October 8, 2007

Christina Peck, UCSC Intern

Just Think was invited by THI to attend the pre-screening of the newest Robert Redford and Michael Carnahan movie and followed by a round table interview with a number of other college age students with Robert Redford and then another interview with two of the other actors, Michael Pena and Andrew Garfield.

The film dealt with three separate stories beginning with the primary narrative that served as the thread to drive the other two. The first involves two students, Ernest and Arian, with a backstory of rising out of a low-income neighborhood into an exclusive university but then deciding to enlist in the army rather than pursue grad school. While this story progresses as a partially flashback narrative throughout the film, the two present day stories begin. The professor who was ultimately part of his students’ decision to enlist is now counseling an apathetic male student about his choices in college. The disparate story of a journalist who is covering a story on the new war tactics being endorsed and implemented by a congressman, links back to the initial narrative, as the “new tactics” she is suppose to cover in a possibly untrue manner will affect the fates of Ernest and Arian.
The round table interview was held at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco in a large, airy room on the roof of the hotel. Three smaller round tables had been pushed together to create one long table that held nine college students with Robert Redford at the head. After people individually introduced themselves, we were all able to ask Redford a question. The questioning was fairly unmediated and bounced around the table spantning from questions directly about the narrative, how he juggled multiple roles as actor and producer, to Sundance and how the festival has changed over the years. Redford comfortably and thoroughly answered each individual question and made time for every person present.

The question I chose to ask was: “Why did you choose the cast that you did? And to shoot it in the format you did, choose the dramatic major motion picture with content that is much more often dealt with in documentary form.” His answer was fairly surprising to me, that Meryl Streep has approached him with the script and that Tom Cruise had also been extremely interested in being involved with this part, to act in a role he did not often assume. While the answer was interesting, it also did not address what I more specifically being querying: In casting those sort of big name stars, you are risking garnering a specific audience that may feel duped by going to see this movie yet simultaneously push away the sort of crowd you are seemingly is more going for (the college crowd) because they assume a movie with Tom Crusie is going to be some cliché drama film. But I suppose that has yet to be seen.

Another point this film really brought me to question was: What is the role of independent media in accountable reporting especially considering the way the mainstream media was portrayed in the film (ie. controlled and bought out by bigger corporations and even the journalists have forgotten what it was that brought them there in the first place, or even more, that it may cost them their jobs if they decide to report what they feel is actually true.) While I was unable to ask that one as well, I suppose at least the film was still bringing me to contemplate these sorts of issues that continue to impact us on a day to day basis.

Following the interview with Redford, we were able to meet up with Michael Pena and Andrew Garcia in another hotel suite in a setting that was slightly more laid back and comfortable. We all sat around on the couch and comfy chairs in a big circle. They addressed what it was like to prepare for the role, how they felt about taking a role in a movie that was potentially really meaningful and would spark new learning about these sorts of current topics and how much they actually did or did not collude with the mindsets of the roles they played. This round table was most interesting in comparison to the previous where I did not feel the same competition for time and ability to squeeze in a question and was able to have more of a general conversation that a question and answer formula.
Overall, the experience was an entirely new and enjoyable. I felt this was a fairly novel approach to appealing to the demographic—college students—in a way that is likely to garner a good deal of positive attention and at the very least, some critical thinking about what Redford is attempting to do and who is he trying to reach with this type of film. This film served what I felt was its intended role: to engage youth with catalyst for dialoge and discussion about current politics in an accessible format.

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