Syriana

[Jeremy Blackman]

i was still what the fucked.

As was I, but I think it's supposed to be that way. Gaghan has said he wants the audience to be overwhelmed and even confused by the relentless flow of corruption and politicking. It worked. And I think (for that reason and others) that this film is more emotional than it seems.

[life_boy]

Jeremy:
What was the film trying to say?
Do you think the sheer expanse of the film detracts from the work at all? 
Gaghan's acknowledged concept (making the audience feel overwhelmed and helpless in the midst of all the corruption and confusion) was likely accomplished, but is the film successful apart from that?
Does the structure of the film work as a narrative whole -- or should it even?

These are a few questions I'm working through myself in thinking about Syriana.  I thought you might like to share your thoughts on them after you get a chance to think them over.

[Jeremy Blackman]

What was the film trying to say?

I'm not sure it wants to "say" something as much as it wants to "show" something. Cause I think what it shows speaks for itself.

Do you think the sheer expanse of the film detracts from the work at all?

No. Why should it? The film's overwhelmingness works in its favor.

Gaghan's acknowledged concept (making the audience feel overwhelmed and helpless in the midst of all the corruption and confusion) was likely accomplished, but is the film successful apart from that?

What else is there to accomplish? The insights into the oil industry and its network of power and influence still work amidst all the emotional chaos, although they might work better as a sense we get rather than concrete real-life information (which works, because this is fiction).

Does the structure of the film work as a narrative whole -- or should it even?

It does work as a narrative in small ways. We see what happens on a human level when this world takes its toll on its participants, who in the climaxes suffer in very real personal ways. The point is just to describe (in a very microcosmic way) the very real human and personal consequences. I don't think it's the biggest point of the movie, but I think it's important, and the structure makes it happen.

[modage]

do you think there is any way you could admire this film if you didn't agree with its politics?

[Jeremy Blackman]

I don't think the film is ideological, actually. I think it simply describes things, and people are disgusted by these things to one extent or another. I suppose you could find people who believe that what the film describes doesn't happen, but that would be ignorance, not ideology. I suppose you could find someone who believes there's nothing wrong with what the film describes... now that would be ideology. So would I admire... well, would I be as affected by the film were I not disturbed by what it describes? No.

[polkablues]

It's so strange to me that people think of this film as taking a political "side".  The two main political points the movie makes are: business is corrupting politics, and that's a bad thing; and the CIA often chooses the wrong side when it interferes in geopolitical events.  The only people who would argue against the first point are the ones who are personally involved in and benefitting from the corruption, and the second point is pretty well agreed upon by all sides, only with disagreements over which specific interventions were wrong-headed (Liberals will point out everything the CIA did under Republican presidents, while Republicans will point out everything the CIA did under Clinton).

I agree with JB 100% on this one.  "Syriana" really isn't an ideological movie.  It's one that points out the way the world really works, and the atrocities that are both the causes and the results of that fact.  In that sense, it follows in the tradition of movies like "Battle of Algiers", "The Killing Fields", and "City of God" (although it's not quite on par, cinematically, with any of those).

[life_boy]

I agree, polka.  The film seems to be both amoral and apolitical.  The decision to show some of the power struggle on the Middle Eastern side helps to make the film feel less propagandistic than it might have otherwise.  I have read of some people dismissing the film as justifying terrorism.  The film didn't justify terrorism; neither did it villify it.  Terrorism is an outcome of the struggle for some and that was how it was depicted.

[Jeremy Blackman]

I saw it again yesterday, and I think I was right that the film's narrative chaos and complexity is its emotional strength. Cause the second time, while (unlike the first time) I understood most everything that was happening, it had a much smaller emotional impact. It was essentially a different movie.

[cron]

it was very good, not one weak story, although i have to confess that my recent addiction to 24 interfered with my moviegoing experience. am i crippled for life?

[Alexandro]

There may be some similarities with Traffic, but I remember Traffiic as being too obvious and sometimes even chiched. And I hated Benicio del Toro's performance because it was in spanish yet I couldn't understand a single word he was saying. If any mexican comes up to you and talks like that in mexico, you assume he's completely stoned or drunk and you kick him and run. I don't know if the arab speaking poarts on Syriana were accurate, but I'd like to.

I had troubles understanding and following everything, but I woul  dnever consider that the weakness of a movie. So is it the movie's fault that I couldn't follow it? Fuck no. If anything, it only makes me wanna see it again. I found everything very subtle and realistic, especially Clooney's performance. You just know what he's feeling yet he never really says it or shows it in any conventional ways.

It seemed to me, like The Constant Gardener, to be a true movie for grown ups, and we need lots of those I think.

[MacGuffin]

Warner has officially set Syriana for release on 6/20 (SRP $28.98). We expect separate anamorphic widescreen and full frame versions to be available, each with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Extras will include deleted scenes, the Make a Change, Make a Difference documentary and A Conversation with George Clooney.

[MacGuffin]

Angry French scribe claims 'Syriana' plagiarized

A French screenwriter living in Jordan has sued Warner Bros. Pictures, George Clooney's production company and writer-director Stephen Gaghan, alleging that their film "Syriana" plagiarized entire scenes and characters from a script she wrote several years ago.

Stephanie Vergniault's case comes up for hearing Monday at the Paris High Court, said her attorney, Jasna Hadley Stark. The filmmakers are being sued for 2 million euros ($2.4 million) and damages, Stark said.

Executives at Warner Bros. France said they were aware of the case but declined comment. A spokesman for Warners in the United States said, "While we have not seen a copy of this suit, we believe it is without merit and (we) will defend our position in court."

"I live in a part of the world where we have no access to the latest films, and I would never have seen 'Syriana' if a friend of mine based in Los Angeles hadn't alerted me," Vergniault said Tuesday.

"I saw the film entirely by accident, and I'm still in a state of shock that someone of the caliber of Stephen Gaghan could stoop so low. At least 15 to 20 scenes of the film -- the characters and how they develop, creative elements, the entire structure -- has been lifted directly from my script. I couldn't stop screaming when I first saw the film in a movie hall in L.A. First I thought I was going crazy, seeing my work on the screen, and then, when I realized what had happened, I was furious."

Vergniault, a specialist on geopolitics in the Middle East, claims that she worked on a script titled "Oversight" from 1997-2003, registering it with the French copyright body SACD in September 2004 and copyrighting it in the U.S. a month later. The script tells the story of a former CIA agent who is reassigned by the organization to reactivate an underground network in Afghanistan for the benefit of an American oil company.

"I have read the book by former CIA agent Robert Baer that is supposed to have inspired the story, and there is nothing in it that remotely resembles the scenes taken straight from my script," she said.

Clooney received an Academy Award last month for his supporting role in the film, while Gaghan was nominated for his screenplay. He originally sought eligibility in the adapted screenplay category, but the Academy switched him to the original screenplay race.

Upon learning of the switch in January, Gaghan said he did veer from Baer's memoir, "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism," and conducted a great deal of original research that he incorporated into the script, but still considered it an adapted screenplay.

[modage]

Best Original Screenplay, indeed.

[MacGuffin]

Stephen Gaghan won an Oscar for his screenplay for Traffic. After crafting the screenplay for that dense multiple storyline filled story implicating everyone even the US government in the world’s hard drug trade Gaghan decided to do the same for Big Oil with Syriana.

Syriana follows George Clooney as a career CIA operative as he begins to uncover the disturbing truth about the work he has devoted his life to, an up-and-coming oil broker. [Matt Damon] faces an unimaginable family tragedy and finds redemption in his partnership with an idealistic Gulf prince [Alexander Siddig]. A corporate lawyer [Jeffrey Wright] faces a moral dilemma as he finesses the questionable merger of two powerful U.S. oil companies.

Daniel Robert Epstein: What made you want to create Syriana?

Stephen Gaghan: From a genre perspective I was definitely fascinated by movies like The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor. I watched those movies again while I was researching this film and I thought, "Wow. You get to the end and some guy pops up and goes, It's big oil! And you go, Ooh, big oil. That explains everything." Then fade out. I thought in the intervening 30-years what's happened is this idea that's Big Oil has become of a super-structure that we all kind of live in. That is like the pop-up answer to a conspiracy that didn't work anymore. So from a genre perspective, that was a great way to think about the paranoid thriller.

DRE: How difficult was it to structure this?

Gaghan: It almost killed me; it was nearly nervous breakdown time. I'll tell you a story, this one time, I had spent so much time crawling around my hands and knees on the shag carpet in my office that I had permanent indentations in my hands and knees from the shag carpet in my office. I woke up and thought I had leprosy because the indentations from the carpet hadn't come out overnight.

DRE: Such a complicated film might polarize the audience, what made you want to do that?

Gaghan: Everyone in Hollywood knows that clarity is everything, that emotions are everything. You have to have a protagonist who's a hero and he gets a victory. You have a villain who's a bad guy and he gets defeated. That's clarity, so why deviate from that? Well, here's the problem. I went out with this Ex-CIA officer, Robert Baer, who's a world expert and was Iraqi Bureau Chief in the mid-90’s. Do you think this guy has relevant experience on whether we go into Iraq and if we go into Iraq what might happen? You think he might have a point of view on that? He only spent 25 years thinking about it. He infiltrated Hezbollah in the 80’s. He has this rolodex filled with middlemen who are billionaire oilmen and arms dealers. If he calls them on their private cell phone, they pick up the phone and they invite him over. He has something they want. When I went around with him I found that it is not nearly as simple as I thought it was. There's not a simple good guy or bad guy. It really is a system with a set number of players who all know each other. It's endemic and has been going on for a long time and I wanted to examine that. What I discovered here at home seems to be this willful exploitation of ambiguity that seems to be going on at the highest levels of our culture. There is a willful choice by somebody to sow confusion about whether or not the globe is heating up in a way that could be dangerous for all of us. I think that is wrong so I want to show in a narrative how these people operate.

DRE: There are a lot of liberals who are terrified right now to say anything about anybody. But with making this you are pointing fingers at the government and Big Oil and the US government. Does it make you any more paranoid?

Gaghan: I hope that what people see when they watch Syriana is that I'm pointing the finger at myself. I'm not pointing the finger at anyone that I feel is separate from me. I feel like the world is this tiny, little place. I feel that my incredible standards of living are predicated by our success in the oil business. I have a '66 GTO convertible with a 387 6.5 liter engine; a convertible muscle car. I've been Hybrid shopping but a guy like me who comes from Kentucky and drinks bourbon and drives a muscle car doesn't easily segway into a Prius. My experience isn't dissimilar from the rest of this country. What I want people to come away with is a heightened awareness of how the system works, so they can decide if they're getting a government that is representing what they really believe it; if they really are part of something that's feels right and comfortable. If not, then you change it.