Warner Bros Pictures' action drama Blood Diamond focuses attention on conflict diamonds: stones that are smuggled out of countries (in this case Sierra Leone) and sold to purchase weapons. While entertaining the audience, Blood Diamond also attempts to educate its viewers on the cycle of violence associated with the illegal diamond trade.
Learning Through the Process of Making Blood Diamond: “I think one of the privileges of being a filmmaker is the opportunity to remain a kind of perpetual student,” explained Zwick. “I had known a bit of what had happened there, but the access that one gains from experts, to people who have devoted their lives and put their lives at risk to learn these things, is such a remarkable opportunity.
It became an odyssey to me. I immersed myself in this field. I went [and] met victims and victimizers, smugglers, mercenaries, traders and politicians. It was just the most incredible opportunity to delve deeply into a place and what one hopes is that you honor that. You honor those people. That you do well by those who know much more than you.
I was very, very lucky that I encountered a man named Sorious Samura. [He] is a journalist from Sierra Leone who had made the documentary Cry Freetown, which was the award-winning documentary. In fact, he became British Journalist of the Year and won a Peabody prize for it. He and I connected through the most wonderful serendipity and he became my consultant on the film. So, I was helped by so many people throughout the process and that was one of the treats of it.”
Leonardo DiCaprio and the South African Accent: DiCaprio says it was a matter of spending time with the locals, but director Zwick says it was much more than just simply listening. “He’s modest. He was capturing these voices and able to immerse himself so completely so as not to just give it the right ear, but to act within it and even to improvise within it so he could inhabit the character. A lot of the things you see in that film are things Leo himself came up with or suggested, based on what he learned about the dialect. All these little bits of nomenclature and the little things that come into it were also from him.”
Edward Zwick on Casting Djimon Hounsou: “Well, to me, Djimon is no longer any kind of a secret having done such extraordinary movies, but they were always parts that were always shining in brief doses. I think the opportunity for me and for him was to explore a nuanced performance that goes overtime, that allows him to demonstrate a lot of other colors. I think there is no substitute for someone who understands, in some almost cellular level, what a part is about. He is a West African man and he could at times hear music that I could only dream of. He was at times he was in some sort of rapture about what was happening there. And he, as much as taking direction from me, I think he also taught me things that I was able to use in the movie.”
Blood Diamond Took Its Toll Physically on Djimon Hounsou and Leonardo DiCaprio: Zwick said, “They both played with pain. They played hurt and that’s the really the best thing you can say about someone who gives themselves utterly and they both did. You can only do that if somebody commits completely. And had it been two other actors, many of whose names I could think of and so could you, who were doing those parts, we might still be in African shooting.”
The Response by the International Diamond Industry: “We knew that there were things that had happened in the past that people would have rather forgotten, but their job is the image of their product and the notion that they have devoted many, many millions of dollars to that image is not surprising.”
The Moral of the Story: Should people stop buying diamonds? “It’s a rare opportunity to actually have an effect,” said Zwick, “because it was awareness that helped bring this process about, and it will be heightened awareness that will help it. And that’s not always the case in the world. But in this particular case, if that awareness is increased than things will get better. So, it’s an individual choice, but it has to be an informed choice.”
