Robyn Candyce
In 2009, journalist Maziar Bahari went to visit his homeland, Iran, to cover the country’s elections for “Newsweek”. While there he sat down with “The Daily Show’s” Jason Jones for an interview, unknowing that it would change his life dramatically. Shortly after the segment ran on the popular late night comedy show, Maziar was arrested by the Iranian government and charged with being a spy; the journalist’s appearance on the show used against him as evidence.
After being imprisoned, interrogated by a man known as Rosewater, and tortured for 118 days, Maziar was released under the condition that he would spy on the west for Iran. His return – and story – lead to a strong friendship with Jon Stewart, and the birth of Jon’s first film “Rosewater” (which he wrote and directed). Moviehole’s Robyn Candyce attended a recent press conference with Jon and Maziar to hear what they had to say about the film, and the incredible story behind it. During the conference they discuss journalism as an endangered species, the emotional impact making the film had on them, and Gael Garcia Bernal.
Can you talk about how making this film came about?
Maziar:What happened, basically, is when I came out of prison, I went on “The Daily Show”…I went on “The Daily Show” and became friendly, and then we talked about doing a film. Jon wanted to be a producer on the film. We of course talked to people, Jon talked to some people, I talked to some people, and people were busy, or were not interested—
Jon:Being paid to write, as opposed to what we were going to do.
Maziar: Exactly. I think after a year and a half, Jon just said we cannot wait, and it had to be done. He started to write the script, and we collaborated on the script.
Given that journalism is a somewhat endangered profession these days, is there anything you are trying to convey with this film that can make people appreciate more the importance of journalists and the risks that they sometimes take?
Maziar: I think as you say journalism is going through a very difficult time in the history of journalism, especially professional journalism, but journalism I think is becoming more invigorated. Yes, professional journalists are having a more difficult time to get paid because citizen journalists are on the rise, and it’s not just in this country, it’s all around the globe that citizen journalists are replacing professional journalists and information is becoming more advertised and I think what’s important is that the film shows journalists all around the world.
It’s kind of well known from the Daily Show that you have a kind of complicated relationship with the 24 hour news cycle, cable news in particular, but this film shows a very euphoric or progressive approach to the social media news cycle as well as other communications in the 21st century could you talk about your opinions on that as well as how you wanted to showcase that as a filmmaker?
Jon: You can be critical of things that are not holding up the ideal of what you might imagine journalism to be, but then at the same time it’s important to demonstrate what that ideal might be. Places are cutting back on the finances of journalists, and now a lot of them are out there without the infrastructure and support of these big news organizations. They’re freelancing, and they’re on their own.
Even when you look at a case like James Foley, this was a guy that wasn’t kidnapped by ISIS, he was kidnapped by locals, and they sold him to ISIS. It’s the type of situation that you are in great peril, and you don’t know where it is, all for the hope of capturing things that are happening in parts of the world that you think people should know about, and that’s something that should be revered, protected, honored; criticism comes from a feeling of disappointment in an ideal. When you recognize that ideal, I think it’s important also to highlight it, and to celebrate it, and to try and preserve it, and protect those who are risking so much to bring it.
This is your first feature that you directed, that being the case, I wonder what did you look at or who did you go to for some guidance?
Jon: The nice thing about it is that we assembled a team that were expert in the craft of film, from the cinematographer Bobby Bukowski, all the way down to editing by Jay Rabinowitz and I had Maziar’s source material as the information, and Maziar himself as kind of the touchstone of the film. So it wasn’t so much external inspiration as it was the ensemble – the Avengers, if you will – that we had put together that was influential in it.
Could you talk a little bit about casting Gael Garcia Bernal?
Jon: I saw a lot of actors, and there is something—this is a really dark story – and you have to play with the nuances. I think occasionally the actors want to overemphasize that aspect of it. So, you get a lot of wrenching auditions, and they’re beautifully done, but they lacked the subtlety and agility. The thing about Gael that he had from the first audition is agility.
If you remember there’s one scene where Maziar is being told to call his wife for the first time. So, he goes from terror – because the interrogator has told him to stand up, to incredulity because he’s been told to call his wife – to unbridled joy at finding out he’s having a baby girl, to having the shit kicked out of him for laughing in his [interrogator’s] face, and that all takes place in two and a half minutes.
The ability for an actor to do that with grace, and without drawing attention to his craft, is unheard of. And I felt Gael was the one guy who captured that one ability. Even within the audition, he had glimmers of Maziar’s mischief while still doing scenes of real duress. So, it was for me, a very clear choice.
Were you nervous about making this film Jon, were you worried about what would happen to yourself and those involved when the Iranian government found out; if this is what they did to a [member of the press] what would they do to a director who made a film about it?
Maziar: I think he’s going to keep it a secret.
Jon: Well, I’m nervous when the weather changes. That’s a general state of being; it’s kind of a lifestyle that I’ve embraced.
You know, you can’t control how people see your work, or what their reaction to it is. I learned a long time ago you can’t sort of try and outsmart crazy, so you do the best work you can do, and you do it with the most integrity you can do it with, and you tell the story in its finest iteration that you can, or that you hope you can, and you hope that it is received in that way.
Jon, you said Maziar humanized the people who tortured him, because if you view them as monsters you can’t fight them. My immediate thought was the cable news coverage of ISIS. So, I’m curious what we can take from your story, and this portrayal of it, that we can apply to other demons we fight?
Jon: My next movie is about Ebola.
Maziar: Well again, ISIS is another case where these people are supposed to be this monstrous giant devil incarnate, and it’s supposed to be something that’s going to end western civilization if it’s not bombed to pieces. I think that’s the wrong approach. ISIS, the Iranian regime, many corporations, whatever institutions you’re thinking of that are composed of people, these are composed of human beings; human beings with their complexities, vulnerabilities, weaknesses [and] good qualities, for me to start with [that] was a selfish decision, to humanize him.
I knew I was fighting him on two different fronts. One was a physical battle that I knew I had lost from the beginning. I was a prisoner. I had a blindfold on; he was stronger than me, but the other battle was a psychological battle that I had with him, and I knew I could be the winner, because I had a richer life, I was more cultured than him, I was more open to ideas.
So, in order to take advantage of that superiority, I had to humanize him. If he was a monster, if he could not be manipulated, I was going to lose that psychological battle as well. So [some] scenes you see in the film – even though they are funny – it came from that point of view. I recognized this guy is an employee, he’s working. He could be a dentist, an accountant, a bookkeeper, or whatever. He had a boss. So, he had to give something to his boss.
At the same time, he had a wife, he cannot see his wife, he spent all his time beating people, insulting people—he’s horny! I had to give him something in order to let him go…it just happened in a moment of inspiration. I started the massage stories, and of course in the book we have many more massage stories.
I wonder how you went about choosing those moments where the humor was able to shine through.
Jon: So much of that is organic. You can’t impose that on the story and I think that if you did there would be a morguality of how absurd the situation is; Maziar’s not a spy, he hasn’t done anything wrong and so they create this scenario that implicates him in some way, and there is an absurdity to the idea that these regimes have a monopoly on the truth. So we tried to capture that, because it’s from the book, Maziar’s ability to recognize that as he was being held. It was one of the most remarkable things about the Memoir that he wrote. So we try to capture that in its natural state an oppose to trying to capture it on the film was where I tried to go with it.
Did you cry the first time you saw the movie?
Jon: I could tell you I absolutely cried the first time I saw the movie. It was the rough assemblage; it was three and a half hours long. I cried my eyes out…
You know honestly, the times that I probably cried the most were on set, there were a couple of moments on set that I watched like 3,000 times. There were some poignant, very emotional things that occurred on set, and also there was a lot of emotion in the process of making it and gratitude towards the people that I know sacrificed an awful lot to be there to do it. We got a lot of very experienced actors to work for no money in conditions that I’m sure were less than ideal for them. Shohreh Aghdashloo who is kind of the heart of the whole movie, she plays Maziar’s mother, and this is an Oscar nominated actress and I’m asking her to come over there and run around in a 100 degree weather during Ramadan for a couple of weeks. The cast believed in the story, the department heads believed in the story [and] created an environment for which I am really grateful. I think a lot of the emotions that I had came from that experience.
Can you talk about the film’s opening and your inspiration for it?
Jon: The scent of rosewater is something that’s used in mosques to mask the perspiration of the devout. So, we just thought it’d be a beautiful image to show the production of it. To show how it was made, but as I would watch it, the explicitness of it became kind of overwhelming. It was very much, oh, I see, something beautiful is ripped from its stem, crushed, put into boiling water, and put under pressure and heat, and then its essence is extracted from it. So what’s your movie about?
I didn’t want it be on the nose, but fortunately, Maziar had put this beautiful poem at the front of his book, and it was the perfect anecdote to cut the kind of explicit nature of that opening scene. So, it exists now, as a sort of background in which Shohreh [Aghdashloo] doing the poem – in Farsi – underneath it, gives you enough distance that it doesn’t overwhelm you. It’s not so over the head.
Have you been wanting to make a film for a while, or is this just a case of you happened upon a story that you felt needed to be told?
Jon: Exactly that, both, and stemming from mine and Maziar’s relationship coming after he had been released and the beauty of his memoir. I mean that’s really what it all stems from, and his ability to recall that and his generosity to share that with us. That’s not an easy thing.
“Rosewater” opened in theatres on November 14th, 2014.
