October 17, 2002
NEW YORK TIMES
Films With War Themes Are Victims of Bad Timing
By Anne Thompson
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A cataclysmic event can change the fate of a movie. One example is "The Quiet American," the Australian director Phillip Noyce's adaptation of Graham Greene's 1955 novel. In the three days between its rough-cut preview on Sept. 10, 2001, and a Miramax strategy meeting, the story of a war-tangled Saigon love triangle morphed from hot Oscar prospect to problem child.

Miramax executives worried that what had been a romance set against the backdrop of early American involvement in Vietnam now could be seen as a searing critique of United States imperialism. "The Quiet American" was quietly shelved.

It was not the only film sideswiped by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. For months the major studios delayed movies with thorny plot devices, like the bomb-on-a-plane twist in "Big Trouble" (about a stolen nuclear device) and the terrorist attacks in "Collateral Damage" (in which Arnold Schwarzenegger goes after Colombian terrorists).

Just this week, in light of the shootings around Washington, 20th Century Fox postponed indefinitely the release of "Phone Booth," a thriller about a deranged sniper.

After Sept. 11 the wait was significantly longer for several independent films than for studio releases. Among the independents in limbo were "The Quiet American" and the dark military comedy "Buffalo Soldiers." Their already provocative themes became even more so after the attacks and the war in Afghanistan, and distributors fretted that audiences would hardly be in the mood for such sobering offerings.

With each successive preview of "The Quiet American," test-audience ratings dropped precipitously, Mr. Noyce said. "In the end, the audience has to at least condone the execution of the American character for crimes against humanity," he added. But the film made moviegoers uncomfortable because its title character, a charismatic intelligence officer played by Brendan Fraser, sponsors terrorist acts that kill scores of innocent Vietnamese.

"There will be people who are sensitive about seeing the American point of view presented as less than sympathetic," said Sydney Pollack, a producer of the movie.

Miramax executives were among them. Audience reaction was O.K. on Sept. 10, said Harvey Weinstein, the Miramax co-chairman. "What freaked me out after the 10th was the 11th. I showed the film to some people and staff, and they said: 'Are you out of your mind? You can't release this now; it's unpatriotic. America has to be cohesive, and band together.' We were worried that nobody had the stomach for a movie about bad Americans anymore."

Then events took another turn: President Bush pressed for war on Iraq, and debate seeped into the fabric of America. Well before Mr. Noyce was able to persuade Miramax to screen his film at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, Miramax (which had bought North and South American and British rights for $5.5 million before the movie started production) was already shopping the film to other distributors to recoup their investment. Lions Gate Films, which often inherits Miramax's castoffs, was interested.

While Mr. Pollack and Michael Caine, who plays a foreign correspondent in "The Quiet American," lobbied Mr. Weinstein to open the movie before year's end to qualify for the Oscars, Mr. Noyce, who could not get Mr. Weinstein on the phone for months, applied pressure through the journalists attending the Toronto festival.

"The distributor is trying to allow the film to find its maximum audience at the right time," Mr. Noyce said carefully over coffee during the festival. "This could be a story with a happy ending."

The strategy worked. The movie was a festival hit. Sir Michael "is guaranteed a nomination" for an Oscar wrote Richard Corliss, of Time, one of many critics who rallied for the film's release.

Mark Gill, who was president of Miramax's Los Angeles office until he left this week, said: "Going in we had no certainty of critical support. In Toronto we said, `Wow, we got the goods.' Critics will help us get over the hump in a big way."

Miramax is to open "The Quiet American" on Thanksgiving weekend in New York and Los Angeles for an Oscar-qualifying one-week run, with a broader release scheduled for January.

But Mr. Noyce said he still lacked confidence in the strength of Miramax's conviction. "The big question is, Are they going to release it properly?" he said.

Mr. Weinstein admits that much will depend on the film's performance during the awards season. "Caine has gotten the best reviews of his career," he said. "We'll have a big campaign for Michael, reopen in New York and L.A. in January, and widen out gradually, and, God willing, we'll get a Golden Globe or an Oscar nomination."

The ability to get a proper release has also been haunting the filmmakers behind two other postponed movies, "Buffalo Soldiers" and "The Grey Zone," a Holocaust drama. Both had premieres at last year's Toronto festival to positive reaction, but still await release.

"Buffalo Soldiers," from the Australian writer and director Gregor Jordan, is a rambunctious military comedy, which, according to one critic, "makes 'M*A*S*H' look like a recruitment video." The film stars Scott Glenn as a Vietnam vet who in 1989 cleans up a thriving black market in West Germany run by an Army private (Joaquin Phoenix). Distributors chased the movie after its first screening; Miramax grabbed it on Sept. 10th.

The next day the cynical farce was on indefinite hold. "It's not that easy to release post-9/11," Mr. Jordan said. "Before 9/11 the world was a safer and happier place where people were not thinking about war. Now they're thinking about it every day. The film says that the American Army and armies around the world are full of psychopaths whose aim is to go out and kill people."

While America prepares for a possible war against Iraq, moviegoers could easily read that message as unpatriotic. "It's not antipatriotic," Mr. Jordan said. "It asks the question, Why do people want to keep killing each other? A big section of the world community is asking these questions. I think cinema audiences are getting a bit frustrated with the overwhelming political correctness going on."

Miramax executives said the satire would open in March with a new voice-over by Mr. Phoenix that makes clear that the events depicted are based on fact. "It is tough and antimilitary," Mr. Weinstein said, "but even if we go to war with Iraq, enough is enough. We'll open it, no matter what."

Tim Blake Nelson, director of "The Grey Zone," has prior experience making films that get overrun by current events. The Columbine shootings in 1999 drove Miramax to pass on his last film "O," a Shakespearean drama set in a contemporary high school. Lions Gate took over that film.

This time "The Grey Zone," about the Sonderkommando, Jewish prisoners who assisted the Nazis in order to survive, was scheduled for a premiere at the Toronto festival on Sept. 11, 2001. Its showing was postponed by two days, but the atmosphere after the attacks was not conducive to promoting the film. "We were considering an Oscar push dependent on the film's reception in Toronto," said Tom Ortenberg, the president of Lions Gate Films. "We never got to judge. We decided to hold it up because we didn't get the launch pad we needed."

Bob Berney, president of Newmarket Films, said, " `The Grey Zone' is a tough, difficult film at a time when people were avoiding burdensome subjects."

Lions Gate is to open "The Grey Zone" tomorrow , a year after its original American release date and well after its release overseas. Because the movie deals with the Holocaust, Mr. Nelson said, "it was inevitable that it would be seen in light of 9/11." He added: "I don't think it has lost any relevance from being shelved for a year."

Given the chance, audiences could find these provocative films more timely than ever.

"The sentiments surrounding 9/11 may prove to assist my movie," Mr. Noyce said, "because the ideas that Graham Greene was writing about have suddenly become very relevant. Does America's feeling of responsibility for the family of man justify infringing on the sovereignty of other nations? That question is just as urgent today."

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