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man.with.guts An interview with filmmaker John Sayles, director of the spanish-language film "Men with Guns." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BY MICHAEL SNYDER Certainly one has learned to expect the eclectic from film director John Sayles, whose canon includes everything from satirical sci-fi ("The Brother From Another Planet") and historical docudrama ("Eight Men Out" and "Matewan") to fanciful Irish folk tale ("The Secret of Roan Inish") and lesbian coming-out story ("Lianna"). In 1996, Sayles was on a roll with "Lone Star," the most celebrated and successful movie of his filmmaking career. His tale of interwoven American and Hispanic families in a Texas border town was honored with an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay and saw bigger box office receipts than any of his other films, including "City of Hope" and "Passionfish." Yet Sayles, who is also an accomplished novelist and author of short stories, did not do the obvious with his follow-up to "Lone Star." Rather than use his growing clout to go the big-budget/big-star Hollywood route, this Schenectady, N.Y.-born maverick made what is essentially a Spanish-language film, "Men With Guns (Hombres Armados)" -- complete with subtitles. But "Men With Guns" is a powerful, provocative work whose themes of cultural difference transcend language. The story of an aging Latin American doctor (Federico Luppi) who travels from the city to rural parts of his revolution-torn country in search of his former students, "Men With Guns" is about the journey of an idealist who finds himself alienated from his countrymen, a stranger in his homeland. Recently, Sayles spoke with Salon about "Men With Guns," colorblind casting and the difference between politically correct and politically conscious filmmaking. Was it a risky proposition for you to do a film in a language other than English? Scorsese just did it with "Kundun," which is set in Tibet. John Frankenheimer did it a couple of times. I'm fluent enough in Spanish to direct a movie in it. I can speak it and write it. I only have trouble if there are three people in a room speaking Spanish as the same time. As far as "Men With Guns," it was a combination of the story and the actors. The lead actor, Federico Luppi, was someone I wanted to work with. He speaks English, and that might have worked, but I've seen Marcello Mastroianni and Gerard Depardieu speak English in films and I always think it affects their acting. The main character in this film learns that not everyone in his Latin American country speaks the same language once he gets out of his capital city. In a way, it puts the English-speaking audience in his place. It's an interesting phenomenon: If a tree falls and it doesn't fall on an American, did it happen? The studios think that way, so "Under Fire" was about an American in the middle of a foreign civil war. This is the same topic from the view of a Latin American in his own country. But a lot of things I had in mind writing it didn't even have to necessarily happen in Latin America. It's really a generic title: "Men With Guns." I put in elements of Bosnia, Vietnam, Russia. Won't the distribution of a film like "Men With Guns" be difficult? The people at Sony Classics have marketed Depardieu and other foreign stars and subtitled films. They'll treat this the same way and put it in those theaters that present subtitled movies. If we get good reviews, we'll hope that the very few moviegoers that check out a specific director will go see it. That core audience is about 5 percent of the overall box office. If we get them, I'll be happy. For me, the relative commercial success of "Lone Star" was a pleasant surprise. It broke out of the art houses and played the malls. I think its success had a lot to do with it being set in Texas. It's is a big state with a lot of people fascinated about their own history. "Lone Star" also had a Latin American flavor. Is there a particular obsession at work? Not really. I'm interested in making movies about cultures clashing, and the U.S.-Mexico border is our hottest border -- it's certainly not the one between the U.S. and Canada. But I am comfortable around Hispanic culture. I spent a lot of time as a kid in Miami. My grandparents lived there. After the Bay of Pigs, Miami really changed. I eventually was inspired to write a novel about the Cuban community. And for years, I lived in Southern California in various Mexican or Chicano neighborhoods, so I like and understand aspects of the culture. But my next movie takes place in Alaska. It's not like I'm going to be stuck doing the Spanish thing. It's just the foreign culture that I'm most familiar with. And I'm fascinated by that split between First World and Third World that you find in Latin America and don't find here. N E X T_P A G E _| Politically correct or just conscious?

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