Linklater/Schlosser interview: part one

Here’s part one of the promised interview with director Richard Linklater and writer Eric Shlosser about Fast Food Nation (better late than never, eh?).

Tune in tomorrow for part two, and next week for an interview with stars Ethan Hawke and Catalina Sandino Moreno and to read our review of the film.

Check out the Fast Food Nation website, for behind the scenes news, views and interviews, and your chance to win an organic hamper, or click here to watch a clip of Bruce Willis from the film.

The movie opens in Falmouth next Friday, Plymouth on June 15 and Exeter on June 22. See the weekly D+CFilm arthouse roundup for details.

Phew, okay. Let’s get on with it!

Was it difficult to adapt a factual book?

Richard Linklater: On one level it was really easy because it was Eric’s idea to throw out the book altogether. It was Eric’s idea to make a movie about the people depicted in the book – the workers, what’s behind the fast food meal. And that appealed to me, instead of making a documentary which seemed obvious. When he talked about making a story of the people, I thought that’s what I can do – character-based fictional films. It took off from there.

Did you ever get a call from McDonalds’ lawyers?

RL: No, I think they attacked Eric a lot. When you’re doing a fictional thing, you can say it’s a fiction movie. A fictional film that’s entertaining, they can’t legally… they can go after you in indirect ways. They just discredit you. It is a crime in the State I live in, in Texas, to disparage agricultural products, to say bad things about them. I think there should be a law against criticising films!

Were you ever a fan of Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me?

RL: I like Super Size Me. I think Eric liked it too. We were already working on our script. I think Super Size Me already grew out of Eric’s book. It goes in one direction. It’s entertaining and pretty informative. It’s a statement of what happens after you eat it. Our movie shows what’s behind the meal – the animals, the workers. That world. If you put them together, you get a good double feature!

Did you ever consider doing Fast Food Nation as a documentary?

ES: I was uncomfortable with a documentary. I met with at least half a dozen filmmakers and production companies, and each one of the scenarios made me uneasy because ultimately it would be a television network funding it. I had a documentary done on an article that I’d written about the war on drugs that ultimately I liked but I felt wasn’t quite as strong, so I was very wary of these networks and these different options. I told myself the book has been more successful than I ever would have dreamed it would be. I would rather that there was never a film based on it, than it being a sell-out or a compromise. And when Rick and I first started talking, and I was quite honest with him, because of what I thought of his work as a filmmaker.

Were there any legal problems with your book?

ES: The assumption that I use as an investigative journalist when it comes to legal action against me, was if they can, they will. As soon as I finished Fast Food Nation, I hired a fact-checker from the New Yorker, which has this intense fact-checking department. I paid him to go through the entire manuscript and attack it as though he was a fast food or meat packing executive. I then hired my own libel attorney, which was very expensive to do, apart from the publisher. And everything I write, I have my own libel attorney read before
it’s published.

Were there any problems from fast food companies making the movie?

RL: We worked underground. We had a different name. We knew, through Eric’s experiences, that they wouldn’t be pleased with the idea that we were doing a movie. We’re a fictional film, but that doesn’t really matter when you’re criticising an industry. That’s the one thing you can’t really do. Do anything that make affect someone’s bottom line – that’s the one sacrosanct thing where they all gang up against you. So we lost some locations when they found out it was really Fast Food Nation. We stole locations…you have to do what you have to do to make your movie.

Do you think corporations – not governments – now run the US?

RL: I think corporate power is running the world. They’ve got a lot of power. They’ve got the legal system behind them. They’ve certainly got the political system behind them. They’ve got the money behind them. And it’s not even a person. It’s a system. I think the film makes really clear – one person is not going to save it, and it’s not one person’s fault. It’s the way the industrialised world has moved in the last 150 years. You can look at the fast food meal as the apex of this ‘efficiency’. I think with Eric’s book, and others, the veil is being lifted off the industrialisation of our food. The thought – ‘They wouldn’t give us anything that’s bad for us, would they?’ That’s all gone. It’s trickling down through the culture. Just like people become aware of what’s behind the products they buy – child labour is making your shoes in another country.
Once you know that, you can make the choice.

Posted by Thin White Duke