Buffalo Soldiers Empire Magazine, August 2003
page 80, 81, 82
Way back in December 2000, Empire sent one of its writers, as we do, to the
Black Forest in Germany to have a shufty around the set of Buffalo Soldiers, a
movie in production which was described as a black comedy set on a West German
army base at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It sounded like a good
prospect. Not only did it have a classy cast: Joaquin Phoenix hot off that
year's Gladiator, the always reliable Ed Harris, Anna Paquin and Scott Glenn;
there were hip literary credentials - widely-praised cult novel - as well as a
promising second-time director in Gregor Jordon. What wasn't to like?
And so we chatted and interviewed and waved goodbye, and waited for the movie to
arrive. And waited. And waited. While we were waiting, Joaquin Phoenix shot and
released Signs, as well as It's All About Love, and started work on Ladder 49.
Ed Harris made A Beautiful Mind, Just A Dream, The Hours, Masked And Anonymous,
The Human Stain and Radio. Gregor Jordon wrote, directed and edited Ned Kelly.
The writer (Colin Kennedy) became the editor, and the question that raised
itself occasionally in editorial meetings, when anyone actually remember, was:
what the hell happened to Buffalo Soldiers?
To answer the question, we have to go forward to autumn of 2001 and a stage in
any independent movie's birth that is fraught with difficulty. Like many such
films, Buffalo Soldiers had only partial distribution in place. FilmFour, who
had provided the majority of the film's budget, were set to distribute in the
UK. But that wouldn't be enough to get anywhere near breaking even, or moving
into profit. Independent movies have to sell themselves to foreign distributors
who market them and finally do deals with exhibitors to get them into cinemas.
And it's when things unravel at this stage that films can wind up just being
another sad addition to the 60 or so per cent of British independent films that
wind up never getting a release at all.
Things were even more fraught with difficulty for Buffalo Soldiers. The film was
going to be a very hard sell in America, an English language movie's biggest
potential market. Despite the star American cast and the toning down that Gregor
Jordon had done while writing and shooting the film (in the book and early
drafts of the screenplay, Joaquin Phoenix's G.I. character is a heroin addict,
now he's just a dealer's middleman), it was till an acid attack on the American
military. And while that kind of stuff may play well in Greenwich Village, it's
going to have a tough time in Boise, Idaho.
Much to all involved's delight, however, Buffalo Soldiers seemed to have
surmounted the obstacle. Miramax, a company that had made its name dealing with
edgy material, had shown a serious interest in the film. Harvey Weinstein had
said that he "got" the movie and that his idea was to do some neat
counter-programming with it. Maybe he was thinking of piggy backing Black Hawk
Down, Ridley Scott's military behemoth then shooting, very noisily, in Morocco.
Or releasing it in the summer of 2002 for audiences jaded by the blockbuster
season. Whatever his plans were, he decided he wanted it and wrote a cheque. The
movie had the all-important US distributor. Gregor Jordon undoubtedly heaved a
sigh of relief and slept the sleep of the just that night.
The date that Weinstein, ensconced in Miramax's Lower Manhattan office, wrote on
the cheque was September 10, 2001.
Nearly two years later, Gregor Jordon is sitting in a quiet corner of a
restaurant just off London's Gloucester Road.
A few weeks ago he made a decision which, given the movie's prolonged gestation,
may appear unusual. He asked Miramax and its new British distributors, Pathé,
to change the movie's release date. It was to be put back again.
"I asked them to do it," he smiles, still seemingly amazed that he
made the call. "It was scheduled to go out in early May, but we were in the
middle of The War In Iraq, "he remembers, pouring himself a cup of tea.
"I just thought, 'This is not the time to be putting this movie out. If we
leave it a couple of months, the war'll be over and off all the front pages.
Then we'll go.'"
It's the third time Buffalo Soldiers has been shunted around the schedules, this
time only by a matter of a few weeks, but after September 11, some were
expressing doubts that it would ever see the light of day. "Look, if we'd
been a day later, no-one would have bought it anyway," says Jordon.
"The subject matter aside, no-one bought anything after September the 11th.
But certainly, then the film became a bit of a hot potato because everyone was
so hysterical, understandably." And Miramax put Buffalo Soldiers' US
release on hold, indefinitely.
Then, just when things didn't look like they could get any worse for Buffalo
Soldiers' prospects, inevitably they did. In July 2002, Channel 4 announced the
effective closure of their production and distribution offshoot, FilmFour. Now
the movie was in the unenviable position of having the American distributor who
was unlikely to want to distribute it in the near future, and no British
distributor at all. Although for Jordon, the effects of the FilmFour collapse
proved more personal than professional. "It had an emotional effect,"
he remembers. "All the people who had been involved in making the film were
out of a job. They weren't going to see it get a release, so it was kind of
awful because they were terrific, a very filmmaker-friendly company. Luckily,
though the film was eventually sold on to Pathé, so I hope that really it won't
have any effect on the way the film gets distributed."
But now that, the global situation allowing, Buffalo Soldiers is finally coming
out, how are the Americans going to take to their military being depicted as a
set of smack-addled, murderous buffoons? "I think, I hope, smarter
Americans will look at it as an analysis of an idea," says Jordon.
"It's not really specifically about the American army. The idea is really
encapsulated in the Nietzsche quotation at the beginning of the book: 'When
there is peace, the warlike man attacks himself.'" Or, the slightly more
direct version expressed in the screenplay: "War is hell, but peace if
fu**ing boring."
"Yeah, but look," Jordon continues, "if they're offended, well,
it's not my fault. When we started, the major worry was the portrayal of drugs.
Now you'll look at it and say, 'Well, there are some drugs in it, but it's
really all about corruption in the US army.' The world changed under us. When we
started there was no September the 11th. There was no George W. Bush. It crossed
my mind that the film might never actual get released, briefly I suppose. But I
always knew that this was going to be a very difficult film to release at the
best of times. It's not a conventional film, even if you ignore the polities of
it. This is an anti-hero story, and before September the 11th it looked to be a
bit lighter almost, more of a romp. No-one looked at Three Kings and said it was
a dark piece of filmmaking. Look at it now and you'd say it was hardcore."
It's unlikely, of course, that Gregor Jordon could have imagined that not only
would he still be talking about Buffalo Soldiers over three years since he spoke
to Empire for the first time, but that it wouldn't have even been released. And
that then it was, it would be entering uncharted waters. Maybe, therefore, it's
that the film simply refuses to die that leaves him hopeful for it's chances at
the box office.
"You know, I'm optimistic," he concludes. "Maybe in a strange way
now is the best time to release the movie. At least now," he smiles,
"it's got a shot."
Buffalo Soldiers is released
on July 18 and is reviewed on page 53.