The entire interview of John Cusack talking about his movie, "War, Inc." is a bit long, so only part of it is posted.

A comment made at one point in the interview was interesting in that they touched on the subject of why major Hollywood studios weren't interested in this film, but didn't expand on that subject.

Why weren't major Hollywood studios interested in this film?

Like duh.

“War, Inc.”: John Cusack’s New Film Satirizes the Corruption, Profiteering and Hubris Behind the Iraq War.

John Cusack joins us to talk about War, Inc., his new film taking on issues few in Hollywood today would dare to: war profiteering, mercenaries, political corruption and embedded journalism. A political satire, the film stars Cusack as Brand Hauser, a hit-man for hire who is deployed to the fictional country of Turaqistan to kill a Middle Eastern oil baron. Hauser’s employer is Tamerlane, a secretive for-profit military corporation headed by a former US vice president played by Dan Aykroyd. We also speak to Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill, author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

Guests:

John Cusack, star of War, Inc. He also co-wrote the film. His other Iraq war film, Grace is Gone, came out last year.

Jeremy Scahill, author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, for which he received a Polk Award. The updated paperback version of the book is being published on June 3rd.

JUAN GONZALEZ: War, Inc. is a new film opening in New York and Los Angeles today that takes on issues few in Hollywood today would dare to: things like war profiteering, mercenaries, political corruption and embedded journalism.

A political satire, the film stars John Cusack as Brand Hauser, a hit-man for hire who is deployed to the fictional country of Turaqistan to kill a Middle Eastern oil baron. Hauser’s employer is Tamerlane, a secretive for-profit military corporation headed by the former US vice president, played by Dan Aykroyd. This is a part of War, Inc. where Hauser receives his mission orders.

BRAND HAUSER: Turaqistan. What’s the gig?

TAMERLANE CEO: This is a historic moment, Hauser: the first war ever to be 100 percent outsourced to private enterprise. Tamerlane jets. Tamerlane tanks. Tamerlane soldiers. And to top it all off, a Brand USA Expo. It’s your show, baby.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of War, Inc. The film opens in New York and Los Angeles today.

John Cusack joins us now from London, where he’s shooting a new film. In addition to starring in War, Inc., he also co-wrote and produced the film. His other Iraq War-themed film is Grace is Gone. It came out last year, and it’s coming out on DVD next week.

We’re also joined by Democracy Now! correspondent, Jeremy Scahill. His book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, is coming out next week in paperback.

John Cusack, welcome. Thank you for taking time from making your new movie. Talk about the genesis of this film, War, Inc.

JOHN CUSACK: Well, hello, and thanks for having me on the show. I’m a great admirer of it.

I think, probably like a lot of the great journalists that you’ve mentioned and the other guest you have on the show, Jeremy Scahill, I think I was probably trying to put the Iraq fiasco into a larger context and maybe put it through a different sort of lens and tell a different narrative than I think the corporate narrative that we’ve been getting about the Iraq War and explore some of these themes.

You know, when we hear these words like “privatization,” you know, what does that mean? And in the case of the Iraq War, it meant outsourcing what you would imagine to be the very core functions of government and the very thing that makes you a state, to turn that into a for-profit business. And we’ve gone so far down the rabbit hole now, where actually torture is being outsourced. So it’s strange and savage times. So that was really kind of the genesis of it.

And there’s also a climate where people were telling Americans to watch what they say and—you know, and the hypocrisy and I think—and the stench of lies was so intense, you know, it would make your eyes water. So, as a filmmaker and citizen, you think, well, how do you contextualize this? And so, that was really why I wanted to make it.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to another clip of War, Inc., where Brand Hauser confronts the head of the CIA, played by Ben Kingsley.

WALKEN: Every empire is summed up in Rome. The Romans, Hauser, dudes of the human race, torchbearers of culture. You and I are centurions, honor bound to defend civilization against the barbarians.
BRAND HAUSER: Let’s cut the [blank], Walken. I like killing people as much as the next guy, but I signed up to kill the bad ones. Health clinics, trade unionists, journalists, agricultural co-ops, Catholic liberation theologians, impoverished Colombian coffee farmers—these are the barbarians, the depraved opponents of civilization? We turn Central America into a [blank] graveyard. Whoever momentarily interrupts the accumulation of our wealth, we pulverize. I’m just not feeling good about that anymore, sir.
WALKEN: Then do what you have to do, son.

AMY GOODMAN: Excerpt from War, Inc. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, John Cusack, obviously you’re dealing with weighty and tragic situations, but you’ve chosen satire. Why the satire approach, did you feel was necessary?

JOHN CUSACK: Well, I think, you know, all satire or absurdism does is take current trends to the logical conclusion, you know, if you follow it a couple weeks or a couple years down the road. And some would argue, I think rightfully so, that we’re already there. So, you know, I think at times you have to put a different lens on it in order to kind of process the information, I think. And, you know, there’s a great tradition of satire mocking power elites and—you know, whether they be kings or corporate kings—and you know, shaming them and naming things and calling things what they are.

AMY GOODMAN: John Cusack, what about Hollywood in this time of war? Your assessment of your industry?

JOHN CUSACK: I don’t know. I think that there are individuals out there who are trying to do good work, and so I don’t like to lump people into a kind of groupthink kind of—I don’t like to sort of think that way. You know, obviously, the industry really wants to make money and protect itself, and I think, like the rest of the country, people have been, I think, kind of zonked spectators just going along this conveyor belt and not really wanting to face what this particular administration has done to the Constitution and to the very idea of America and democracy. So I think a lot of people are numb and kind of checked out, I think.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, your book Blackwater has had such an important effect, and actually it’s as if a part of this film, we’re watching the—sort of what it looks like on film. You wrote a really positive piece about War, Inc. and its importance, especially in the Hollywood commercialized climate we’re in today.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, you know, first of all, I mean, John Cusack is really to be commended for this. I mean, he and I have had a dialogue ongoing over the years. I mean, it’s kind of funny. When you talk to a lot of unembedded independent journalists who have been to Iraq, almost all of us started receiving calls from John Cusack shortly after the invasion of Iraq began. And John was calling people not because he was saying, “Hey, I’m going to do a movie,” but because he wanted to know what was going on. And so, he was calling me, he was calling Naomi Klein, he was calling other people who had been in and out of Iraq and was trying to gather information.

And, you know, I grew up—one of my favorite films was John’s movie Say Anything, and you remember that famous scene where he’s standing outside of the home of the woman that he loves, and he’s playing Peter Gabriel’s song on a boombox above his head. It’s one of those sort of iconic moments of film, and certainly for my generation. And now, I sort of see John as standing outside the gates of Hollywood with a sort of cheap TV over his head saying, “Hey, you know, these are political films about the Iraq War. You know, do something about it.”

I mean, we have to remember, this is the most radically privatized war in the history of this country. I don’t think most people in this country or around the world can name more than three or four countries that have an official deployment in Iraq, and yet there are 630 corporations on the US government payroll. And so, what John has done here is not some over-the-top film; it’s actually more true than fiction, in a way.

You know, you have journalists in the movie who are embedded inside of the Emerald City, which is sort of, you know, John’s version of the Green Zone, and they’re watching the war in an IMAX theater. And there’s a scene where John’s character is actually eating popcorn, you know, sitting next to Marissa Tomei’s character, who’s a sort of progressive journalist who’s come there to muckrake. But it’s not over the top. It actually is more true than what you read in the pages of the New York Times.

And I think that John is really to be commended for doing what is actually not a satire; it’s a very powerful commentary on the way things actually are in Iraq right now and with the US war machine. It’s sort of a combination of A Clockwork Orange, Wizard of Oz, or a sort of, you know, political Muppet Show, so to speak, that actually says a lot and has a very stark commentary on the way things are.......

Source: Democracy Now

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• Wars for Israel
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