EXAMINING TRUTH: An interview with Interview With The Assassin writer/director Neil Burger. By Warren Curry 11/12/02 Part 2 of 2

A basic rule about writing a screenplay is that you need to have a likeable protagonist, and Walter is anything but that. Did this ever cause you concern?

Well, I don't think that's quite accurate, and I got this lesson from a movie like Taxi Driver. Travis Bickle really isn't a likeable character. There's something sympathetic, he seems like a disturbed young man, but he's not likeable. I think the most important thing is not that the main character be likeable, but that he be fascinating; Walter is fascinating. However, I think you're right to a degree. Whoever is going to take you through the movie can't be so repulsive that you don't want to go on that journey with him. I was cognizant of that -- that he couldn't be so heinous that you'd be repulsed by him. I did know that he had to be fascinating enough that you wanted to hear what this guy said and really find out who he was.

A little over a decade ago this country was inundated by the JFK assassination and conspiracy theories via a little movie that Oliver Stone made. Do you think this may serve as a deterrent to people's willingness to give your film a fair chance?

Possibly. To some people it's kind of a geeky subject. There's something sort of embarrassing about the subject of conspiracy theories. But, regardless of the movie JFK, it's still a completely unresolved historical issue. It is history, and it's actually a very important cultural turning point in our country that influences the way we regard everything now. How we regard authority and how we regard belief. One always assumes now that if there's a priest in a movie, he's the villain. If there's a detective in the movie, it's really his boss that's the crook. The whole idea of conspiracies and not trusting the people who are in authority, or that are closest to you, has just become ingrained in culture. JFK is a movie that kind of wraps all of these conspiracy theories into one movie, and it's amazing in its ability to do that. (Interview With The Assassin) is a very personal movie; this movie about two men who feel they are nobodies and what they do to try and matter more in the world. They're sort of attaching themselves to this historic event, but it's really about the two men and the power relationship between them.

40 years down the line and the JFK assassination is just as much a mystery as ever. Do you think we'll ever find out the truth?

I think we've got about twenty more years. I think everyone who had any sort of relationship to it will be dead in about twenty years. I don't know. I met a guy recently who was at one of the screenings who has come across an, until now, unknown witness and associate of Oswald's -- a woman actually, who has a completely different take on the whole thing. The guy that I met -- he's a researcher -- I'm pretty sure is telling truth; whether she is, I don't know.

What sort of audience do you think is going to appreciate Interview With The Assassin?

When I was writing it and shooting it, I thought it was going to be people in their late 20s and 30s. But as we've been showing it, it's been extraordinary -- from college kids to people who are in their 60s, people really dig it. It's a very different kind of film and people really haven't seen a story told like this before. So far, across the board, people have been getting it. (The film has played) at film festivals and special screenings, so perhaps it's a more informed audience, but we've shown it to all sorts of people. They have different responses and like it for different reasons, but ultimately it is this intense thriller and people are drawn into and unnerved by it. I think they enjoy that experience.

What are you working on next?

I'm adapting a Dashiell Hammett short story called The Big Knockover that I'm attached to direct. I'm writing that and we're updating it.

Are you going to remain faithful to the noir aspect of that story?

As much as we can. We're updating it, and we're not going to replicate someone else's noir style, because they weren't replicating anything when they were writing noir. We're going to be true to (the idea of) if Dashiell Hamet was living today, how would he be writing this story. It will have its own energy that is appropriate for today, but is still expressive of those themes.

For the record, what is your theory about the Kennedy assassination?

I just don't know. I'd say that I had some theories I've been able to put aside, having done a lot of research and things like that. In general, it is this confounding mystery and I still don't know. I follow these paths of evidence and then they just kind of disappear or fold back on themselves. The deeper you go into it, it can cause a kind of psychosis.

(Read Warren's review of Interview With The Assassin.)

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