Cara Buckley
If history was any guide, the director Terry George figured there’d be weirdness around his new film, “The Promise,” about the Armenian genocide. Sure enough, he was right.
One
of the actors, Daniel Giménez Cacho, said he was contacted before
filming by a Turkish ambassador. In line with Turkey’s official stance,
the diplomat insisted that the genocide, in which nearly 1.5 million
Armenians were killed, had never occurred. After the movie’s premiere at
the Toronto International Film Festival in September, it racked up 55,000 lowly one-star votes
on the Internet Movie Database, which is quite something, considering
only a few thousand people had actually seen it at the three public
screenings.
And
then, six weeks before “The Promise” hit theaters this weekend came
another film that shared uncanny parallels. Like “The Promise,” “The Ottoman Lieutenant”
hinges on a love triangle set in Turkey during the early days of World
War I. Unlike “The Promise,” “The Ottoman Lieutenant,” which stars
Michiel Huisman and Josh Hartnett, was backed by Turkish investors and
has been pilloried by critics for whitewashing historical events.
“The
Ottoman Lieutenant,” which tells of a dashing Turkish officer who helps
save imperiled Armenians — while carrying on with an American nurse —
reinforces that debunked Turkish narrative, detractors say. The American
Hellenic Council, calling for a boycott, said the film was plainly
aimed at undercutting “The Promise,” and falsely painted the genocide as
two-sided.
“It’s
a sort of mirror image of our film, but with a totally denialist
perspective,” said Mr. George, adding that he suspected that the Erdogan
government had a hand in the rival film.
Yet
as it turns out, there was bitter division among key players on “The
Ottoman Lieutenant,” both during production and after. According to
several people familiar with the project, Turkish producers oversaw the
final cut, without the director’s knowledge.
The
people familiar with the project said that tensions emerged on the
“Ottoman” set after producers pushed to minimize depictions of Turkish
violence against Armenians. Several people who worked on the project
felt that the final version butchered the film artistically, and smacked
of denialism: Dialogue that explicitly referred to systematic mass
killing had been stripped out. The director, Joseph Ruben, who refused
to comment for this article, ended up doing no publicity for the film.
“As
we were making the film, he always knew they could control the editing
room, so this was a tightrope that he had to walk,” said Michael Steele,
a first assistant director and producer on the film, referring to the
Turkish producers. “Joe was so enraged by their version of events he
attempted to take his name off the film, but he realized contractually
he was obliged to remain silent.”
The
producers, distributor and lead actors in “The Ottoman Lieutenant,”
which according to BoxOfficeMojo.com has taken in just $241,000 since
its release in March, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The
struggles over the two films are the latest in a series of attempts by
Turkish interests to absolve their country of responsibility for the
genocide, efforts that go back decades and have extended to Hollywood.
In the 1930s, MGM scuttled a plan to make a movie about the killings after Turkey exerted intense pressure
on the State Department and the studio itself. When the Canadian
filmmaker Atom Egoyan, who is of Armenian descent, was making “Ararat,”
his 2002 film about the genocide, he was deluged with threats and told that Armenians in Turkey might be harmed as a result. An ultranationalist group later threatened Turkish theaters planning to show the film, resulting in canceled screenings.
“The
Promise,” which stars Oscar Isaac as an Armenian medical student and
Christian Bale as an American journalist, was unfettered by studio
pressures. The film’s financier was Kirk Kerkorian,
the colorful Hollywood mogul and casino magnate, and the son of poor
Armenian immigrants, who before his death in 2015 at 98, pledged $100
million toward the film, making it the biggest budget picture about the
genocide yet.
“He
felt if we don’t shine a light, we’re doomed,” said Eric Esrailian, a
lead producer with Survival Pictures, Mr. Kerkorian’s production
company.
Still,
precautions were taken. Mr. George, whose credits include “Hotel
Rwanda” (2004), said he ensured that “The Promise” was made under the
radar, with no publicity. Production took place in Portugal, Malta and
Spain, and there was tight security on the set.
Joe
Berlinger, who embedded with the “Promise” production to shoot a
documentary about the genocide, said everyone on the set was concerned
about safety. “A lot of that is overblown — I think we’ve gone from
historical assassinations to digital assassinations,” he said. “But we
all had this nebulous fear.”
Mr.
Berlinger said he repeatedly reached out to Turkish officials for his
documentary, “Intent to Destroy,” and was eventually invited to Ankara
for meetings on the condition that he not bring recording devices or his
crew. The Turks also refused to say with whom he’d be speaking. He
demurred. (The film is to play the Tribeca Film Festival next week.)
“I
felt like it would be a useless trip and one that was potentially
dangerous, frankly,” Mr. Berlinger said. It was in “Intent to Destroy”
that the actor Mr. Giménez Cacho revealed that a Turkish ambassador had
bombarded him with denialist propaganda, which Mr. Berlinger believes is
part of a Turkish campaign to discourage people from tackling projects
related to the genocide.
Whether
“The Promise” does well or not at the box office this weekend, it
continues to garner attention. In the week leading up to its release, it
racked up thousands more votes on IMDB.com. It’s at 126,000 votes and
counting, largely split between one-star and 10-star ratings. And last
week, Kim Kardashian West, arguably the world’s most famous
Armenian-American, tweeted her support of the film, having visited Armenia in 2015 to highlight the genocide.
There are no plans yet to release “The Promise” in Turkey. (“The Ottoman Lieutenant” will open there May 19.) Either way, Taner Akcam, a leading historian
on the genocide and a professor at Clark University, said that
officials there might characterize it as Armenian propaganda made with
Armenian money, if they say anything at all. “Silence, this is their
usual strategy,” he said.
“The
Promise” opens this weekend by design. Monday is the 102nd anniversary
of the first stage of the genocide, when hundreds of Armenian
intellectuals were arrested in Istanbul, a date Armenians worldwide
commemorate each year.
“The
genocide is burned into the soul of the Armenian diaspora,” Mr. George
said. “And until they get some kind of recognition, it’s not going to go
away.”
"The New York Times," April 22, 2017
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