone I wanted in the world to play this role. There was no contest."

The Statement is currently playing in local cinemas.

Publication Date: 2003-12-14
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3454