bridge of spies
Spielberg and Hanks reunite for a Cold War spy story.
This is my fourth collaboration with Steven, plus we’ve worked extensively on some miniseries together,” booms Tom Hanks, his gusto tempered not one jot by the fearsome cold that has him unleashing a volley of coughs between sentences. Not wishing to contaminate Total Film, he insists on an elbow bump by way of greeting, then settles into an armchair in an expansive suite at the Ritz Carlton hotel, Manhattan. He adjusts his baseball cap.
“The first collaboration [ Saving Private Ryan] was such a huge emotional saga,” he continues. “At that point, World War 2 movies had just become genre pieces or caper
movies; no one bothered with going back and re-examining, or deconstructing the myths – particularly D-Day – or questioning what it really meant to the human condition, both then and now. It was bigger than anything I had experienced before. Powered by that, the next times we worked together, we had no period where we had to get to know each other. It’s a very clean and wonderful way of working. I can say, ‘Well, I think that’s a stupid idea’; he can say, ‘I see what you’re trying. It ain’t working.’”
It’s not hard to see why Spielberg and Hanks reunited for another war story in the form of
Bridge Of Spies. Both are history nuts who grew up in the shadow of the Cold War, and this particular true-life tale – populated by men in hats and spilling over with subterfuge, suspense and tightly wound set-pieces – revolves around an upstanding Brooklyn insurance lawyer, James Donovan, who fits Hanks as snugly as Atticus Finch fitted Gregory Peck.
Donovan’s extraordinary tale was brought to executives at DreamWorks by London-based playwright and TV writer Matt Charman, who stumbled upon it via a footnote in a biography on John F. Kennedy. The kind of story you just couldn’t make up, it concerned a Russian sleeper spy, Rudolf Abel, who was arrested by the FBI in 1957 and charged with sending coded messages back to Russia. Required to grant Abel an independent defence, the US government turned to Donovan, who duly accepted at considerable cost to himself and his family given anyone standing within 1000ft of a ‘Red’ was viewed as a traitor.
But that was just the start. Donovan, a deeply moral man dedicated to the principles of justice, provided a far more robust defence for Abel than anyone expected, and subsequently rescued him from the expected death penalty. Good job, too: when US pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down in a U-2 spy plane in
Soviet airspace, Donovan was the man who the CIA charged with visiting Berlin to negotiate an exchange, Powers for Abel.
“My father had gone to Russia during the Cold War on a foreign exchange right after Francis Gary Powers was shot down,” says Spielberg, now 68 years young and still sprightly and twinkle-eyed. “My dad and three other associates from General Electric stood in line because they were putting Powers’ flight suit, helmet and the remains of the U-2 on display for everybody in Russia to see what America had done. A couple of Russian military officials approached and asked for their passports, saw they were Americans and got them to the head of the line. This Russian pointed to my dad and his friends and said, ‘Look what your country is doing to us’. I never forgot that story. And because of that, I never forgot what happened to Francis Gary Powers.”
Hanks, 10 years younger than Spielberg, was a nipper during the Cold War, but he too has strong memories of that perilous time. “It was part and parcel to every one of our classes,” he bellows. “If we took a geography class, we looked at a map, in which half of it was red.” He pauses to honk into a handkerchief. “There was this episode of Star Trek that really represented the thinking of the ’60s as far as I’m concerned. There was a historian. He’s yelling at Captain Kirk. He says [ shouts even
louder] ‘Captain Kirk! Will this be like the 2.3 million people who died in your First World War? Will this be equal to the 60 million who died in your Second World War? Will this be another 365 million who died in your Third World War?’ And there it was. There was going to be a Third World War. Sooner or later those red guys on the other side of the world were going to either force us to push the button or they were going to push the button themselves.”
SPIES LIKE US
Of course, Spielberg draws from movies and pop culture as much as from life, so there was another attraction to Bridge Of Spies. Unlike 1941, 1941, Empire Of The Sun, Schindler’s List and
Saving Private Ryan, all of which are located during World War 2, Bridge Of Spies, set as it is during a war for information, allowed him to indulge his lifelong love of espionage.
“I love spy movies!” he says. “I love John le Carré, the James Bond movies, Mad magazine and the infamous ‘Spy vs. Spy’ column that
'IT ISN'T EASY TO ROOT FOR A SPY, BUT IN THIS CASE WE DO...' STEVEN SPIELBERG
I grew up with, so spying has always been on my mind.” But this is the autumnal Spielberg who’s drawn to sombre, thorny themes, so don’t expect glamorous ladies, rocket-in-pocket gadgets and ballistic set-pieces. What appealed about Charman’s screenplay, which was given a polish by the Coen brothers in order to dig deeper into the characters, enrich the dialogue and bring life’s absurdities into sharp focus, was that its adventure came with complexity.
“It wasn’t just shadows and light and spies in a stereotypical way,” nods Spielberg. “It’s spies that we wouldn’t think twice about. We wouldn’t even notice them let alone figure out they’re here to do a mission against our national security.”
Which brings us to Rudolf Abel. Played by Mark Rylance, the legendary English stage actor with three Tony Awards and two Olivier Awards to his name, Abel is a gentle, interior, fastidious man, all muffle and shuffle.
“I went on the internet, found books,” shrugs Rylance, admitting he’d not even heard of the Russian spy when Spielberg came a-calling. The pair, who went on to make BFG, had never previously worked together, but they shared history: Spielberg cast Rylance in Empire Of The
Sun in 1986 before the actor dropped out for a theatre job, and they’d reconnected in 2013 when the director slipped backstage to say hello after Rylance had crushed a Broadway production of The Twelfth Night.
“The books about Abel that were useful are the ones written by the artists who worked with him when he was pretending to be an artist in Brooklyn in that warehouse,” he says. “One particular painter became very close, and was completely surprised when he was arrested. This guy actually was so upset by it that he tried to visit Abel in Russia later on, but wasn’t able to make contact with him.”
Information on Abel is scarce, but Rylance trawled through whatever there was – FBI transcripts, snippets of footage, descriptions by colleagues – to build the character, from his soft Scottish accent to his unassuming posture to his constant dabbing at his nose with a handkerchief (“He had a nasal problem so he always had 20 handkerchiefs drying in his studio”). Hanks, on the other hand, pretty much is Donovan, their moral fibres entwined. “Well, you know, the stuff I’ve done – Apollo 13, Saving
Private Ryan, Cast Away – I get it,” he nods when it’s suggested his face could be on Mount Rushmore. “Not that I’d put this face on Mount Rushmore. Look, I’m not a muscle man and I’m not a superhero. Even in the Da Vinci movies, I get beat up more than I do anything else. But the logic of how I ended up here is relatively irrefutable. I do have that kind of reputation in the work I’ve done; the characters earn those places. Part of it is getting older. I spent a long time in my 20s and 30s just playing the guy who couldn’t get laid. Then I just said, ‘I’m not playing pussies anymore. Because one, I’ve exhausted it, and secondly, I’m too old to play a pussy now.’ Look, I became a dad, I got married, I went through all kinds of things like that. And I must say, the sort of roles that I’ve often been able to do have been guys who have been wrestling with bigger versions of moments of humanity I think I’ve wrestled with as a human being, as a dad and husband, and an American.”
KEEPING IT REAL
Beginning principal photography in September 2014 and shooting in New York, Germany and Poland, Spielberg, as ever, provided the most authentic environments possible for his actors. A Hitchcockian chase on a Manhattan subway
was shot at the Metro Station at Broad Street, with production designer Adam Stockhausen swapping out signage and lighting fixtures, while actual subway cars from the 1960s were utilised. Three hundred yards of the Berlin Wall were reconstructed with the original materials and measurements. And the Glienicke Bridge, which once separated East and West Berlin and served as the location of the Abel/Powers exchange, was cordoned off for Spielberg to recreate history. Add in Kasia Walicka-Maimone’s terrific costumes, with some scenes featuring 300 kitted-out extras, and a persuasive palette – green, maroons and yellows for Brooklyn, blacks and greys for Berlin – and it’s like stepping back in time.
“The attention to detail, and the money they have to invest in it!” whistles Rylance, stressing it was a big help to the actors. “But my God, those were two absolutely freezing nights on the Glienicke Bridge!”
Hanks is in firm agreement. “It’s a massive aid, if nothing other than to remind us all of the responsibility,” he starts before riding out an explosive coughing fit. “When you’re standing on the Glienicke Bridge, the far side, which was the East, is not very developed. And so when the sun came down, it was pitch black over there, much like East Germany was when the sun went down. It’s a huge, magical factor.”
Watching the scene is magical, too – the recreation is a masterclass in suspense cinema, painted to perfection by Polish DoP Janusz Kaminski, who here works with Spielberg for the 14th time. In stark contrast, composer Thomas Newman ( WALL·E, Skyfall) makes his Spielberg debut, having stepped in when poor health prevented John Williams from continuing his record of scoring every one of the director’s films since The Color Purple in 1985. So devastated was Spielberg that he initially considered forgoing a score altogether, but soon decided to trust in Newman, whose understated piano tinkles and orchestral swells are sparingly used. The score, like the screenplay, is careful to avoid political bias.
“One of the things I loved about this story was that everyone you think should be wearing a black hat isn’t necessarily wearing that hat,” says Spielberg. “It isn’t easy to root for someone who is a spy against the security of our nation… how could we possibly come out on the other end of this experience caring about this person? But in this case we do, and that was something that made me want to get involved.”
Indeed, for all the awards-worthy craft on display and in spite of the contained, precisely orchestrated set-pieces, what is most intriguing about Bridge Of Spies is that Donovan and Abel develop a strong respect for one another. They might reside on opposing sides of the Iron Curtain but both are men of scrupulous loyalty and honour, guided through life by unwavering codes of conduct.
“I googled and went on YouTube, and just put in ‘James Donovan’, and one of the first pieces of film I saw was him explaining during the trial his entire reason for taking the case,” explains Hanks. “He said, ‘This man is not a traitor. You can’t execute this man for being a traitor because he’s not an American, and only an American could commit treason in the United States of America. And in fact, he’s a spy who’s doing a job, just like we have spies in Russia that are doing their job.’ The truth is, Rudolf Abel was a stand-up guy. He didn’t cave, he didn’t turn in his country,
didn’t try to bribe his way out of it.” Watching Donovan and Abel share a screen is captivating. Equally captivating is taking a step back to watch Hanks and Rylance share a screen – icon of film versus icon of stage. Was there a clash of styles, or at least a friction that made for an interesting dynamic?
“I think Tom’s technique is far superior to mine,” says Rylance modestly. “I was bowled over watching his performance. You just don’t have the impression of the power of what he is doing when you’re on set. And yet when you see it [ on screen]… it’s so still, so pure. He also knows how to use his own sense of decency, his own solid presence. He’s gold dust for a director in this kind of role. It was a lesson to me. I’m not experienced enough. It’s still odd for me not to be the primary storyteller. In the theatre, it’s me and the audience. I’m the editor, cameraman. I vary pace. I give focus to other actors. I take focus. I can kill the humour. I can increase the humour. In film, that’s none of my business. The director does all of that stuff. I still have a level of distance to go before I get really comfortable with that.”
Hanks waves away such humility. “Mark is making this uncanny transition from being a pure stage actor to someone who can do both,” he points out. “You can see how the disciplines that have made him who he is translate to the soundstage. Some stage actors can become wooden, mechanical. But Mark made it just quieter and quieter and quieter. He would take a shift of a couple of degrees or wait a little bit longer to answer my question; I found myself as Donovan almost constantly leaning forward to hear what he was going to say. It means the two of us are inside a scene, really listening to what the other person says. The dude’s fascinating.”
Make that two fascinating dudes in a fascinating film. Who knows, Bridge Of Spies might just change people’s perceptions of the Cold War in much the manner that Saving
Private Ryan changed younger generations’ outlook on World War 2. Hanks nods. “I think that period is, by and large, defined by really quite too simplistic terms,” he says. “This can demythologise the Cold War.”
And provide audiences with some expert thrills whilst it’s at it.
Bridge Of Spies opens on 27 November.
'I WAS BOWLED OVER BY TOM HANKS- HE WAS SO PURE' MARK RYLANCE