Great
actors do not always make great directors, but Robert De
Niro’s
second directorial outing, The Good Shepherd, proves that
he has every chance of emulating his success in front of
the camera when standing behind it; like many of De Niro’s
memorable turns, this is a movie rooted in detail. The story
charts the beginnings of the CIA, from 1939 up until the
Bay of Pigs in 1961 and carries a strong human narrative.
In Matt Damon’s Edward Wilson we see the sacrifice
made by those crusaders who trade their lives to protect
their country.
Q. You were working
on your own CIA story and decided to combine it with Eric
Roth’s?
RDN: Yes, it was another story, not necessarily CIA. I was
trying to find what it was about and it was going in another
direction that I wasn’t as keen on as the whole Cold
War, East versus West, the traditional CIA-KGB thing. Mine
was a later period and when I read The Good Shepherd I asked
Eric Roth if he was interested in working on this other project.
He wasn’t interested but we then agreed that if I direct
The Good Shepherd, he’d write a second installment,
if we were that lucky. That’s not guaranteed; it’s
not so easy.
Q. What went into the decision to jump back and forth through
the time periods?
RDN: The original script was linear, and then over the years
it morphed into a back and forth thing, which I liked. That
always seemed to be the way to approach it, as complicated
as that is.
Q. You say that the
CIA basically came out of the Skull & Bones
at Yale?
RDN: That’s kind of it. More than a few of the OSS
guys from the Second World War, like Matt’s character
were from Yale and Princeton and some from Harvard. They
were from the upper classes and had more investment in the
future of America in terms of what they were, kind of this
royalty. That’s what it was in the beginning.
Q. Why was this film easier to get made after 9/11?
RDN: I’m not sure it was easier to get it made after
9/11. I had been working on it for a few years before then,
trying to get it going. Once 9/11 happened I thought that
was that. But then it started getting momentum. I’m
not even sure how, but it was revived.
Q. Is the story more relevant now, considering what the
CIA is doing now in combating terrorism?
RDN: The CIA’s been getting a lot of attention as we
know, so this movie coming out now, it’s sort of interesting.
Q. Do you think the stigma attached to the CIA now is warranted?
RDN: I personally don’t so. I think it’s much
more complicated than that. You don’t hear the things
that they do and what it’s all about. They don’t
take credit for certain things, but they do make mistakes,
as we’ve seen, and hopefully things will be improved.
And because of the exposure, at the end of the day it might
be a good thing.
Q. Tell me about your global CIA tour with Milt Bearden?
RDN: We went to Pakistan and into Afghanistan a little bit.
It was quite a trip. We also went to the former Soviet
Union and met Milt’s ex-counterparts from the KGB
who he was in touch with in the early 1980s. They had certain
common interests, working against terrorism and that was
an interesting trip. These guys were very real, human beings
and very smart.
Q. Did you gain an appreciation of the sacrifice these men
and women make?
RDN: Yes I did. Absolutely, and they never get any credit
for it. That’s the whole point of it — and that’s
special.
Q. Why so long in-between directing gigs, with A Bronx Tale,
released in 1993?
RDN: Because I was working on The Good Shepherd for seven
or eight years, and another project for a year or two, so
that makes ten years. Actually it wasn’t that much
time. It took a long time to get this going.
Q. Did you meet the real guy upon whom your character in
the film was based?
RDN: Donovan. No, he passed away in the mid-70s, certainly
a while ago. But I’d have loved to have met him, yes.
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