Kimberly Peirce's 1999 directorial debut Boys Don't Cry found the romance and heartbreak in the harrowing
true-life tale of Brandon Teena, a small-town woman who lived as a man, and whose
brutal murder became national news. The film catapulted star Hilary Swank from Beverly
Hills 90210 also-ran and The Next
Karate Kid star to Oscar-winning A-list
actor, and helped make co-stars Peter Sarsgaard and Chloë Sevigny ubiquitous
fixtures in independent and studio films. Boys Don't Cry looked like a star-making vehicle for its
phenomenally gifted writer-director as well, but while fans hungered for a
follow-up, Peirce more or less went MIA from American film. Nine years later,
she returns to the big screen with the powerful new Iraq War movie Stop
Loss, an evocative drama about a soldier
(Ryan Phillippe) who goes AWOL after being "stop-lossed," having his tour of
duty involuntarily extended. Like Boys Don't Cry, it fearlessly, sympathetically addresses some of the
most controversial issues of the day. The A.V. Club recently spoke with the focused, hyper-verbal
filmmaker about the glut of failed Iraq War movies, the stop-loss phenomenon,
just what she's been up to all these years, and the oft-overlooked upside to
test screenings.
The A.V. Club: There was a nine-year gap between the release of Boys
Don't Cry and Stop
Loss. How did you fill the years?
Kimberly Peirce: It wasn't really
nine years. I spent a year promoting Boys Don't Cry, then I sold Stop
Loss as a green-lit screenplay in '05. It takes
that long to make a movie. I would like to make movies quicker, there's no
doubt.
I was really lucky with Boys. That
was one of the most satisfying, thrilling, amazing experiences of my life. I
started it in grad school. It was supposed to be a 10-minute film, and it
turned into a feature. That movie took over my life, and I loved it dearly. And
I knew that I needed to make movies that matter very deeply to me. Certainly I
spent time looking for that. And I actually did find a project that I love,
that I will make one day. It was the life and death of William Desmond Taylor.
It was this unsolved Hollywood murder mystery. And King Vidor and Robert Towne
tried to make movies about it, and they had a hard time. But I figured out who
killed this Hollywood director, and how and why it had to be covered up by
Hollywood and the government. Wrote a script. Had it cast with Annette Bening,
Evan Rachel Wood, Hugh Jackman, Ben Kingsley. And when we should have been
going to make it, the studio ran the numbers and said "Look. We love it. We
would like to see the $30 million version of it. We would like to pay for the $20 million version of it." And I said "Do
you want me to cut it down?" and they said "No, because want to see the $30 million
version."
So that certainly took me a number of years. But it also taught me a
valuable lesson. That was a period piece, and it was drama. Those can be harder
to make, because they have to be made for a certain price, and they don't
always want to be made for that price. So it was pretty much a week after that
happened, or days, that I was like, "Okay. Rather than get too depressed about
this, I'm going to pick up my camera. I'm going to start traveling the country,
and I'm going to start doing what I did during Boys Don't Cry, which is, I'm going to follow my curiosity and I'm
going to pay for it." So I paid for all the research on this, and I paid for
writing the script on spec. I went to Hollywood with a spec script co-written
with Mark Richard, who is a Texas novelist. I don't know if you know about the
videos I had with the soldiers.
AVC: Could you talk about that?
KP: Yeah, I'll tell you about
that. But the trailer I cut together with [producer] Reid Carolin, who actually
is from Illinois… Really smart kid, who did this research with me. We cut
together soldiers' videos and the research we had done throughout the country,
and we gave that to the studio. So they had a script, and they understood it
was going to be young, it was going to be edgy, it was going to have violence,
it was going to have camaraderie, it was going to have great music. So we kinda
let them know that. And it was like, "You buy it, you make it." We sold it as a
green-lit movie, which is really rare.
AVC: Are you worried that audiences are suffering from Iraq War movie
fatigue?
KP: Well, you are always humble
about your beliefs. Today, in particular, that doesn't faze me, because there's
a couple things. One, this movie, I don't think is like those other films,
although I respect those directors. This movie was literally born out of
soldiers' experiences. I was in New York for 9/11. I saw the towers fall. I was
devastated. I went to vigils for the victims. Our country entered war. I knew
we were amidst a seismic change. I wanted to make a movie about who the
soldiers were that were signing up, why they were signing up, what their
experience in combat was, and what their experience coming home was. So I
started embarking on that. Right around that time, my younger brother got
signed up to fight. So he enlisted. We had a grandfather in World War II, but
now we were a military family and dealing with the war on a moment-by-moment
basis. So that already was incredibly compelling. And I knew that he brought
back these videos. So on his first leave home—first of all, we had been
IMing from the day he landed. IMing with other soldiers, which is kinda
amazing. That they go do their missions, and they come back and IM you. You're
able to talk to them as they're over there, which is extraordinary.
So on his first leave home, it was Thanksgiving. I was in bed and I heard
"Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the floor." And I woke up and
I walked out, and there he was, plastered to the television watching these
images. These were images I'd never seen. They were shot by soldiers in combat,
in the barracks. They would put a camera in a sand bag, they would strap it to
a Humvee, they would put it on a gun, or during a firefight, they'd just put it
on the ground. You'd see boots running across and you'd hear gunshots. They
were firing machine guns, they filmed themselves. They thought that was cool.
They'd go back to their barracks, and they would cut it together with music. Either
Toby Keith, patriotic music, which I love, or The Prodigy's "Firestarter," Rage
Against The Machine, Drowning Pool's "Bodies," country-and-western music. It
was this full-on engagement with the soldiers' point of view in a way that we
had never seen it.
I looked at those images and said, "This is how we need to make the
movie. Entirely from a young man's point of view. We need to capture the
energy, the fun, the humor, the excitement." For me, this movie is already
different from any of those other movies, because it's coming out of their
experience. World War II, Vietnam, it's just not any of that. And I've been
lucky that I screened the movie in 12 cities, and I know the reaction. Over and
over, people have been coming up to me, saying, "Thank you for making an
emotional movie. Thanks for making a movie about people. Thanks for making a
movie we can relate to."
AVC: Part of what sets it apart from other movies about the Iraq
War—and also something it shares with Boys Don't Cry—is its immersion in the romance of small-town
life and in being young. It captures the romance of youth and the sense of
heightened emotion.
KP: You're certainly right about that.
The heightened emotions of being young. Certainly a working-class, Midwest, in
this case Texas, small-town, Americana, American feel. I actually spent some
time here in Paris, Illinois, filming the homecoming of the 1544th, the
National Guard Unit who had the highest casualty rate, the highest number of
combat hours. A thousand soldiers came home. And we were able to film that and
get to know the families. That had a huge influence on how we were able to
bring that town to life. But you're right, there's a respect and there's a
romanticism of it.
AVC: Do you see this film as journalism as well as storytelling?
KP: Well, in a way. I don't know
how the audience is experiencing it. But it's like anthropology, it's like
journalism, it's like history. I am very much in love with the American life,
the American family, American working class, American values. I want to get as
deeply inside of them as possible. It's journalistic in that I actually—you
know, I love my subjects. I go and listen to my subjects. It's a profound
curiosity that drives me to make these movies.
AVC: Do you see films like this or No End In Sight as a corrective, or a reaction to the mainstream
media coverage of the war? Do you think films are picking up the slack where
day-to-day journalism is dropping the ball?
KP: I wouldn't necessarily say that
they were dropping the ball, but I certainly would say that in an era where
there is a dearth of those images, when I got a hold of these soldier-made
videos and I was seeing the experience from their point of view, the reason it
was curious to me was because it wasn't out there. It's the reason I needed to
get ahold of that. It's why I love The Battle Of Algiers. The
stuff, I just feel like it's what life's about. It's about reality and
intensity and human emotions and human experiences. And if we're not seeing
that in the mainstream media, we want to. And I think that's what I've gotten
from a lot of the audiences, they're like, "Wow! This is what's going on with
our people. I need to know about this."
AVC: Watching the film, I felt guilty that I didn't know more about
the concept of stop-loss. Why do you think there's so little press and outrage
over the stop-loss situation?
KP: I think we're living in an
era of headline news. So human emotion, storytelling, it's getting compacted.
Things are moving quicker. It's harder to have good storytelling. Why don't
people know about stop-loss? Fascinating question. Because they don't. In
Vietnam, we had a draft. So everybody shared the burden. Everybody was
concerned about their kid going to war. Their husband, their brother. Now, we
have a volunteer army. It's literally a smaller group of people in a culture
who are fighting the war. So, already, stop-loss is impacting a very, very
concentrated group of people. A group of people who are volunteers. They're
being stop-lossed and they're frustrated, it's not the whole country that knows
about it. That's number one. Number two, I think a lot of military culture—I'm
fascinated by the value system—is "Don't speak out against the military."
So where do these people have a chance to make public the idea of stop-loss?
That's what's so interesting to me, I have this website, stoplossmovie.com, and I've given
cameras to soldiers and their families. They made videos and I upload them.
Then people write in. I have so many comments, on my site—people are
writing in on stop-loss. "This happened to me. This is my life." I had military
wives writing in: "This is my husband's life, this is our life, he's not going
to see the birth of his child." I'm just giving people a chance to speak out,
but every single person I've explained stop-loss to, every single American has
been intrigued, overwhelmed, and concerned. "Why don't I know about this?" You
don't know about this because, the funny thing is that it is affecting all of us, but it's overtly affecting a smaller group of the population. But 81,000
soldiers have been stop-lossed. At least, because that's an old figure. It is
completely widespread, and I just think we need to get it out there. The
patriotic soldiers are saying, "This is a backdoor draft," they're saying, "You're
recycling people." Do you know what a lot of soldiers have suggested? They've
said we should have a draft, because then all of America will be aware of how
we are treating the soldiers.
AVC: To a certain extent, it's a class thing. If Ivy League graduates
were being drafted, there would be a lot more outrage. But there's a sense that
a lot of the soldiers come from poor backgrounds, and the military is a step
up.
KP: It is a class thing, but I
also wanted to show that a lot of the people who sign up really love
the military and the military life, so if you treat them well, they're gonna be
happy to stay in the military. But you're right—certainly if you
democratize it and spread it out as these soldiers suggest, then all of America
will be voting on it and thinking of our involvement and how our soldiers are
being treated, because they'll all be involved with it. And I find that
fascinating.
AVC: Which again is one of the big differences between Vietnam and
Iraq. The fact that it was a draft and everybody was affected.
KP: Exactly. Well, I think the
entire culture is being affected, but not in this direct way.
[pagebreak]
AVC: In Stop Loss, there's a sense of a real emotional
connection to the military. Was it important to you that your protagonist would
be predisposed to think well of the government and the military?
KP: Absolutely. If you had
someone who didn't love the military, and wasn't a true patriot, you didn't
have much of an arc. So we have a guy who… He doesn't really turn against the
government, but he speaks out against this thing. That wasn't going to be dramatic,
but when you have these kids who love the military, this is how they're brought
up. They know they're supposed to fight for their country, and they go in for
all the right reasons. And they've finished their tours of duty,
and they've done everything right, and they you do this to them… They feel
betrayed. They feel like, "Wait a second, this is not what I was taught. This
is not where I was supposed to end up if I do everything right." Which is
profoundly more dramatic, and true to the situation. Because it's in a
volunteer army. Who's volunteering? People who are believers.
AVC: And there's a sense, too, that you sign up for it for the war, but
not infinitely. Not in an open-ended way.
KP: Well, the soldiers say, "I
signed up for 9/11." A lot of soldiers didn't know that [the Iraq War] was
connected to that. Also, they signed up for a certain term, and then in their
eyes, the president said that the war was over. And stop-loss is supposed to be
used during a time of war. Again, they feel that the government isn't following
the contract. Also, they're concerned that it's something that's deeply
embedded in the fine print of their contracts, so they're feeling like, "Look,
I signed up at 18. I love my country. Do you think the contract should have this
in the fine print? Is that really a way that the military should be treating
its own soldiers? Why not make everything out in the open?"
AVC: Do you think of Ryan Phillippe's character as going AWOL?
KP: He doesn't think so. He
really doesn't. He even says, "We're not like these guys." That's a moment of
shock to him. This is something we really worked hard on. There were times when
he met other AWOL guys in the script, and we wondered if he should bond with
these guys and say, "Great, I'm gonna be AWOL too." But we decided he'd meet
them and say, "I'm not like these guys. I'm trying to solve my problem." He
sees himself as a sergeant who did his time in battle. There were times that he
saw things were unfair and stuck through it, and now he wants to put it behind
him. He's not trying to be a deserter. It's not even in his consciousness. He's
just like, "I'm gonna go solve my problem quickly, so it's no longer a problem."
He says he's going to talk to the senator to get this cleared up.
AVC: It seems like this film is about somebody developing their own
value system.
KP: Absolutely. But also, he
already thinks he has a value system, but doesn't think it's being carried out.
But you're right. He's developing a value system, particularly around the
issues of leadership, and the camaraderie and the connection to the men. I
think of it as a story of a guy who learns how to become a great leader. He's a
good leader, and he's done his job, kind of like the gunslinger, and he's gonna
hang up his gun and be done.
AVC: A lot of filmmakers are skeptical of the test-screening process,
but it seems like you welcome it. What's the upside?
KP: The upside is that I love
screening the movie. I think you make a movie by screening it. Frank Capra did
it. One of the best books ever written, if you want to have a good read [is his
autobiography, The Name Above The Title.] He would do these
screenings and he would put a tape recorder on, and he'd go back to his editing
room, and he knew when they coughed, and when they lost interest. Anytime I sit
through a screening of the movie, it doesn't matter how far I've gotten through
the editing process. You push and push to make it as clear as you can, but when
you throw it up in front of an audience, you always see it with new eyes. You're
like, "That is boring as hell!" Or, "Oh my God, that's working! We can do a
little more of that."
I think that's how you make movies. In that way, I like screening. I
screen constantly. The only thing that's really hard about the screening
process… The Neilsen NRG isn't really the problem, because they're just a group
of people who actually set up the screenings for you, get the demographic you
want, and question the audience. You sit right behind the audience and watch
them say whatever the hell they want about your movie, and it's enlightening. I
think the problem lies in the commercialization of the film before it's reached
its end result. That is what I would want control over. As the movie is trying
to find itself, as it does in the editing room, you're bringing an audience in,
and you're asking them to be filmmakers. As read by a filmmaker, I think test
screenings are incredibly helpful. As read by the studio, I'm not always sure they're
the healthiest thing, because the studios say, "Wow, if you cut out this scene,
you'll have a wider base." And that may not be the best thing for this movie.
AVC: It seems like if you have a certain set of goals, it can be
empowering in the sense that you're test screening so you can make the
strongest film.
KP: If it's a director-run test-screening,
it's only ever been helpful. And [Boys Don't Cry producer]
Christine Vachon—I've really got to give her kudos, she told me to screen
often. She forced me to screen, and no matter what, whether they liked it or
didn't like it, it was always enlightening. I would encourage all young
filmmakers to do it.
AVC: What did you learn about Stop Loss and Boys Don't Cry through test-screening?
KP: With Boys, we
had a whole section where we showed you Brandon as a girl. The first 10 minutes
as a girl in a trailer park. The problem is, people wanted more Brandon as a
girl, or they didn't want any Brandon as a girl. So we ended up cutting it and
starting it late, without the first 10 minutes, as a test screening. In Stop
Loss, we realized with the opening, based
on the soldier's video that I loved, we opened the movie with a very rock 'n'
roll, hardcore, in-your-face opening that I loved. But it did provoke
questions. So we ended up taking it out, and starting on a patriotic song. But
really, we were starting with the guys being bonded with each other, so we got
right into the story. That was a lesson for me, taking it out. Yes there was a
part of it that I always missed. You always end up starting later than you
thought, and you learn that through screening. Audiences want to start a film as
late in the story as possible, and they want to start in the moment where the
character is being most the character. That's always a lesson. And with pacing
issues—you have to do
pacing issues with an audience. You ask "Where is it boring, where does it
drag?"
AVC: You have to be ruthless in your editing.
KP: It's painful. But can I
credit my editor, Claire Simpson, who did Wall Street, and Platoon, and Constant Gardener. She's brilliant. [Stop Loss cinematographer] Chris Menges is brilliant. He did Killing
Fields, he did Dirty Pretty
Things.
AVC: Boys Don't Cry and Stop
Loss are both very heavy, emotionally
wrenching films. Can you see yourself writing lighter, more escapist work? Or
is this just your aesthetic?
KP: I think it is my aesthetic,
because it is what moves me, but at the same time, I'm writing a romantic
comedy, which was inspired by a true story—my first and only blind date.
And it is hilarious. Friends have
been pushing me to write it, because I tell them the stories and they're like,
"That is out-of-control funny!" I have a very funny side, but I get caught up
in these serious things. You see a little bit of the humor in the way the guys
open the wedding presents [in Stop Loss], but I always think my movies are incredibly funny.