Irish-born screenwriter Terry George is spurred by conflict, whether in Northern Ireland or Rwanda, he tells Michael Dwyer
First nominated for an Oscar in 1994, for the In the Name of the Father screenplay he wrote with Jim Sheridan, Terry George returns to the Academy Awards tomorrow night with Hotel Rwanda, which has three principal nominations - Don Cheadle for best actor, Sophie Okonedo for best supporting actress, and George himself, with Keir Pierson, for best original screenplay.
When we talked in Dublin last week, George was less than sanguine about their Oscar prospects. "MGM are not known for their Oscar savvy," he says.
"They didn't know how to handle the film. Then they did some test screenings and got the highest scores they've ever had. MGM are more used to releasing James Bond films. That doesn't help because I think the days when independent films won Oscars are numbered now. The studios are spending tens of millions of dollars to market their films for Oscars, and we don't have anything like that behind our film."
Hotel Rwanda had such an emotionally charged world première at the Toronto festival last September that the standing ovation continued for more than 10 minutes at the end, and the film went on to take the audience award for best film from the 250 showing at the festival.
A tense, powerful, factually-based drama, it charts the heroic efforts of Kigali hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (charismatically played by Don Cheadle) to shelter and save more than 1,000 refugees at the onset of the genocidal conflict in Rwanda in 1994.
Quoting the cynical observation made by Tom Cruise's character in Michael Mann's recent thriller, Collateral - that people may watch TV news coverage of such horrific events but then will settle down to their dinner - I asked Terry George if he believes that movies have the power to change anything in this world.
"I do - on a small level. In fact, Michael Mann told me he really regrets cutting that scene, because that discussion went on much longer when they shot it. But some of the Clinton administration told me that when they saw In the Name of the Father, it gave them more of an interest in the issues it raised. I'm not saying we were responsible for the peace process, but the film certainly gave them a perspective on it.
"I believe that Hotel Rwanda has helped keep the Darfur debate going. The response to the tsunami disaster shows what can be done, that the world will come around and muster and put together a huge effort. But you can't do that in South East Asia and then pretend Sudan is different.
"The state department in Washington invited us to screen it for about 500 people who worked there and career diplomats and some of the Bush administration. I didn't have to say a word because a really strong debate broke out, led by the people who had been in the American embassy in Kigali at the time. Today, Paul is meeting George Bush at the White House to talk about Darfur. Bush watched the film at Camp David and all his key staff saw it, including Condoleeza Rice."
Hotel Rwanda is just the second cinema film directed by George, a Belfast native now based in New York for over 20 years. His screenplays have all been rooted in conflict - in Northern Ireland for his collaborations with Jim Sheridan on the screenplays for In the Name of the Father, The Boxer and George's own directing début, the hunger strike drama Some Mother's Son; in the second World War for Hart's War; and in Vietnam for his HBO TV film, A Bright Shining Lie.
"For me, they are ordinary stories about working-class heroes," he says. "It's a case of finding somebody who becomes the eyes and ears of the audience, and when the audience can empathise with them, it helps with whatever you are trying to explain. In In the Name of the Father, it was Pete Postlethwaite as Giuseppe Conlon. The audience really locked onto him as he went right in to the belly of the beast. With Some Mother's Son, it was the mother played by Helen Mirren. It was her sense of bewilderment that brought the audience in the story.
"In Hotel Rwanda, I believe Paul survived and that he saved these people on the basis of his work skills. He knew how to move people around, how to charm people, how to blackmail people. The myth he created that the West actually cared about this one hotel was his biggest bluff of all, and it held his plan together. The one time he had to play that card, the Sabena people came through for him and they got on to Mitterrand's office. It worked."
TERRY GEORGE, WHO served three years in Long Kesh during the 1970s - "I was arrested in a car where somebody was carrying a gun" - first became involved with theatre and film in the 1980s, when Jim Sheridan was running the Irish Arts Centre in New York.
"I took Jim a play called The Tunnel, which was based on an escape from Long Kesh," he says.
"I made it an allegory where the IRA men who are digging the tunnel and, unbeknown to themselves, they almost dig themselves back into their cage when the tunnel collapses. Jim put it on at the Irish Arts Centre. Then, while he went off to make My Left Foot, I was the temporary artistic director there.
"By the time Jim surfaced again, I had met Gerry Conlon. Gabriel had bought the rights to his book and came to me to write the treatment for the film. As soon as I had that written, I gave it to Jim and the ball started rolling. So it was all like happenstance from the Irish Arts Centre." George first went to Rwanda two years ago, accompanied by Paul Rusesabagina.
"Paul left the Milles Collines hotel in 1995," he says, "and then left Rwanda a year later because he was threatened by some Tutsi soldiers.
"In fact, the first time he went back was with me in 2003, and he came there with some trepidation. He was running a small taxi business in Brussels, where he now lives. He has set up a trucking firm in Zambia, but the corruption is too much for him, so he's now trying to open a hotel in Malawi.
"I showed Paul a rough cut of the film because I didn't want a situation where he would see the completed film and then freak out about it for any reason. And there were some cultural references he picked up on when he saw the rough cut."
The film was shot on locations in South Africa. "Johannesburg is a dodgy city," George says. "It's dangerous, but there is a large Rwandan and Burundi exile community there. We were able to get a lot of very good actors from South African soap operas.
"We didn't have the budget to experiment with anything. Everything had to be shot in three or four takes, and you better get what you need or that's it. You have to move on to the next scene. We just had to go for it. There was also the psychological pressure for me, having been to Rwanda and talked to the survivors, of getting it made. After getting together such a great cast and crew, all the responsibility was on me. I was the only one who could mess it up.
"I've found that the more sombre and serious the story is, the more fun the shoot is and the more of a bond you make with the crew. It was the same on Some Mother's Son and In the Name of the Father. Everyone was into it, whereas if you go on something like The Devil's Own, it can be a nightmare."
IN BETWEEN WORKING on his own projects, George has a sideline as a script doctor, reworking and polishing screenplays by other writers. "I did one on Ladder 49, which paid for the pre-production on Hotel Rwanda. But I had a headache after three weeks on the rewrite of The Devil's Own and bailed on it. Brad Pitt was fine and I have great admiration for him. In fact, we're talking about a project, a Philippines war film I would love to make with him. But then Harrison Ford came on board the film and I really don't think he has anything left in him." Does he enjoy the writing process?
"I hate it," he says. "I hate it with a passion. It's painful beyond belief. You're reaching inside yourself to find the defining emotional moments, and if they don't come, you're just sitting there. I can't go past the scene unless I feel I'm there, or go to the end of it and try something different.
"But when you get a really good story, like In the Name of the Father or Hotel Rwanda, I can crash that out much easier. As a script doctor, it's different because the nature of the job is that when you're brought in to fix something, it's not to fix something good - and some of it is irredeemable."
Hotel Rwanda goes on release next Friday