George Clooney stars as Jake Geismer, an American war correspondent who returns to Berlin to cover the Potsdam Peace Conference, in the gritty drama The Good German co-starring Cate Blanchett and Tobey Maguire. Based on Joseph Kanon’s novel, the story follows Jake as he attempts to reunite with his former lover (Blanchett) and uncover who’s behind the murder of an American corporal.
Collaborating with Steven Soderbergh: “We love working together. This is one we developed. We optioned the book and developed the script, and there is that awful moment where we have to sit Alan Horn and Jeff Rabinov down at Warner Bros and tell them it’s going to be black and white. They are really thrilled about that, as you can imagine. But, no, every time I get a chance to work with him I’m happy. I’ve never had a bad experience with him.”
Clooney doesn’t feel as though his relationship with Soderbergh has changed much over the course of the past few movies. “I wouldn’t say that it really has. I was a fan and stole ideas from him on Out of Sight, and I’m a fan and I steal ideas from him now. Over the years we’ve become very good friends as well. That’s an important part of it is that we’ve been able to spend a lot of time together, and that we like each other a lot. But, I don’t know that it’s really changed in the sense that I still think the most of him as a director. I’ve been lucky between he and the Coen Brothers. I’ve got a couple of people that I really enjoy working with who I also think play at the top of the game.”
Pushing for Projects Outside the Hollywood Norm: Clooney's fully aware of how lucky he has been in getting studio execs to think outside the box. “Here’s the good news or the fun news for me was that for the past few years, we’ve been able to push and do what we wanted to do,” said Clooney. “Now, you know as well as I do that that doesn’t last for a very long period of time, so you try and do what you can to do things that no one is encouraging you to do. There is nobody at the studio going, ‘Please make a black and white film about the Potsdam Conference.’ (Laughing) ‘Give us another black and white about Edward R. Murrow in 1954.’ Or, ‘Give us Syriana.’ There is nothing that they are like, ‘Yeah, that’s what we were hoping for.’
We get to push it for a while and you know they won’t let us do it for much longer. But we’re going to keep doing it for as long as we can. So, for us, it’s an exciting time because we feel like we’ve gotten away with a few.”
The Good German Doesn’t Parallel Current Events: Asked if the film’s a statement about the current war Clooney replied, “How to screw up an occupation? (Laughing) I don't know that there’s a comparison between now and the idea of sort of forgiving war crimes because that’s not really what we’re doing, particularly right now in Iraq. That’s one thing we’re clearly not doing because if you look at the debathification, we certainly actually didn’t forgive any war crimes of any kind.
I don't know that it’s overtly political. It’s certainly set inside an absolutely real event. There’s great documentaries about not just the Camp Dora stuff, but how the German soldiers were desperately trying to surrender to the Americans for the two car garage - rather than to the Russians where it wasn’t going to be nearly as nice. I love that world and I love that but it’s still at its heart and soul, it’s a romance murder mystery. Sort of Chinatown, nobody wins, nobody’s good, movie set inside the real world. There are political underpinnings, but I don't think they’re necessarily relevant to what’s going on politically here right now.”
The Appeal of Classic Hollywood Films: “My favorite time, in American cinema especially, is the mid ‘60s to the mid ‘70s. I just think if you look at the films that came out of that generation or that period of time, all those nuts... It’s just some amazing films. Steven sent us films to look at for this film, just to talk about and think about. Some of them I had seen before. Humoresque I had seen before. Mildred Pierce I had seen. I liked John Garfield and the idea of John Garfield. I thought that was sort of an interesting guy to think about. And there was a Mitchum film called Out of the Past which I had never seen, which was phenomenal. I’m really a fan of that kind of filmmaking, sure. And Curtiz films.”
Shifting the Point of View in The Good German: “I love the idea of changing the point of view, literally changing the lens, because I thought the minute you started seeing the narrative change, you were like, ‘Oh, this is really quite a way of telling the story,’” explained Clooney. “I was really excited by the idea of it. Also, because in general, a 40s film like this is told by the male in it and I really liked watching. It also throws you because you think it’s about Tobey Maguire and then it ain’t.
I remember the first time I saw Alien. I remember when I went to the movie theater in 1979. You’re watching and you thought Tom Skerritt was going to be the star because there’d always been the guy sort of surviving. And he was the handsome guy and he bites it like first. Then all of a sudden you realize it’s Sigourney Weaver and you’re really taken by the idea that that point of view gets shifted a little bit. I think that’s really interesting storytelling.”
Page 2: George Clooney on Acting, Directing, His Production Company, and Ocean's Thirteen
