As for the theme of truth first, Rod Lurie said: "This film has a very simple and clear theme, just like its title, everything is based on truth. The film begins with the heroine Rachel reporting the truth of a news story and ends with her revealing the truth of the whole thing. From beginning to end, the story is about the views and choices of each character in the film about the word' truth'. I think in real life, everyone has the idea of pursuing truth, but due to various pressures in reality, this courage may not be carried out. But in the movie, I want to create a greater pressure than reality, so that the audience can always put themselves in the leading role, and then ask themselves, if I am in that angle, what should I do? This is what I want to communicate with the audience. I hope the audience can feel this when watching movies. "
The critical masterpiece of political theme is After the Dark Tide, and Truth First is another film related to politics by Rod Lurie. The director who has always been keen on political themes is quite satisfied with this new work: Truth First is a standard thriller. Before the whole movie was planned, I watched the Translation Storm by Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman, which was very enlightening and contained a lot of content. I don't want to elaborate something too dark, or make the audience feel that I am using movies to vent my dissatisfaction with 123. These are not the main reasons why I made this film. In recent years, I have seen many social reports in the media. Although some contents seem simple, it is interesting to think about the actual situation. You will think: Why did this happen, and why did it end like this? I sorted out a lot of information about this, then screened out the content that matched the film and finally filmed it. "
Historical background
Although the film begins with the words "This film is inspired by real events, but the story is pure fiction, and there is no intention to insinuate others." But in fact, the film is based on a real historical event, not only the case of Blaise v. Hayes mentioned many times in the film, but also the case of confidential documents of the Pentagon.
Does the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protect journalists' privilege of refusing to disclose their sources? The Blaise Berg case is the beginning of the debate on this issue in the United States. When hearing this case, the Supreme Court of the United States finally refused to give special protection to journalists based on the First Amendment to the Constitution, while the opposition advocated recognizing the limited privileges of journalists and put forward "three major tests". These three standards are as follows: when a reporter is asked to testify in court, the court must explain that there are possible reasons to believe that the reporter has information obviously related to the specific illegal act; (2) prove that the information it seeks cannot be obtained through other channels that do little harm to the First Amendment; 3. Proof information contains convincing and overwhelming benefits.
Daniel Ellsberg, a Ph.D. graduate in economics from Harvard University, was a Vietnam War veteran. After returning to his hometown, he worked as an analyst in the military analysis agency RAND Corporation. A top secret document, The History of Vietnamese Decision-making, was released to the public through The New York Times and Washington post.
The Ministry of Justice, as a prosecutor, took a simple and direct position in sending relevant newspapers to court, and published confidential documents of the Ministry of National Defense, which seriously endangered national interests.
The Supreme Court failed to make a ruling, but the nine Supreme Judges each wrote their own opinions. In the end, the press won the support of six of them and miraculously defeated the government.
Ellsberg naturally did not escape the so-called second largest manhunt in the history of the FBI at that time, and he was not ready to escape for a long time. He thinks it is worthwhile to go to jail in order to change the country's policy towards Vietnam. This is his patriotism. The charges against him by the court are enough to imprison him for 1 15 years. At the same time, very angry Nixon secretly ordered him to be taken down "through public opinion" and tried his best to destroy his reputation. However, the tragic Nixon himself stepped down shortly after Watergate, and ellsberg was acquitted with the support of the public.
Now, of course, it's a different scene. After 9 1 1, I'm afraid this miracle will never happen again. But the same is true of the ideas expressed in the film, and the heroine did not have a miracle in the end. But this is not what the film wants to tell us. What the film wants to say is that no matter how bad the situation is, she will never compromise. Judges and lawyers and everyone in the prosecution clearly know that she will never compromise.
The defense lawyer's words in the film:
In the case of1972 "Blaiseberg V. Hayes", this court violated the right of journalists to refuse to disclose the names of their informants in front of the grand jury, and instead gave the government the power to imprison all these journalists who refused to disclose information. The verdict was reached by a narrow margin of 5: 4. In the case of Blaise Berg, Judge Stewart once said: "With the passage of time, the power in the hands of the government will penetrate into every corner. These authorities, no matter what policy means they use, just want to exist forever, and the people are the ultimate victims. " After so many years, such rights continue to exist.
Blue blank supplementary background material: The above background is probably a misunderstanding. Compared with the case of Bryce Berg, Judith miller, a journalist from The New York Times, USA, was sentenced to four months' imprisonment in July 2005, which is more similar to the plot of this film. She published an investigation report on the identity leakage of a CIA agent, but in court trial, he refused to disclose the source because of his professional tradition and morality to protect his deep throat, so he was considered to be in contempt of court.
Film background
Judith miller's American "Special Project Gate" case is very similar to the movie script. The following is a summary of this incident:
July 2003-Joseph Wilson, the former American ambassador to Gabon, published an article in The New York Times, saying that he went to Africa in 2002 under the sponsorship of the US Central Intelligence Agency, and found no evidence that Niger had helped Iraq buy nuclear materials as claimed by the Bush administration. On June 28th, 654381October 28th of the same year, in order to launch the Iraq war, Bush accused Saddam Hussein's regime of trying to buy uranium from Africa to develop nuclear weapons.
June 23rd, 2003 July 8th, 2003 12 —— new york Times reporter Judith miller and US Vice President Cheney's chief adviser Lewis Libby discussed Wilson's trip to Africa. Libby and Miller met after the breakfast meeting on July 8, and talked by phone on July 12. According to the indictment, during these conversations, Libby told Miller that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Miller once said that Libby did not explicitly mention the name of Wilson's wife Valerie Plum. According to the indictment, Libby also talked with matthew cooper, a reporter from Time magazine, and confirmed that he had heard that Wilson's wife recommended her husband to Niger.
July 8th, 2003 and11-karl rove, political adviser to US President Bush, talked with columnist Robert Novak about Wilson's wife on July 8th. On July 1 1, Rove and Cooper talked about Wilson's wife. According to media reports, Rove did not mention May's name or her secret identity to the two reporters.
July 14, 2003-Novak published an article revealing that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent, and two Bush administration officials said that she had recommended Wilson to Niger. Wilson then accused the White House of revealing his wife's secret identity, with the purpose of belittling his reputation and the credibility of his investigation conclusion on the uranium purchase case.
September 26, 2003-The US Department of Justice authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to launch a criminal investigation into this matter. Three months later, Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed as special adviser to take over the investigation.
September 30, 2005/June 65438+20051October 65438+February 2005-Miller testified to the federal grand jury that she had talked with Libby after nearly three months in prison for refusing to disclose the source. 10 10 12, Miller attended the hearing again to testify, and handed over the notes detailing the conversation with Libby on June 23, 2003 to the jury. Truth First was originally scheduled to be released in June 5438 +2008 10. However, due to repeated delays in shooting, the film could not be completed on time, and the final film could only be postponed to the beginning of June 5438 +2009 10.
At the beginning of the film, when choosing the heroine, the production company gave several actresses as reference, but the director immediately chose kate beckinsale and did not arrange other actors to negotiate the audition.
Because the story of Truth First involves the United States 123, and most of it is negative, it has also caused dissatisfaction among the relevant institutions of 123.
Truth first has made many big-name stars on the Internet. For these actors, Rod Lurie commented respectively: "The heroine of the film, Rachel, is played by kate beckinsale, and the whole story revolves around her, so her performance determines the success or failure of this film. Kate beckinsale acted very well. When filming, I often told her that you are now a journalist who is desperately pursuing the truth. You are facing the pressure of the whole society, family and 123. You have to feel this all the time, so kate beckinsale in the film is very powerful, thanks to our makeup artist and styling design. Kate beckinsale looks like a capable woman. I like matt dillon's temperament in the film very much. His role conforms to his image in real life, while david schwimmer is much more interesting on the screen. I always thought he was a boring person. As a result, during the filming of Truth First, I realized that I was wrong. These actors are great. They are an indispensable part of the film. "
Matt dillon admits that the truth is of great significance to him: "The script of this film is excellent and wonderful. Although there are many movies about political intrigue, the fact is supreme and has its unique charm. I played a prosecutor in the film, and she always opposed kate beckinsale's role as journalist Rachel. Everyone thinks I'm a villain, but I don't think so. I thought it was just different from the heroine's position. This is also the interesting part of this film, which provides several different perspectives for the audience to think about who is right and who is wrong. In fact, this is not just a movie, but also happens from time to time in reality. You can imagine what is happening around you, and maybe it has such a dual nature. "
In The First Truth, kate beckinsale and david schwimmer played a couple who loved each other deeply. In this regard, kate beckinsale said with a smile, "Six friends really influenced me. When I see David on the set, I always call him, hey, Ross! When I call him that, he will look helpless. David schwimmer is a very interesting person. First of all, he played a calm husband. At the beginning of the film, we loved each other very much, but with the development of the plot, my feelings with him also broke. There is a scene where he quarrels with me. He gave me a good scolding for filming this time. Although I have read the script well, I still feel that david schwimmer was really angry with me when the filming ended. His performance was really great.
David schwimmer said: "It's not difficult to play the heroine's husband, because most of the time in this movie is given to the heroine, so I just need to listen to the heroine's endless lines. The film made kate beckinsale and I good friends. At first it was because of this working relationship. Later, I found that everyone got along very well and often exchanged views on the script, so I soon became familiar with it. The director's arrangement of my role is rather introverted. He thought it was more like my personality, but I later told the director that I was not such a boring person, and then the script was slightly revised. You will see me angry on the screen. " Distribution company: Yaer Film Group.