John Cusack and Mark Leyner
The co-writers of the new movie War, Inc. explain why rebellions should be frequent and fun.By Annika Carlson
May 21, 2008
John Cusack stars as a hit-man Brand Hauser in wartorn Turagistan in War, Inc. (allmoviephoto.com)John Cusack is perhaps most fondly remembered as the lovesick Lloyd Dobler in 1989’s Say Anything—serenading outside his beloved Diane Court’s window holding a boom box over his head. Since then, Cusack has starred in dozens of movies, produced several films, blogged intermittently for the Huffington Post, and has become an outspoken critic of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. Cusack’s political passion has been reflected in his recent films—he starred in Grace is Gone, an award-winning film about an Iraq war widower, andhis forthcoming satire about war profiteering, War, Inc.
Campus Progress recently spoke with Cusack and his War, Inc. co-writer Mark Leyner—a prolific postmodern author who has written several novels, short story collections, and nonfiction works, as well as columns for Esquire and the now-defunct George magazine—about war profiteering, Naomi Klein, and NASCAR branded guns.
Campus Progress: You’ve made two very different movies about the war in Iraq recently: Grace is Gone, a drama, and War, Inc., a dark satire about a war run by a corporation. What prompted you to take such different approaches?
Mark Leyner: With War, Inc. we wanted to make something that was unnervingly entertaining. Grace is Gone is a much more a somber, and in a way, sort of dignified, look at the terrible suffering that war creates for its victims. The victims of [the war] are in Iraq, and the victims of it are young people coming back here, and people that are widowed. War, Inc. is not a dignified movie; it’s really a celebration of rebellion.
John Cusack: [Grace is Gone] is a meditation on grief from the soldier’s family, and the families at home—for the people paying the ultimate sacrifice for this kind of insane ideology … [War, Inc.] is a much broader indictment, lambasting, of the ideology that unleashed these forces and exploited them—the illusion of this neoconservative, fundamentalist free market, where the official narrative is that freedom follows the markets. This is called “spreading freedom.”
And then these statesmen come on, and they also sit on the board of major defense organizations. No one asks, “Well, shouldn’t you be either making defense policy or profiting from it? Why should you be treated as a statesman…when you’re other things as well? Didn’t you make a case for war? Didn’t your stock go up 145 percent and you were handed $2.3 billion in contracts?” It is impossible to know where the government ends and these companies begin.
The hypocrisy is so wild. A journalist, a friend of mine, said they would go meet with these Iraqis. Once they bombed the shit out of the place—and killed all these people—while the city is still burning, they’d turn all state-owned companies, make them available…for foreign investment, and then they would make all the money on rebuilding it. Then people who aren’t dead or had to flee, who were still there—they would have the privilege of working for these companies, and for the U.S. government who takes over the resources. That’s [the neoconservative] version of democracy and free markets, right? They seem entirely unconcerned by the dark irony that Halliburton, Bechtel, KBMG, and Blackwater were all in Iraq madly going off this vast protection racket, in which the U.S. government created the market for war, barred the competitors from playing, and then made their favorite corporations and themselves work on cost-plus contracts which guaranteed profits for them, all at our taxpayers’ expense.
That argument is also behind Naomi Klein’s latest book, The Shock Doctrine. Did her work inspired you to create War, Inc.?
JC: She was actually writing her book while we were doing this. I find her to be a wildly brilliant person.
ML: One of things that I think causes people to laugh so much when they watch this movie is that all of things we are talking about are stated in the movie matter-of-factly. Many of the characters in the movie don’t question any of it. The extremity of the satire is such that people accept, for instance, that phase-one weapons would be sold to companies for advertising, things like that that.
JC: Like NASCAR.
ML: Bombs and tanks and bullets and every possible inch of space on instruments of suffering and maiming and death would be sold.
JC: None of the stuff we’re saying is new. The hypocrisy is so wild. These are people who supposed to believe in restrained government spending, individual liberties, and getting government off out back. Yet, at any time, they will expand the state, gobble up private property, and violate your privacy and make a profit off of it.
I mean, even calling people ideologues is a joke. That’s one thing. When you add into it killing…all these people, two million refugees—can you imagine the ripple effect of death and destruction and disease that this war has caused?
Where does it end? I don’t know who gave Blackwater the license to kill—it wasn’t the government or the constitution. Should corporations be able to have their own private, roving armies? I don’t know. It’s interesting. I have a corporation—only three, four people work for it—but should I be able to hire somebody from the studio I’m making a film with, pay them, and have them walk around with flame-throwers?
The film’s concept is uncomfortably realistic—NASCAR guns and corporate armies don’t seem outside the realm of possibility in the future.
ML: We would write something and then in five, six months we see that it would come to be. We are not oracles. There is nothing in the movie that if you did a little digging, you couldn’t find a basis for.
JC: Naomi was kind—she called the movie “reality-plus-plus.”
How did we get to the point where a corporation-run war doesn’t seem out of the question? And where do we go from here?
JC: The other day Bush admitted that he approved torture. I looked at Hardball and all the shows …There were no follow-up questions about the fact that our president allowed torture, state-sponsored torture. Forget the fact that it’s been out-sourced to private enterprise at a cost-plus basis. That’s the stuff for a revolt in the country.
I can remember watching Tim Russert. You’d watch him. He’d have Cheney come on. And Cheney would lie. Again, again, and again. They never challenged him in any fundamental way.
Do you think the media is getting better at holding officials accountable?
JC: No.
ML: John is absolutely right. Some of these people come on—not even the most egregious criminal elements in the Bush administration—but anyone. People are allowed to say anything and they’re not challenged. It’s almost as if they’re some boy band. It’s good to have them on. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna make you feel uncomfortable.
JC: What is good about art is it’s kind of like science in a way. There’s still a way for artists to question the authority and find the truth. I think journalism has some proximity to power. I’m sure that Russert and Mary Matalin and James Carville all go to the same cocktail parties. I still get most of my news about this from courageous journalists. They’re printing them in magazines and on the Internet…There’s Bill Moyers and Naomi Klein. And you can’t tell me the McClatchy newspapers aren’t good—they are. But the MSM has been horrible. The real info we’re getting is from independent journalists.
Do you plan to continue to make political films to push the dialogue to the extreme?
JC: I think this is a rebellious film. To me it’s not political in a left-right sense. I’ll write what ever Mark wants to write with me. It will depend on Mark’s mood.
ML: I hope there will be many more. And I hope they all reek of rebellion.
What would you have young people do to participate in that rebellion?
ML: That’s a profound question. Try to become a free person. Try to evade mainstream American culture—the commerce of culture. It’s an important distinction: Militancy and rebellion and free thinking shouldn’t be sad. It’s should be an enormous exaltation and celebration of being a human being.
JC: Express yourself. In whatever it is. Whatever creativity. Doesn’t have to be art. Doesn’t have to be literature. Doesn’t have to be politics. The right-wing can wrap itself in the crowd and be obedient. But I have to keep paying my taxes and keep… you know, I don’t have to do that. Tell these people to go fuck themselves. Subversion should be fun.
Annika Carlson is Special Assistant to the Director of Campus Progress. She is also coordinating the 2008 Campus Progress National Conference.
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Comments
We live in a society full of institutions and social relationships that are toxic to us living good lives. They help produce people who are mindless consumers, ardent defenders of the status quo, who are both authoritarian and compliant to external authority, and whose altruism is crippled and underdeveloped.
What would a productive rebellion look like? It would look like committed progressives and radicals building institutions and social relationships that foster our values: equality, solidarity, freedom, and tolerance. It’ll mean changing the way universities are run, the way businesses and corporations are structured, and the way fundamental political decisions are made.
Let’s start revolting. :)
— For Student Power - May 22, 05:56 PM - #Thank you JC and ML!!!
— PatG - May 22, 06:23 PM - #There is a certain irony that you would spend 20 million dollars on a film and then bitch about some negative consequences that come with a free-market capitalist society.
I appreciate Cusack’s enthusiasm and dedication to exposing these unfortunate truths through a highly accessible form of entertainment. However, a little self-reflection might help reduce the self-righteous tone. It would be interesting to see how much Cusack made from this film and where that money is going. I have never found pop stars to be the best political or social spokespeople/activists. Too much revolutionary rhetoric for my blood but hey…I guess its better than making another romantic comedy.
— Saxon - May 22, 07:07 PM - #Saxon, you bring up a really good point. It’s tough because I want to hold all spokespeople accountable, and point out that he’s a profiteer of the Hollywood machine. At the same time, there are so few people talking about this that I sort of just want to give him a pass.
— Tanya - May 23, 09:42 AM - #Tanya-I feel the same way. Admittedly I am torn. In the end, I support Cusack and all his passions. However, I think it is also important that we self-reflect and critique ourselves of our own flaws. That, I believe anyway, is fundamental to creating real, lasting change.
— saxon - May 23, 12:44 PM - #We must take what we can take: The campuses, the streets. Again and again. We must know what is wrong and name it-Capitalism. We must struggle with each other to discover and start building in free spaces we create, the heir to this toxic and failing system I imagine it as Syndialism? What is your vision. Dare to struggle – dare to win!!!
— Bert Garskof - May 26, 02:31 PM - #