Oscar-nominated director Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” chronicles one of the more bizarre crimes in recent American history. It also provides an intimate portrait of gold-medal-winning Olympic wrestlers that you might remember, but for all the wrong reasons.
Yet, it’s neither a crime film nor a sports movie.
Miller uses wealthy heir John E. du Pont (Steve Carrell) and his recruitment of wrestlers Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) and Schultz’s brother, Dave (Mark Ruffalo), as a springboard to dissect American idealism.
Tatum plays a disillusioned athlete, recounting tales of achievement and hard work to disinterested crowds in empty auditoriums — enter Carell, the eccentric member of high society, all too eager to mentor the wrestler, hoping to build a trophy room that lives up to his inflated sense of greatness.
Destined to rack up hardware during awards season, “Foxcatcher,” opening Oct. 21 in Washington, is a cautionary tale about how the compulsive search for validation can lead to disastrous results.
Miller, the director of “Capote” and “Moneyball,” sat down with the Washington Examiner to discuss the quiet tension at the heart of “Foxcatcher,” his repeated use of real-life events for cinematic inspiration and whether he would ever make a political feature film.
Examiner: It’s impossible to escape the slowly building dread in this film. Did you look at it like you were shooting an American horror story?
Miller: As it developed, in the edit, I couldn’t help but become aware of some corollaries with films like “The Shining.” What is similar to horror films is that we, as an audience, are more in tune to the imminent danger than the characters are. That’s what makes it like a horror film.
Examiner: There is a conflict here about the idea of American exceptionalism. Obviously, du Pont had extreme views on the subject and how society should define patriotism. What interested you so much about that subject?
I was more interested in the rhetoric that permitted these guys to feel like they were relating to each other. Ultimately, [du Pont and Mark Schultz] convinced themselves they were part of the same thing, that they shared a common goal and were participants in a larger cause. And it was shrouded in American idealism. I also think that some of this rhetoric became a convenient excuse to not see what was right in front of their faces, that this situation was not only disingenuous but was becoming dangerous.
Examiner: The Tatum character met his goals; he won his Olympic gold medal. But society didn’t seem to care.
Miller: Yeah, he wanted to be a role model. Winning a gold medal … that’s the kind of thing that gets you on a Wheaties box. I think that’s part of what made du Pont so appealing to him. He was somebody who was able to understand his disenfranchisement and say, ‘We as a nation have failed to honor you. The problem is not you — it’s us. There’s something that that needs to be fixed, and I’m here to help you fix that.’
Examiner: How much did you previously know about this story?
Miller: I didn’t know anything about it. Somebody shared some newspaper clippings with me, and that was my first glimpse in. I was just immediately hooked on the story and curious as hell. Not just interested, but interested in the fact that so little was known about what happened, who these people were. Interestingly, the one note that would get repeated about du Pont again and again — ‘He was crazy. He thought the walls were moving. He thought he was the Dalai Lama.’ Elements I thought would figure more largely into this film actually became the least interesting to me.
Examiner: Many audience members will be seeking reasons for this crime. You don’t seem so interested in appeasing them.
Miller: I became very fascinated with the rub of these people who do not understand each other but believe they are pursuing a common goal. The more I looked at it, the more allegorical the whole thing felt to me, with each of these three characters representing something larger than themselves. I really resist the temptation to conclude anything. Once you make a conclusion, and you stick a label on any aspect of it … you stop thinking and you stop looking. The phenomena of these kinds of relationships are very alive today and worth pondering. The movie doesn’t have a morality like that. It wasn’t meant to say [du Pont] was a bad guy. You’re not going to deny there was some kind of evil at work, but you can’t stop there. There’s far more relevant and new things to look at. As you tell this story, you have to get past the sensational aspect of it, and into some kind of new territory, which is what this movie is really about.
Examiner: First, you did “Moneyball,” and now, “Foxcatcher.” You must be a sports guy.
Miller: It’s a coincidence. I’m a sports guy by nature, but by discipline, I’m not. I stay away from it. In 1996, the Yankees won the World Series.
Examiner: Over this reporter’s Atlanta Braves.
Miller: As a kid, I had ‘77, ‘78, the first two seasons of baseball I watched.
Examiner: You’re not going to get a whole lot of sympathy here.
Miller: [Laughs] I’m not asking for sympathy … Now we’re getting into the important areas. I f—ing — we had those two seasons. That was like my first two seasons of watching baseball. I had the impression that we win every year.
Examiner: Were you bummed when the A’s flamed out in the playoffs this year, given your experience making “Moneyball?”
Miller: Absolutely. Now that I’m an A’s fan, I’m mad at myself for caring, you know, especially because they find a different way to stomp on your heart every year. In the time [general manager Billy Beane] had been there, his second-half record marked the largest improvement of any team in the history of sports. At the halfway mark this year, when they’re the best team in baseball, everybody was beginning to feel awfully good. He set a different type of record. It’s nearly the biggest collapse in baseball history.
Examiner: The way you shoot sports is so unique. In “Moneyball,” the baseball scenes are staged like a separate film. And the wrestling in “Foxcatcher” seems almost like they’re dancing with each other.
Miller: Every sport has its own language. The ball ripped just foul down the third-base line. Everything has it’s own note. Given that neither of these films is really about the outcome of the sport itself, it’s just the question of looking at the sport as something that’s expressive in other ways. In the case of “Moneyball,” it was like a fever-dream, a bad hallucination.
Examiner: Since we’re in Washington, any interest in making a political film?
I don’t have any interest in making a film that is political. I think that politics makes for great drama, and these stories can be great portals into deeper issues, issues deeper than politics, I think. I put politics closer to sports in terms of how it’s exploited for dramatic purposes. I have zero interest in making a film that is itself political. I did one little thing for Obama [a short documentary ahead of the 2012 election]. I don’t belong to a political party, but I was asked to do something and I did it. I don’t want to do that again.
