NEWSWEEK: Oscar Roundtable

NEWSWEEK: Oscar Roundtable

Spielberg Was Surprised at 'Volley' From The Left About 'Munich'; Says They've Been Given Their 'Marching Orders': 'Filmmakers Are Much More Proactive Since The Second Bush Administration'

'There Seems to be a Collective Social Consciousness,' Says Ang Lee

Clooney Jokes: 'I Don't Read an Oscar Ad Unless it Says 'Brokeback Mountain' Across The Top'

NEW YORK, Jan. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Filmmaker Steven Spielberg tells Newsweek that while he knew they were going to "receive a volley from the right," about his film "Munich," he was surprised "that we received a much smaller, but no less painful, volley from the left. It made me feel a little more aware of the dogma, and the Luddite position people take any time the Middle East is up for discussion."

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060129/NYSU002 )

Spielberg and four other directors discussed their films, fears, politics, Oscar ads and crying at the movies in Newsweek's ninth annual Oscar roundtable, which appears in the February 6 issue (on newsstands Monday, January 30). The participants in the roundtable were: Bennett Miller "Capote," Spielberg "Munich," George Clooney "Good Night, and Good Luck," Ang Lee "Brokeback Mountain," and Paul Haggis "Crash." They spoke to Senior Writer Sean Smith and Senior Editor David Ansen.

Spielberg says so many fundamentalists in his own community, "the Jewish community, have grown very angry at me for allowing the Palestinians simply to have dialogue and for allowing Tony Kushner to be the author of that dialogue. 'Munich' never once attacks Israel, and barely criticizes Israel's policy of counterviolence against violence. It simply asks a plethora of questions. It's the most questioning story I've ever had the honor to tell. For that, we were accused of the sin of moral equivocation. Which, of course, we didn't intend-and we're not guilty of."

They all talk about provoking strong reactions with their films. "From the end of the first wave of the civil-rights movement, all the way through Watergate, people were constantly talking about what was going on in the country," Clooney says. "Now it seems that's happening again." "There seems to be a collective social consciousness," Lee says.

"I think we all have been given our marching orders ... Maybe I shouldn't get into this," Spielberg says. "I just feel that filmmakers are much more proactive since the second Bush administration. I think that everybody is trying to declare their independence and state their case for the things that we believe in.

No one is really representing us, so we're now representing our own feelings, and we're trying to strike back."

All the directors praised the studios for taking chances this year on their films and discussed the costs of distributing even little movies. For Miller's $7 million "Capote," it was $10 million. "But now, with the [Oscar campaign] ads, I imagine it's more," Clooney says. "I never look at ads, because it's just too much to read," Spielberg says. "And everybody here has gotten so many kudos. Especially Ang's movie." To which Clooney replies, "Yeah. I don't read an ad unless it says 'Brokeback Mountain' across the top."

When asked if he was surprised that "Brokeback Mountain" hasn't raised more protest from the religious right, Lee replies, "I didn't know they would take a position of deliberate quietness, so that they wouldn't [inadvertently] promote the movie."

Newsweek asks the directors that, since so many of their movies this year moved audiences to tears, do they cry easily in movies. "I cry when people do good things," Miller says. "Like in 'Schindler's List' at the end [when the survivors give him a ring]. That's the kind of thing that gets me." "It's getting harder and harder for me," Lee says. "It's like I deprive myself of that pleasure. When I was a kid, I used to cry so hard in movies that the whole row of people would stop crying and look at me. Now sometimes I cry just because the movie is so good."

Miller talks about what it was like directing his friend Philip Seymour Hoffman. "I think we both felt the entire time that we were in some kind of a crisis. From the outside, it probably looked kind of fierce. We were very honest and blunt with each other. Phil has an anguished and brutal process. When he did the plays 'True West,' and 'The Seagull,' he'd call me up two weeks before opening night and say, 'My career is over. I can't figure this out. I'm going to be revealed for the imposter that I am.' So when we worked together and that began happening, it kind of defrayed my anxiety. [Pause] A little bit. The challenge was to find a way to be with him and not comfort him too much. He was very afraid."

Lee reveals that when he was growing up in Taiwan, he wanted to be a filmmaker, but kept it a secret until he did his first movie. "I always felt ashamed," he says, adding that it was because his father didn't approve. "And because of the society I came from." He says his father would have wished for him "anything but this, I guess. Something practical. So film was a very repressed pleasure for me. I always had scenes in my head, but 'The Virgin Spring' was an epiphany for me. After that movie, you cannot move for a long time. You feel you will see life differently now. I always wished I could do something like that on screen."

And then they discussed the most memorable thing a critic ever said about one of their films. "I'll never forget what Rex Reed said about 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'," Spielberg says. "He said the mother ship looked 'like one of Mae West's earrings'." "About 'Ride With the Devil,' Rex said something like, 'Those boys don't know how to say their lines'," Lee says. "But he said the nicest things about 'Brokeback'." "And he's said great things about other movies of mine. I don't want to pick on Rex," Spielberg says.

Clooney took exception. "Well, Rex trashes me as an actor. Even when he gave me a good review for 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' he basically said, 'Unbelievably, it's a decent film for him.' So beat up on Rex all you want. He can take it. He's a big boy."

(Read roundtable discussion at www.Newsweek.com)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11077661/site/newsweek/

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