Was Sam Byck a fairly intelligent man before he lost it?
Yes. Look at where he ends up. He makes a horrendous choice, obviously, and becomes mentally unstable during the course of the film. But it doesn’t de-legitimize what he had to say earlier on. And that’s what can be both intriguing and disserving about the film is that many people tell me that they empathize with the character and then, of course, ultimately that empathy drops off. You hope it drops off as the film continues (laughing). But he makes so much sense along the way – I’m talking again about stuff in the first half of the film. But yeah, where somebody goes doesn’t necessarily de-legitimize some of the notions that they’re espousing.
The fact that he has personal failings that he’s clearly projecting responsibility for in places they don’t belong, i.e. outwardly, it doesn’t – again – what he has to say about society many people can understand and feel agreement with. The film kind of looks at how society and what’s happening in society and government leadership, or lack of leadership, can impact an individual.
Do you have a hard time convincing people this guy really existed?
Not people who see the film because they see the actual news reports with Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor talking and they actually use the character’s real name in the news report. So if America’s most trusted journalist, Walter Cronkite, can’t convince people, then you won’t be able to convince them, period. Anybody who wants to can learn more about the story.
Where I have had trouble is… I learned a lesson when I went to Cannes with the film. I did interviews there, my first round of interviews. People asked me when I wrote the script and I would later read them in their piece saying, “And the director claims he wrote the script before 9/11.” And they would express skepticism. To which my reaction is, “Well, gee guys. I’d like to think you have an Internet. How long does it take to type ‘Assassination of Richard Nixon’ plus Sean Penn or Niels Mueller? You’re going to get Hollywood Reporter or Variety announcing the film in 1999. September of 1999, so do your homework guys.” The Hollywood Reporter plus “Assassination of Richard Nixon” will get you exactly the announcement. They talk about what the film’s about so there’s no ambiguity about when the script was finished.
Are we that cynical that we can’t believe the film was written in ‘99?
I see it in film criticism, I see it in reporting. There are people who are good critics who are able to look at a film and judge it, “Okay, they are going for this. Did they achieve it?” and not bring their own personal taste or personal agenda. But there are some people who just bring a personal agenda to anything that they write about, so you can sense the people who have their own agenda with stuff like that. They ignore the facts that they choose to.
Is this actually a better fit, time-wise, for releasing this film than five years ago would have been?
I’m really pleased that we didn’t make the film in 1999, which is when it was first announced that Sean was going to make the film. I’m happy it didn’t get made then. One, to make a film like this, which is a really, on some levels, intimate film, I’m glad that Sean and I had four years to get to know each other and build a level of trust by the time we started to shoot. That was valuable.
I’m glad we didn’t shoot before 9/11. I can’t imagine how I would be feeling if I’d made this film before 9/11. But then when 9/11 happens, you have to ask yourself as a filmmaker, “Is this a film you still make?” Ultimately, the conclusion I came to is that the fact something based on truth has become more relevant, does that mean you put it in a dark corner somewhere? Ultimately, I felt the responsible thing, the responsible answer, is no. The fact that something based on truth has become more relevant means you make it. That said, relevance often has an inverse relationship with financability in Hollywood (laughing). I had to really find somebody who wants to go for relevant material. I found that in Jorge Vergara and Alfonso Cuaron who, ultimately, were the financing producers of this film.
