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MALE SPEAKER: Good afternoon, everyone.
And welcome to another Filmmakers@Google talk.
And today we're in
conversation with Bill Guttentag.
And so he's here today talking about his latest film, which
is "Knife Fight." It chronicles the modern-day
realities of behind "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." So it's
really how the sausage is made in the modern world.
It stars Rob Lowe, Jamie Chung, and Carrie-Anne Moss.
And it tracks the complex weavings and dealings of a
political consultant in the great American adventure, the
general election from last year.
Now, Bill Guttentag is the Oscar winning feature
documentary and feature filmmaker.
He's written, produced, and directed many films that made
their way up to Sundance, as this one
has, if I'm not mistaken.
BILL GUTTENTAG: This premiered at Tribeca.
MALE SPEAKER: Oh, Tribeca.
So we balance out the coasts this time around.
So our program today follows a screening of the film that we
had yesterday.
And so now is the time to get all the questions answered.
And the film is out in theaters now.
And it's in partnership with IFC, so will it be on the IFC
network eventually?
BILL GUTTENTAG: Yeah.
I think right now it's playing by video demand, and iTunes,
and all over the place, by download.
And it's playing also theatrically, as well.
MALE SPEAKER: Well, please join me in welcoming Professor
Guttentag to Google as we get started on this interview.
So thank you very much.
So I really wanted to start by walking me through the origins
of the film.
The 2012 election was weighing heavily on our minds.
Was that your original focus?
BILL GUTTENTAG: When I started wanting to do the film, I
wanted to do a film about being inside a
real political race.
I thought it would be interesting to have the
cameras where cameras traditionally
aren't allowed to go.
So I met with a number of politicians, including a
couple people who were running for president.
And what I quickly learned is that people really don't want
to allow the cameras in the rooms where they think you
shouldn't be in there.
So that seemed to be going nowhere.
At some point I contacted Chris Lehane, who I knew.
And Chris was on Al Gore's spokesperson.
He was an aide to Bill Clinton for eight years.
And I guess you would say he's the leading Democratic
political consultant.
And Chris was running a presidential campaign, and he
liked the idea.
But no one is really going to let you into the
room behind the room.
And as far as I know, they're doesn't exist such a film.
There's, I guess, some compelling reasons not to.
In fact, one person I met who was running for president said
to me, well, what if you were filming a debate prep and an
aide gave me a suggestion?
Would you want to include that?
I said, well, that sounds like a pretty good scene to me.
And he said, no, no, that's a bad scene.
Because that shows that I'm taking suggestions from my
aides and don't have the idea myself.
So it occurred to me that that's not such a good idea--
that there was a big zone of disagreement.
So what I thought was if you can't do it as a documentary,
maybe you can do it as a fictional film.
And that set us on the journey of doing it
as a fictional film.
But we tried to sort of navigate the channel
verisimilitude the whole time, so that the conversations
you're hearing are, I think, real conversations.
And people have said to us, political consultants
especially who've seen the film, that they get these
little PTSD flashbacks when they watch the film.
MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
Well, that's one thing that struck me when I saw it.
Well, to a large extent, it's the headlines you see and then
what could be happening behind the scenes to get there.
BILL GUTTENTAG: Right.
I think the trick in politics is that everything is kind of
manufactured.
Very few things are completely spontaneous.
So it was one person who was running for president that
told me is that the idea is that you never, ever want to
say something spontaneous.
But every time you speak, you want it to sound spontaneous,
like it's the very first time that you have said it.
And in some ways, acting is a little bit of a similar thing,
because acting--
What's wonderful about actors is that every time they do a
take, every time they say a line, you're supposed to
deliver this innocence, like it's the first time
you said the line.
It's one of things that goes into good acting is selling
the innocence.
In a funny sort of way, politics is done that way.
I guess the line which plenty of people have said are that
politics is Hollywood for less attractive people.
MALE SPEAKER: And so I also wanted to delve in a little
bit to Rob Lowe's character.
And so could you tell me the origins of that?
He seems to be almost a hired gun.
He has something going on in Kentucky.
He has something going on in California in the film.
How does he pick and choose?
BILL GUTTENTAG: I think Rob Lowe is loosely based on my
partner in the film, Chris Lehane.
And these political consultants, they go all over
the country.
I mean, they tend to work for issues they care about and
politicians they care about.
But you are sort of parachuting
into various races.
And they also do it internationally, as well.
So what's great about Rob is Rob, he sort of
understood the music.
We kind of knew the feeling and the things
to say about it.
He's someone who really cares about politics.
So he was sort of a natural fit to it.
And then we would hang out quite a bit with Rob and Chris
Lehane and myself.
And I think part of that is he just wanted to get a sense of
who Chris is, the kind of things you say.
And you always want to, sort of, again, stay within that
channel of what is real and what feels like the sort of
thing people really would say.
MALE SPEAKER: And of course, most of the filling takes
place in California.
California being its own center of political intrigue
from referenda on forward.
So was the setting important to you to bring it here?
BILL GUTTENTAG: I think that's a terrific question.
I think California, people naturally have a greater
interest in California than they do elsewhere.
Any film is this combination of art and commerce.
And on the art side, you can kind of set it any place.
But I think people just naturally care more about what
happens in California.
We tried to include a fair amount of California things
that would appeal to an audience.
We also had at one point the senator from California,
Barbara Boxer, stop by the set, which was sort of
fascinating.
You had this funny combination of the actors playing
politicians.
And you're sitting there with a California senator, who's
commenting on what's going on.
And in some ways, that's what we tried to achieve in the
film, is to create this kind of raking of the
fake and the real.
MALE SPEAKER: And then similarly in writing it, you
did most of the writing yourself then?
BILL GUTTENTAG: Yeah.
It was written with Chris Lehane, and we tried to ask
ourselves are these the sort of things that people would
really say?
And we had quite a bit of help on it.
We spoke with Chris, who writes speeches for
politicians.
For reporters, we worked with reporters so the reporters
would seem real.
And in fact, the film was filled with, quote unquote,
real people.
We have some well-known San Francisco news personalities
as reporters.
We have the Harvard professor Alan
Dershowitz playing a lawyer.
We have Howie Kurtz, who has a show on CNN, also playing a
journalist.
My son who is a Teach for America teacher, who's in
there playing a teacher.
All along the way-- we have a Heisman Trophy winning
football player playing a football player.
I think all along, we just try to look for people who are
real, because I think they add this sense of you're not just
looking at actors.
But of course, any film depends on the
talents of the actors.
But this sort of rounds out the cast.
MALE SPEAKER: Absolutely.
And to that end as well, like I said, there's many threads
going on too.
You have the drama in Kentucky, into California.
From a narrative perspective, how do you weave them together
and make sure that the audience follows along with
the day-to-day life?
BILL GUTTENTAG: That's a really good question.
I think that when you watch a film, there's this--
I think audiences, to some extent, don't need to have
everything filled in.
On the other hand, they don't want to be completely lost.
So you'll sometimes see in a movie where you'll open up
with several different plot lines.
And the audience has a sense that they're all going to
weave together at some point.
And they'll hang in there for a while.
But there has to be something interesting enough within
those stories that they're going to hang in.
And there's a sense of gratification when
it does hang in.
But when you're editing, everything that you do in a
film is a choice.
Are you going to do this or are you going to do that?
And I think you have keep an eye on the fact that you don't
want people to be too lost with what's going on.
And it's a little bit of a tricky balance at times.
MALE SPEAKER: In the end, it's a film about an election.
So the election happens on one day nationwide.
So that kind of draws--
BILL GUTTENTAG: Right.
I think there's always a question, inherent drama,
about what happens in an election.
I mean, I did a TV series years ago called
"Law & Order --
Crime & Punishment." And it was all about trials and
courtrooms.
And one of the things interesting about trials are
trials have inherent drama.
You have a trial.
There's a defendant.
Is that defendant going to be convicted and taken out the
back of the courtroom in handcuffs and
go to jail for decades?
Or are they going to go out the front door a free person?
And one thing that was interesting, we were an NBC
show, and we were on at 10 o'clock at night-- which can
be a tough slot because people go to bed.
So there's a big deal on TV, trying to cross the half hour
and hold onto your ratings.
And in our case, we increase our ratings like 100% of the
shows over the half hour.
And I think the reason for it--
I like to think it's because it was a decent show.
But I think another part of the reason is
people want to know--
did the person get found guilty or did they [? get ?]
found innocent?
So there's inherent drama within there.
MALE SPEAKER: Cool.
And then that drama continued with the various screenings
you did last year.
I believe it premiered the DNC.
Do you have any memories of that screening?
BILL GUTTENTAG: We showed it at the DNC.
And there's obviously a lot of-- the Democratic National
Convention--
there are a lot of politicians, who I think felt
like they were seeing their lives in there.
So that was a favorable crowd.
We also had a screening at Harvard, where it was sort or
fascinating that--
It was at the Harvard Kennedy School, and we had a number of
politicians, democratic, people who work for Democratic
presidential candidates, couple people on the
Republican presidential candidate side.
And the debate all became about whether the character in
the film played by Carrie-Anne Moss could actually win the
governorship of California.
And it's sort of interesting if you make a film that people
are actually taking it seriously
enough to debate this.
And it's grounded in the fact that the two most famous
governors of California in recent memory were both
non-politicians, referring, of course to Ronald Reagan and so
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
So this is a state which will embrace someone who is not a
politician and put them in the highest state office.
MALE SPEAKER: And I'd like to follow up a little bit more on
Carrie-Anne Moss's character.
And I'm reminded of the film, of course, "Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington," the idealism being dragged down by the
realities of modern politics.
So what inspired you as you created that character?
Do you think that such a character could succeed on the
national stage?
BILL GUTTENTAG: I think part of the story involves a doctor
in the Mission District who would like to be governor of
California, played by Carrie-Anne Moss.
And I think that the character's an
aspirational character.
I think the idea that if you have a great sense of
intelligence and compassion that this will somehow
connect, and you can get over the fundraising issues, and
all the other key issues that people encounter.
And I think that, I hope that, audiences will connect with
that character.
A lot of TV, I think, is sort of aspirational.
A lot of movies are aspirational, too.
It's not the world as it exists.
It's the world as you kind of want it to be.
I mean, if you see certain shows on television, hospitals
really aren't run that way.
Or if you watch "The West Wing," the White House isn't
really run by a bunch of super smart, completely ethical
people, who always do the right thing.
But we all hope it would be.
And I think that that's what you come to the table with,
that you hope that these hospital shows or the medical
shows or the legal shows, that this is a world that you want.
And I think that's one the reasons people will watch
television or movies.
In part, they come to be entertained.
In part, there's an aspirational quality to it.
MALE SPEAKER: And also, I was struck--
I don't have the quote memorized with me, but the
main essence was the idea of Machiavellianism in politics.
And so some of the characters that the consultants are
working with, they have great ideas, but there is some
questionable paths to those ideas.
BILL GUTTENTAG: Right.
People aren't running for saint.
If you look at modern presidents, there's a high
percent of modern presidents that have had
extramarital affairs.
And in other countries, it doesn't matter so much.
But in this country, whether it's John Kennedy or Lyndon
Johnson, or you can just keep going down the list, Bill
Clinton, and this is something that can be a severe blow to
you if you want to get ahead.
But the reality is that they're
not running for saints.
And sometimes in politics, the lowest blows are used for the
noblest ends.
And you have to use these sort of tactics if you hope to win.
Politics is a blood sport.
And they always say that your hardest day on the campaign
trail is going to be your easiest day in office.
And so in some ways, the system prepares you for the
blood sport ahead, which is also running a country or
running a state government.
MALE SPEAKER: And the American political scene is one thing--
I'm brought to memories of life in Europe, as well.
So has this film made its way across the pond?
BILL GUTTENTAG: It's interesting.
We were screening recently in Stockholm.
And I thought it was fascinating that the Swedes
that I met we're saying that they were inundated with
American politics.
But I think it's important.
So what happens in the White House actually affects what
happens in Scandinavia.
So I think they found it interesting.
But if you look, political consultants work
all over the place.
I mean, people like Chris Lehane work
all over the world.
There was a famous Republican political consultant who went
to work for Boris Yeltsin.
This is what happens.
We're exporting our brand of politics for better or worse.
MALE SPEAKER: And the approach is different, too.
Europe, they may recognize more the distinction between a
candidate's public life and their personal life.
BILL GUTTENTAG: Yeah.
I think that's true.
I think in general, people are more forgiving of
extramarital affairs.
I mean, look no farther than the politics happening in
France right now.
MALE SPEAKER: So were there any questions from the
audience as well?
We do have a mic if you brought some questions with
you from your screening yesterday.
FEMALE SPEAKER: One of the things that I thought was
interesting was that kind of cathartic moment for Rob
Lowe's character, where he was very motivated by the suicide
attempt of the young woman.
And I'd love to hear your thoughts about how
plausible that was.
Because I would've thought that somebody like Chris
Lehane would have foreseen that as a reasonably plausible
outcome, and wouldn't necessarily have been
moved in that way.
So I'd love to hear your thoughts about how plausible
that is versus being a useful plot device, of course, to
motivate the character.
BILL GUTTENTAG: I think that's really a terrific question.
And I think when you're writing
something, it isn't spinach.
You want it to be dessert.
So you want it to have some dramatic juice to it.
But you also want to make it feel like it's plausible.
And I think that in the heated campaigns, people do a lot of
really nasty stuff.
So is it plausible that people do nasty stuff without
thinking about it?
I think it happens all the time.
The question is, what happens in the end of having done the
nasty stuff.
And as you know, if you've seen people in the news,
people just descend on their driveways, or they come onto
their house.
I was just watching something as simple as-- it was a shot
at the Newtown tragedy that was written up yesterday.
There was a photograph of a woman praying.
And suddenly, as she's praying, she was descended
upon by photographers.
And it was sort of a private moment in her life, but she
became instantly a public figure.
So in terms of plausibility, I hope it's plausible.
And part of what makes things plausible are that you're
looking for the right actors who can pull it off.
In this particular case, it's an intern, who's in the center
of this, who's played by Amanda Crew.
And I think she did a really wonderful job delivering this
kind of naive innocence and confusion.
And you hope, again, it stays within that
believable realm of people.
And I hope the whole thing feels believable.
FEMALE SPEAKER: This is to follow up.
The question was not actually about the plausibility of her
actions-- because I totally agree.
That seemed completely plausible--
but about somebody in Chris Lehane's position.
How did he feel about that?
Did he feel like, oh, that would actually change him?
BILL GUTTENTAG: I think that it's still a movie.
I can't really speak to how political
consultants will be affected.
I think political consultants can be affected by events in
their lives.
But I also think in the heat of a campaign, you do all
sorts of stuff that you might regret later.
And sometimes, it has powerful consequences.
People are really hounded out of office.
I mean, there's a line the film which I
think reflects politics.
One of the cardinal sin of politics is when you have
someone down, you better put the shiv
in, or it's a mistake.
And if you look, that's what happens.
People go down and they get kicked in the shins.
I think this is the election cycle that we're in.
I mean if you look, people get built up and then they get
crushed down.
If you looked at the Republican crowd that was
running basically to have Mitt Romney's job, basically, to
me, it was a little like a clown car at a circus.
Someone got out and they went running around the track,
waving their hands, and then they left.
But I think also, if you watch that, people were built up
tremendously.
Rick Perry is going to become the presidential nominee.
And isn't Rick Perry great?
OK, well, whatever.
A week later, he's saying, oops and can't name the number
of agencies--
couldn't name the agencies that he's going to cut.
But I think you saw that with some of the others.
There's Michele Bachmann.
She was going to be, and then she made
all sorts of mistakes.
And I think people saw how shallow she was, and so on.
So I think this is the real world, where you're constantly
trying to adjust.
There was a time when there were like three
news cycles a day.
And you had to adjust with all those news cycles.
Now the news cycles are continuous.
And you have to respond with overwhelming force when things
are coming.
And if you don't respond with overwhelming force, stories
start taking on a solidity.
And people think that this is the way things are.
So you have to come back and you have to hit hard.
And I think there's also rules, and people sometimes
make mistakes.
And I think one of the things that we saw on this last
election cycle and beyond is when Rush Limbaugh took on the
Georgetown Law student, because she had spoke in favor
of contraceptives paid for by the government.
He called her a *** and lots of other terrible things.
I think that people were really offended because she
was considered, quote unquote, a civilian.
And you don't attack civilians.
And people had a visceral reaction against it.
He's been on the air forever attacking everyone under the
sun and didn't get the same response.
But after that, there was all sorts of threats to pull their
advertising.
People felt like he crossed the line.
So I think this is something that is often respected in
politics, that you stay away from civilians.
It's something that you see, that generally politicians'
kids are off limits.
People do not attack politicians' kids, because
they are considered non-combatants.
And in the case of the movie, I think what they ended up
doing is they ended up attacking a non-combatant.
And when you attack a non-combatant, it creates all
sorts of issues that you have to deal with later on.
And hopefully, we can take those issues and turn it into
some drama which people care about.
And then this is sort of the big picture.
But in the small picture, what you're trying to do is write a
scene that an actor can play, and hopefully they play
convincing.
And you as an audience member will identify with, in this
case it was Amanda Crew, and feel for her and
identify with her.
MALE SPEAKER: And then what happens when the citizen wants
to enter the realm willingly, become a player in the game?
BILL GUTTENTAG: In what kind of--
MALE SPEAKER: Well, as you were saying, the citizens are
the non-combatants.
And then what happens when they willingly choose to enter
that, to run for the office?
BILL GUTTENTAG: Right.
Well, I think once you get on the playing field, you have to
be prepared for just about anything.
And this is something we referred to in the movie, that
there's this idea of opposition research.
And the first thing that people do when they run for
office is they do opposition research on themselves.
They sort of want to find out what is out there about them
that is likely to come out.
I think one of the rules about politics are everything can
and will come out.
So you really can't contain your secrets.
And I don't know that everyone's necessarily clean,
but there are also ways of releasing information.
Some of the things we touch on in the film are the Friday
night document dump.
And that's traditionally on a Friday night, often before a
holiday weekend, you release all sorts of information.
The theory being that many reporters are off on their
vacations, and they're not particularly eager to come
back to the news room to report on it.
And by Monday morning, reporters will be chasing
newer, shinier things.
So that's a way that you release information.
There's ways of getting the information out in the least
damaging way.
But you want to put the information out.
It's one thing that people who are very knowledge about
this-- a lot more knowledge than me-- talked about that
one the big mistakes that Romney did was on his tax
returns, that the tax returns became a continuing issue for
Romney in the last election.
But if Romney had, in the early days of campaigning in
Iowa, put out his tax returns, then it was the dead of
summer, people really weren't paying that much attention.
He should have just gotten it out there in that way, and
then it wouldn't become an issue.
But because he gave so many different answers to the
questions and seemed to be evading all the time, it
became an issue that dodged--
To correct that, it became an issue that just followed him
throughout the campaign.
MALE SPEAKER: Well, and to a large extent now, the American
election is never over.
It keeps going.
BILL GUTTENTAG: Right.
I think that's absolutely right, Cliff.
I think we're sitting here now in February of 2013, and
there's all sorts of speculation about who's going
to be the presidential candidates in 2016.
So it is a never-ending campaign.
You're absolutely right.
MALE SPEAKER: And I guess to close, looking towards future
campaigns, we had the bloody sport, the knife fight in
2012, what sort of lessons from this film the
viewers to take away?
And how do you see this applying in future campaigns?
BILL GUTTENTAG: It's a great question.
And I think I'd just like people to watch the film and
feel like they're getting a peek inside the
room behind the room.
When you watch the scenes, you'll have a sense of this is
the way real people truly talk while the
cameras are not around.
And it's not always pretty, but I think it is accurate.
And in some ways, I'd like to think that we made a film that
ultimately is kind of a patriotic film that's sort of
an endorsement of the system.
I mean, there's a line that this is a terrible system, but
it's the best we have.
So there isn't a better system, but this is not
flawless system.
I think the more people are aware, the better.
There's a famous line, "Sunshine is the best
disinfectant." Well, I hope a film like this
will show some sunshine.
But also, it is a film that takes a bunch of stories, most
of them are based on real stories, and tries to present
them in such a way that it's sort of both entertaining and
informative.
MALE SPEAKER: Well, Bill, thank you very much for
stopping by.
The film is out right now.
I definitely encourage you all to check it out, amazing film.
And like you mentioned, it's a moment of light in something
that folks don't normally see or don't normally think about.
It's almost how the sausage gets made.
So thank you very much for stopping by.
BILL GUTTENTAG: Thank you very much, Cliff.
I really appreciate it.