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Mick Jackson (Director)
Robert Wiener (Former CNN Senior Producer)
Ingrid Formanek (CNN Senior Producer)
Bernard Shaw (Former CNN Principal Anchor)
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(Robert Wiener co-wrote the screenplay for Live From Baghdad, which is based on his novel of the same name. He was CNN's senior executive producer, and covered the Gulf War in Iraq from August 1990 to January 1991. He spoke to HBO from his home in Paris.)
HBO
I guess we should start at the beginning, how you came to write this story, and what the whole development process was like.
ROBERT WIENER
Well, I wrote the book over ten years ago, when the war ended. And five studios in Los Angeles had approached me to buy the rights to the book, and I eventually sold it to a production company, Longview Entertainment, which was then associated with Universal.
I was given the opportunity, along with Richard Chapman, to write the first two drafts of the screenplay. Immediately, there was interest on the part of Barry Levinson to direct this. And Dustin Hoffman was very interested in playing me, and so I went out to Los Angeles and spent time with Dustin and Barry.
One thing led to another, and Levinson dropped off the project, and then Penny Marshall came onto the project, and she met with me, and more writers were brought onto the project. The story changed dramatically from being an accurate account of what happened to a completely fictional account, in which frankly no one would recognize his or her lives.
Then HBO was promoting "Band of Brothers." I was covering that because I've got not only an immense interest in D-day, but thought that "Band of Brothers" was a fantastic project.
During the trip up to Normandy, I happened to get into a conversation with (HBO executive) Carmi Zlotnik and we talked about "Live from Baghdad," and the experiences I had in Los Angeles in the past. And subsequently, I sent Carmi a copy of the book, and according to (HBO production executive) Jonathan Krause, HBO had also been tracking the project. HBO eventually was able to get Universal to sell them the rights in turnaround.
And HBO basically said to me, look, we want to make something that is real and accurate and true to the essence of the book. Can you go through the screenplay and underline anything that's inaccurate.
HBO
And how did that turn out?
ROBERT WIENER
Basically the entire script was riddled with inaccuracies. So HBO went back to our original screenplay, and tried to combine parts of the original screenplay with some of John Patrick Shanley's input, and then they brought in Tim Sexton for dialogue polish and what have you.
In terms of the accuracy of the movie, let me say this is not a documentary. And no one ever claimed that it would be. Let me also say up front that I'm terribly close to it, so it's difficult for me to be completely objective. It is very true to the essence of not only my book, but true to the essence of what happened in Baghdad. But there are certainly changes to make the movie, perhaps, more entertaining.
HBO
Tell us about your actual experiences in Baghdad, what you thought you were going to encounter, and what you actually encountered.
ROBERT WIENER
Well I thought it was going to be a very tough nut to crack. It was always my dream to take this thing live if there were war, and to try and do something that had not been done before. The movie distills a lot of the facts, and gives me a lot of personal credit, when that credit really should be shared with my good friend Eason Jordan, who on the Atlanta end, literally sent hundreds of telexes in support of trying to get the proper communications, interviews and what have you. So it was really more of a team effort.
But it was not simply a matter of one meeting with Naji Al-Hadithi and asking for permission for a four-wire and that was that. It was constant waiting, constant pressure, working under very difficult circumstances.
With the Iraqi authorities, it was a long, long process trying to gain their confidence while trying to supply CNN with balanced and fair journalism. And it was really in Iraq that I learned how to be patient. Journalists by nature are not patient people, but in Iraq, that patience and that tenacity really paid off, and I think one of the scenes in the movie that illustrates that is when the Wiener character first meets Naji and spends basically twelve hours sitting in a waiting room.
HBO
It's a terrific scene, very funny.
ROBERT WIENER
Yeah, and that is based on fact. And that's what it took. But let me say that that scene was repeated many, many times over a six-month period.
HBO
What was the feeling in the streets at the time?
ROBERT WIENER
Well I spent six months in Baghdad prior to the war, was there during the war, and made some forty trips to Baghdad since the war, and have been treated with nothing but respect by the Iraqi people. One can walk the streets of Baghdad never feeling threatened, even as an American whose country bombed Iraq.
I dare say that if the shoe were on the other foot, an Iraqi journalist would probably be torn limb from limb if he or she were walking around Washington D.C., following an Iraqi bombardment of our nation's capital.
But I personally think that Mr. Bush's policy towards Iraq is completely misguided. When you read the updated version of "Live from Baghdad," which St. Martin's Press is publishing, I write a ten year after epilogue, in which I basically say that I think Bush has got as much foreign policy know-how as my pet cat.
HBO
(LAUGHTER) Tell us about the recreation of the first night of bombings. How does it compare to what actually happened?
ROBERT WIENER
Let me tell you straight. No one in 906 (the Al-Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad where CNN reported from) was blown across the room the way it's portrayed in the movie. I was blown across the room when a cruise missile hit the gardens of the Al-Rasheed Hotel during the war, but this was after Bernie and John had left. When the Iraqis came to room 906, and tried to force Peter to go down to the bomb shelter, there were never any soldiers, and Peter certainly didn't stand on the ledge of the building. [LAUGHTER] But... it's a great scene in the movie!
HBO
Terrifically dramatic.
ROBERT WIENER
Yes. The essence is there.
HBO
So you were in the middle of bombs. You were actually blown across a room?
ROBERT WIENER
Yeah, I was. And it was absolutely frightening. It was terrifying. And it went on for days and nights, but you know, the curious thing is that - and why I think people are gonna like this movie a lot is - if you read the memoirs of George Bush (senior) and Brent Scowcroft, if you speak to people - and there were a close to a billion people around the globe watching CNN that first night - people are absolutely convinced that they actually saw Bernie and Peter and John reporting, that they saw the bombs. They saw nothing. They saw simply a television screen with their photos. But this movie will show them what they imagined they saw.
HBO
So in their memory of that event, they believe they saw those CNN correspondents reporting live?
ROBERT WIENER
Absolutely. If you read George (H.W.) Bush's memoirs, Bush writes, I remember calling Barbara down to the study and us watching Bernie Shaw reporting as the bombs fell all around him, and we could see that. Well, they saw no such thing.
HBO
Amazing.
ROBERT WIENER
They saw a slide. It's that kind of seminal event in history that was so unique that people have a mindset that they actually saw the bombardment on the opening night, when actually the first pictures of the bombardment did not reach Ahman via land for at least twenty-four hours after the war started.
HBO
What was so unprecedented about what you and your colleagues pulled off? As opposed to say coverage of the war in Vietnam?
ROBERT WIENER
Well, in Vietnam, of course, God knows a lot of reporters lost their lives doing just that. And the war was brought via film and via satellite into the living rooms of America. But there was never any live capacity to cover Vietnam. And while CNN was live when the Berlin Wall fell, and live in Tiananmen Square, and live during the Romanian Revolution, and live in Prague during the Velvet Revolution, this was the first time that a war was reported in real time from behind the lines. And I venture to say that will never happen again, where one network will be able to do that.
HBO
Was there a defining moment, and unexpected defining moment for you, and if so, what was it?
ROBERT WIENER
Well, I tell you, I think the defining moment for those of us at CNN who were there, and this is depicted in the movie, is I had great hope that at the last minute, war would be avoided, and when we were listening in on the four-wire, and when Secretary of State, James Baker came out of his talks and said regrettably, ladies and gentlemen, after six hours, there is nothing new that leads me to believe that Iraq has any intention of leaving Kuwait. At that point, and I believe that was January 9th- at that point, we all, sitting around in room 906, listening to this, knew that war was coming.
And then of course the decision whether to stay or go was the toughest decision that I had to make. And the toughest decision for many of my colleagues.
HBO
Tell us a little about working with Mick Jackson, the director.
ROBERT WIENER
I was really amazed. I think that Mick Jackson went to great lengths, and HBO went to great lengths, to put enormous production value into the film. When I was out in Los Angeles and visited the set, the CNN newsroom that was recreated felt very real. The suite of rooms at the Al-Rasheed felt very real. Mr. Jackson, took a lot of care to be as accurate as possible in reconstructing the Al-Rasheed and the Ambassador's residence and the Iraqi television station. And I think he succeeded.
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