San Francisco - After a seven-year pause from the director's chair (he last directed The Legend of Bagger Vance), Robert Redford is shooting off some politically heavy ordnance in his new movie Lions for Lambs.
After a seven-year pause from the director's chair (he last directed The Legend of Bagger Vance), Robert Redford is shooting off some politically heavy ordnance in his new movie Lions for Lambs. © Insidefoto / PR Photos
He relentlessly takes on the US government - 'for them it's all about winning, winning, winning' - and shows his frustration with uncritical journalists and inactive students, calling them to resist and get involved in the time of war.
'The film is not really so much focusing on current events because they change, they are too volatile. It's really what's underneath it. What are the fundamental factors that keep repeating themselves, that create these situations we are in right now,' Redford said in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The movie opens Thursday in Germany and Friday in the US.
DPA: When you shot Lions for Lambs, did you plan this project as a wake-up-call for the American people?
Redford: 'I'm worried about my country. I'm a little bit in mourning for what I've known as pretty great things in my life. I have never seen my country in as bad a shape as it is now. How it's seen on a world stage, how we are perceived. What one single administration can do to trash so many categories, it makes me sad, it breaks my heart. So what can I do about it? The only thing I can do is to create a drama that would put certain things out there for people to think about, because if we don't get involved somehow, some way, it will continue and I don't know if there will be many more chapters left.' DPA: What did you like about the script that made you decide to take on the project?
Redford: 'I'm always interested in the political scene. I have been since 1970, when I made The Candidate, then All the President's Men, then Quiz Show. These are various films about the power of media and thought. There is always a new film to be made about new conditions, but this one is different, because this is about what is fundamentally unchanged. What are the conditions that lead us into these situations that we find ourselves in during McCarthy, during Watergate, during Iran-Contra, and here we are again. What is underneath it that creates this? It's a mindset that belongs to a certain kind of character and a way of thinking and they don't go away. Who would have thought after Watergate, with people doing all the dirty tricks for Nixon, who lied and cheated, that this would happen again?' DPA: You are screening the film at universities and you are personally going there to present it to young people as part of promoting the film?
Redford: 'It was my idea to do that when we were talking about promoting the film. I said, I don't want to do the normal stuff, the press junkets in a hotel, bringing in tons of people and everybody has to act like they are excited and interested. I would be particularly interested - because what the film is about, to involve young people, go to schools and colleges and see what they think - because fundamentally it's about their future. We don't provide the answers, it is simply meant for them to think about it.'
Read more about 'Lions for Lambs .'
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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