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What’s your take on the controversy?
“First of all, as I said earlier, I think the controversy around the film really was grown from people who had not seen it. I was shocked to hear Hilary Clinton condemn the film as disgusting and sick when she hasn’t seen it. I think that’s actually really very troubling, that somebody would be prepared to dismiss a film without having seen it. I think it’s absolutely justifiable for a film to be provocative and to be outrageous from time to time.
I think the fact that we’re talking about the film I hope will mean that people want to satisfy their own curiosity, and that they won’t rush to judge the film and actually will want to see it for themselves. I think Newmarket, which is the distributor of the film here in America, are very confident that it will reach a wide audience, in spite of the fact that some theater chains have decided not to show it. I think it’s going to open a lot of theaters and I hope a lot of people will get to see it. I hope people will want to see it.
I think that there is a lot of fear at the moment about this film, and I think that’s quite interesting. I think that that fear is related to the fear that the film describes. The film, in a way, is about the consequences of fear on a political and social and cultural level. I think that actually the fear that various theater owners/chains have had for distributing it is quite interesting. I mean, there is clearly an appetite to see the film. Every single screening of this film to date has been sold out. There is massive interest in it and so I’m surprised.”
What do you think of President Bush?
“Well, I think what’s important is what I think about the administration’s policies, rather than what I think of President Bush as an individual. I think that the way the administration has handled the war on terror is great cause for concern. I think it’s had an incredibly corrosive effect, not just on America but on the broader world. One of the criticisms I’ve faced in making this film is for being British. But Tony Blair and President Bush are always very keen to remind us that we’re all in this war on terror together. 9/11 was an attack on American soil, but the consequences of the response to that have absolutely been global. They affect us in Britain as well as in the same way they affect Americans.”
How will this film play in 2009?
“I have no idea. I hope that it will be seen as an accurate reflection of the period immediately after 9/11. I mean, I think although the film is set in 2007, it’s really not about… The intent of the film was never to try and authentically describe what the world would look like in the aftermath of a presidential assassination. The point of making the film was to use it as a device to look at the more recent history.
I think it is definitely the case that a lot of things have happened in the last five years that we have every reason to be very alarmed about. I think they have been sort of absorbed into this notion of the War on Terror and the nation being at war. I think that has been used as a pretext to do things that probably we should be very alarmed about.”
