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HBO: How did you both come to the project?
Joseph Feury: Well, we had been seeing various people going
to Walter Reed Hospital and visiting with the
soldiers who had come back wounded. But
we felt that it was all sanitized. They already
had their prosthetics and were deep into
rehabilitation, and we felt that they were
picked for their looks and their opinions about
the war. So we really didn't think that what
we were seeing was the true face of what was
going on in the theatre in Baghdad.
We had a meeting with (HBO's) Sheila Nevins,
and I said what needs to be done is we have
to show the real face of the war and the
wounded. Sheila agreed and said to me, would
you and Lee be willing to work with another
company who would go there? Because Lee
and I certainly weren't going to go into a war
zone. And we said, sure. So Sheila
introduced us to Matt O'Neal and John Alpert.
And she made a marriage. So we arranged for
John and Matt to go to Baghdad. And through
the editing process we gave notes and
supported them to the best of our abilities
while they were making the picture.
HBO: There's a real objectivity to the movie. Is that
something you all wanted from the outset?
Joseph Feury: What we felt was that it couldn't be a political
picture. It couldn't be an anti-war movie; it
couldn't be a pro-war movie. It had to be like
a Rorschach test, that everybody that looks at
it takes away from it what they feel the
picture gives them. And so what John and
Matt were able to do to such a wonderful
extent was to become like flies on the wall.
They recorded this as it was going by. They
shot two hundred and fifty hours of film. And
they never imposed. And I think that's what
the great gift of the film is, is that it really
takes a neutral stance and it's not colored one
way or the other. It is what it is.
Lee Grant: And they kept those cameras going all the
time, no matter what was coming in. It's such
a credit to them as filmmakers. My feeling
has always been as a documentary filmmaker
that you just hold a mirror there. And I think
that's what they did for everyone, which was
such a reward for the soldiers who were going
through it and the doctors who were such
heroes there.
Joseph Feury: What we wanted to do from the outset was
not to follow individual soldiers home to see
what happens to them because that's another
movie. We really wanted it to be contained in
the hospital. And so what you see you is
what the doctors and what the people who
work there go through.
Lee Grant: Another thing that brings this film home that
we hope people take away from it is that if the
medical teams weren't so sophisticated, and if
our handling of our wounded wasn't so quick
and so thorough and so brilliantly done, there
would be at least ten to fifteen thousand dead
if this were the Vietnam War.
HBO: The number of wounded and maimed is also
something that isn't really talked about in
major media.
Joseph Feury: Never.
Lee Grant: And the impression you get from the news
when you say "wounded," you think pretty
wounds. The old image of the bandage on the
head, a movie image of wounded. What Matt
and John brought back was reality.
HBO: What do you hope people will take away from
this?
Lee Grant: I think most people, including us, have a
movie image of war. That's where we get our
experience of war from. And what John and
Matt have done is to break through that to
say, this is what it really is. How do you feel
about it? And I think the fact that this just
stayed within that little theatre shows you
what's going on there. But the fact that these
guys are carrying images around within
themselves which they have to live with for
the rest of their lives is something that, of
course, this documentary could not go into.
Joseph Feury: I hope that for the people who don't have a
picture or don't think about what's going on, if
they see this it'll make them care. Hopefully
it'll open the eyes of people who are for the
war or for war. Because, you know, it's not
this war they're for. They're for all wars that
we get involved in. And most of those people
would never go to that place and put their
lives on the line. And I think one of the things
the film will do is it'll open people's eyes. And
they'll say, wow, is this what's really going on?
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