The actress Hilary Swank talks about her unglamorous role in “The Homesman"; Mexico's most acclaimed filmmakers, Guillermo Del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro Iñárritu, criticize the handling of a student massacre in their homeland; the grandson of General George S. Patton on how filmmaking an help veterans deal with PTSD; and Amazon unveils its next slate of TV shows.
Why Del Toro, Cuarón and Iñárritu used MoMA to slam the Mexican government
Three of Mexico's most successful filmmakers are speaking out to criticize the government of their homeland after the remains of 43 college students were discovered this week.
Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu issued a joint statement Monday night, saying: "We believe that these crimes are systemic and indicate a much greater evil — the blurred lines between organized crime and high-ranking officers in the Mexican government."
Speaking today on The Frame on KPCC, del Toro said, "We may be in exile. We may live traveling all over the world, or work all over the world, but at the end of the day, we are Mexican citizens."
The Museum of Modern Art produced a tribute to Cuarón Monday night, which Cuarón, his son Jonas, and del Toro turned into a political platform. (Iñárritu was not in attendance.) Del Toro used his time on stage to read the statement.
On Tuesday, he told KPCC that he and his colleagues picked their moment on purpose:
We wanted to really make sure that the right people and the right press were around to talk about the situation. It's something that a lot of people pile up with "drug war casualties." The reality in Mexico is that the people that are being killed are not just gang members killing gang members or the army killing gang members. It's really civilians and, in this case, students.
Some 74 people have been detained so far in a case that prosecutors have said started when police, reportedly under orders of the mayor of Iguala, detained the students and turned them over to a drug gang. The students were shot, their bodies were burned and the remains were put into trash bags and dumped into a river. Two suspects reportedly confessed and led authorities to the remains.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
What do you think is the value of artists like yourself and your colleagues in speaking out against the government?
It's very important for us to talk first and foremost like citizens, you know? We may be in exile, we may live traveling all over the world and work all over the world, but at the end of the day we are Mexican citizens and it's very important that you can give voice to a problem in an international arena to really call attention to the fact that there is rampant and brutal violation of human rights right next to the United States. We're not talking about some faraway country, we're next door neighbors, and this is something that needs to be called attention upon again and again and again, as many times as one can.
You came to the United States for your career, but also because Mexico had become too dangerous. Do you hope to go back and live there again?
I would certainly hope so, the only reason we are in exile is because of the outcome of the kidnapping of my father and the fact that I have that very, very harrowing experience that we went through. The 72 days of that kidnapping — it is not a paranoid or a hyper-precaution measurement, it's a reality for me. But nevertheless, it's important at the same time to function in a way that you don't have fear and you can speak about these things and speak about the current climate in Mexico.
Do you feel, as an artist who is not living in Mexico, that you have more freedom to speak out than those living in Mexico?
We are adding our voice to voices of colleagues and friends of many, many years [who] live in Mexico — filmmakers that we grew up with, including Bertha Navarro — my producer on "Cronos" and "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Devil's Backbone" — who is very active there and is [cinematographer] Guillermo Navarro's sister, so I think that it doesn't matter where you live, it's very powerful and very important to [speak out].
Official statement read by Guillermo del Toro at MoMA:
This past September, 43 students were kidnapped by the local police in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. After a period of apathy, the authorities only then were forced to search for them, due to the protestations of citizens across the entire country and the world, and they found the first of many, many mass graves. None of these graves contained the remains of the missing students. The bodies within them were those of other anonymous victims. Last week, the general attorney announced that the 43 students were handed over by the police to members of a drug cartel to be executed and burned in a public dumpster. But even of the identity of those charred remains awaits proper DNA.
The federal government argues that these events are all just local violence — not so. As Human Rights Watch observes, these killings and forced disappearances reflect a much broader pattern of abuse and are largely a consequence of the longstanding failure of the Mexican authorities. ... We believe that these crimes are systemic and indicate a much greater evil: the blurred lines between organized crime and the high-ranking officials in the Mexican government. We must demand the answers about this and we must do it now.
We would like to take this opportunity to ask you all to join us in the pain and indignation felt by the families of the disappeared students and of every civilian in Mexico who is living with this atrocious reality on an every day basis and to at least be aware of this systematic human rights violation taking place so often and so close to you.
'The Homesman': Hilary Swank says director Tommy Lee Jones is no 'yes man'
Actress Hilary Swank is known to play characters who avoid clichés: strong, independent women whose actions are not dictated by men. They are often in search — often at a high price — of finding their true selves.
Those attributes also describe Swank’s character in her newest film, “The Homesman.” It’s a period drama set in the Midwest during the 1800s. Swank plays a terminally single, independent-minded pioneer who agrees to take three mentally unstable women across the plains.
For help in the journey, she turns to a low-life drifter, played by Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed the film.
When Hilary came to The Frame studio, we asked if there’s a definable characteristic in the roles she chooses.
Interview Highlights:
On what kinds of roles she looks for:
I find real people, challenging people, multifaceted, messy ... real, essentially. And I think ultimately that's beautiful to me. That's why I became an actor. I love people, and I love their stories, and I love what makes us similar and I love what makes us different. As a kid, being an outsider, I would read books, and I would watch movies, and I [would] relate to those characters. Or I'd see somebody who was feeling something that I felt, and it made me feel less alone in my journey.
On the "plain-ness" of her "Homesman" character, Mary Bee Cuddy:
She was described — actually a line in the movie — as plain as an old tin pail. And obviously those types of things are so subjective, because to me, she is one of the most beautiful people I've ever portrayed. And what I loved about her, and what I was attracted to by her, is that she has virtues, she has manners, she has real morals. And I think we're also in a day and age now where we have a lack of that. To play somebody who does the right thing because it's the right thing to do — not because she's trying to please somebody else or get applause or get love — to me, that's such an extraordinary person.
On whether "The Homesman" has a modern impact despite being a period film:
To me, this is a real feminist movie. It takes place in the mid 1800s. We're now in 2014, and this still deals with the issues we deal with now, which are the objectification of women, the trivialization of women. And it's crazy to think that we're still dealing with those issues and ... yet we are. The more we talk about it, hopefully, the more we can find a way to make things more equal for genders.
On whether the roles she's offered give her hope that there are more people writing strong female characters:
Well, there are meaty parts in mediocre scripts. So, it all has to come together. You're not making a movie by yourself. It's a collaboration, and that's part of what I love about it. But it starts with the script and the story and the character as a part of that. And then your filmmaker and your co-stars. It's all a package, and you're only as good as your weakest link.
So you can take a great role and say, "Oh, but it doesn't quite work here." So you have to wait 'til it all comes together. And, certainly, I usually do a movie a year, and a lot of people will say, "Wow, we haven't really seen you around." And it's just because I love what I do too much. I can't do it any other way except put all of myself into it.
On her relationship with Tommy Lee Jones, as both an actor and director:
Tommy Lee ... he's brilliant. He comes alive in a different way when he's directing because he loves it so much. He's animated, he's outgoing, he's gregarious, he's specific. And what I really admire and appreciate about him is that you get the real. He doesn't fake anything, and you know what you get when you're working with him.
I think one of the hard places to be, as an actor who's been doing it for a little while, is that sometimes when you work with people, they don't really know how to get to you because they're afraid to. They're afraid that they're going to say something that makes you angry, and that's just not the case. I want to be directed. I want to be molded and shaped and to collaborate. I don't want to be yes'd. I don't want to be told, "Yeah, that works!" And then later [think], "That didn't work. Why did you tell me that worked?" I'm never going to get that with Tommy Lee Jones.