Interview With Uwe Boll
By: Greg Rozen |
Wednesday July 01, 2009 |
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Uwe talks about his latest project Tunnel Rats |
| Director Uwe Boll has spent a better portion of the last decade adapting video games to the big screen. He’s directed an academy award winner playing a vampire in Blood Rayne, and told a wacky, wildly controversial tale of terrorism and incompetence in Postal. Boll is taking a step back from his niche, however, for his latest DVD release, 1968: Tunnel Rats. Set during the Vietnam War, the film follows a group of elite U.S. Special Forces soldiers who must infiltrate, explore, and attack the real life Cu Chi tunnels, a deadly labyrinth of subterranean pathways, pitch black and filled with enemies, crisscrossed beneath the battlefield. Boll delivers his usual gore factor, but also manages to weave his most nuanced and captivating tale yet. I was recently able to sit down with the controversial director, who joined me over the phone from the set of his latest film in Croatia. Our conversation is below. We’re here to talk about Tunnel Rats, which comes out on DVD June 30. Tell us what it’s all about. The idea came up a few years ago. The producer I work with read the book about the tunnels of Cu Chi, and he gave me the book. I read it and I felt like the main reason why America couldn’t win the war in Viet Nam [ the use of the tunnels for guerrilla warfare by the Vietcong] was never really told in the movies… At the same time I thought, “I can make a movie about war in general to make a point, in that it was really crazy and absurd fighting in the tunnels, to show that war never leads to something positive. If you win a war, you’re damaged, and if you lose a war, you’re either dead or damaged. Were you a fan of war movies growing up? Well, my favorite movie is Apocalypse Now, by Coppola, and of course Deerhunter is also really high up in line on my list of the top 25 [movies], so I really like war movies, especially the war movies that take a step further. Yet the war movies of the sixties or seventies, like The Dirty Dozen… were made about the Second World War, normally. And I felt like, “Here is something new, something different.” I don’t do a redundant story. I don’t do something like everyone else is doing now; Iraq war movies... [And I also felt like] it’s an interesting possibility, during two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to basically make something about war in general. Did you get an opportunity to do interviews with people who actually experienced the tunnels and fought in the war? One of the actors, he was a tunnel rat. He really likes the movie. He told me, in one of the more horrific stories that he had, that he pulled a guy backwards through a tunnel on a rope; they had ropes around their feet so that if they got wounded, or what ever, they could get pulled backwards. And he pulled a guy backwards, and, because he pulled him so fast, his hand grenade went off, and he was blown into a thousand pieces. So that’s, of course, an absolute nightmare, because you feel guilty for the rest of your life. I think that really shows what war can do, in a way, because we should never be in a situation like this, you should never put yourself in a situation like this, and I hope, especially with the ending of the movie that I shot, that I made that point, that it’s not leading to anything, that it’s not like you gain something out of it. This was, for me, important, to make, not a nice war movie, or a war movie with a happy ending, or the good-looking guy survives or something, but a conflict war movie. The film did a very impressive job of capturing the carnage of the tunnels. How did you manage to translate that closed-quarters chaos to the screen? I think what really helped was the fact that I had such young actors cast. It wasn’t people who had been overused in the industry before. I think they were very fresh. They went to South Africa and went into the boot camp with South African mercenaries, and these guys, they had never trained film people before. And I think this really helped the young guys develop their characters and get into [the appropriate] mood, the mood you’d be in during war. All the young actors had to go into the tunnel systems, we built the tunnel systems in the studio, in Cape Town, and they had to, for example, lay down in the tunnels for three hours, and they switched the lights off, and I said, “Okay, its not a five minute test, here, you have to stay three hours, in the tunnel, and you really have to feel what it is to be in pitch black darkness, when someone could come around the corner. And I think all that helped to get these people into a very intense mood. For example, the scene where a guy had to cut the body of a guy, we built a dead body out of pig bone, and really told him, “You have to cut your way out of the tunnel.” So, he did it, and he was crying and sweating, because he felt like he couldn’t do it, he cannot cut that leg off, or he cannot cut that arm off. I think this was one of the really strong things in the movie, was this kind of very intense, longer scene, where you feel there were people in a real situation, in a way. You ended up getting some very strong performances out of your less-known actors. Who among them do you think is really poised to “blow up,” someone who impressed you during the filming of the movie? Well the only one who’s really made a film career, right now is Brandon (Fobbs) who was in the Great Debaters with Denzel Washington, and I think he has another movie coming out. But overall, I think everybody put out a strong performance on their own, so I don’t want to say one actor was way better than the other, I think they all did a good job. Some people had to die fast, basically, so for these guys they couldn’t get much screen time, for example. But I think, overall, they all kept very intense. And I think Jane, the Vietnamese woman is really strong, and all three Vietnamese actors did a great job, they were all very believable. You also feature Michael Pare, who you’ve featured in other films. You two must have a very strong working relationship, to keep bringing him into the fold. I think Michael Pare is a great actor for the part. For example, I think he’s good in Fate, I think he’s very funny in Postal, and I think he does a very good job in Tunnel Rats. But he is a type, and you need him as a type, and if he plays a soldier, or a cop, or, like, a character, essentially, he’s very believable, and he’s very good. I’m happy that he came down there, to South Africa. He’s the only, in a way, real name in the movie. And what a lot of people don’t normally do is, well, he’s in a lot of B movies, but he’s always perfectly prepared. He’s not just taking a paycheck, coming to South Africa, and having no clue what he’s doing. He read the books about the tunnels. And I think this is what you want. I know a lot of B movie actors, or C movie actors that just don’t prepare at all, they learn a few lines, and they don’t give a shit. Michael Pare is not a guy like this, and that’s what I really like. Well your dedication to this movie definitely comes across, it very much seems a labor of love, and I’m sure everyone will enjoy it on DVD. Yes, thank you very much. 1968: Tunnel Rats sees release June 30, 2009. Be sure to pick it up. |
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