Director Terry George Speaks about ‘The Promise’

What role did you play in the casting?

Christian Bale was attached to the original script before I got involved and with his name in place, other great actors got involved like Oscar Isaac, James Cromwell (Ambassador Morgenthau), Jean Reno and Shohreh Aghdashloo.

We did a wide cast for the Ana character. This was a difficult role to cast. We needed a woman who had a strong and independent character who could attract 2 very different types of men. A friend sent me a Canadian fashion magazine with Charlotte LeBon on the cover. I wasn’t looking for a model, but I saw her in interviews and doing a comedy sketch on a late night show, and after I met with her I fully believed she could be Ana. Having been born in France and in the role as Ana, you could certainly believe her as an avant-garde socially liberated woman who could attract Chris Myers, but also, when she was in Constantinople, you can see how she is rediscovering her identity as an Armenian woman and would also be attracted to Michael, and how that relationship would work.

What was Kirk Kerkorian’s role in making “The Promise”?

Kirk financed the entire film. Without him, “The Promise” would not exist. He improved the script. Kirk always liked films that have this big screen narrative story line. He liked the films of David Lean, such as “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Doctor Zhivago”. The movies he liked usually had a romantic story that allows the audience to identify with the characters as if they were experiencing their difficulties and struggles.

How would you describe the filmmaking style of “The Promise”?

“The Promise” is not the kind of film that is made today. Some may call it old-fashioned filmmaking. It does have a 1970’s feel to it, and that is deliberate.  The films made today for in the international market do not cover serious topics.  This obviously is not an animated film, a superhero film, or a big action film with explosions every few minutes.

As I tell my students in my film classes, making a film is like having a bowl of cereal. You have the Frosted Flakes type of film that is very sugary and gives you a high, but is not good for you. You have the Corn Flakes type of film that has some good things associated with it and is filling. And finally, you have the Raisin Bran type of film that is good for you, is satisfying and has a positive long term effect on you. I like to make films that are educational and entertaining. I suppose I make Raisin Bran type of films.

Don Cheadle, the star of “Hotel Rwanda”, and I used to discuss the type of film we want to make. The word Peoria.  As in, is “Hotel Rwanda” going to play in Peoria? Will it be understood? Is it main stream enough? How do we make the Peoria audience understand the importance of the film? “The Promise” is meant to play in Peoria.

Do you feel “The Promise” is an authentic portrayal of the Armenian Genocide?

I learned from making “In the Name of the Father” and “Hotel Rwanda” that anything you put on the screen has to be thoroughly researched. When you are adding fictional scenes for purposes of the story, even then you cannot distort the real events and the real people you are portraying. The characters and the scenes have to accurately relate to the audience something that was going on at that time and place. I wanted to make sure that the look on the screen and the feel of the scene is real. I tried at all times to be accurate and drew heavily upon my three technical advisors to make sure that even the fictional scenes were embedded with the reality of history.

Every detail was checked and rechecked for accuracy. For example, the betrothal scene involving the dancing, the community life of the village, the paying of the dowry, as well as all the church scenes and the singing that we put on the screen are all accurate. When scouting locations in Spain, Portugal and Malta I drew upon the photographs of the period. I matched the Musa Dagh scenes to the photos that I had.

In 2 months of pre-production I did everything possible — based on the research that we did — to match the photographs that were shot in Ottoman Turkey to the locations that were available in Spain and Malta. I think there is an amazing resemblance between the locations we selected and the real ones.

I played with the notion of using subtitles, but with the five possible languages that the characters spoke, we would be entering a slippery slope which would confuse the audience. The Armenian words used in the toasting scene, that was set in Watertown, Massachusetts, was an accurate Armenian toast that was spoken in Armenian.

Did you feel any special pressure in directing “The Promise” because of expectations of the Armenians and Kerkorian’s financing?

Kirk had died before we started filming. He did okay the script. Eric Esrailian oversaw the project and represented Kirk’s point of view. From the very beginning, the plan was to follow through on Kirk’s vision of having a love story be at the front of the genocide story and provide access from an audience point of view to the violence and tragedy of the genocide.

We had only 70 days of production and for a film of this scope, we had to move quickly. We covered an amazing amount of ground in a short time.  David Lean’s films, for example, would have 6 to 9 months of shooting and a year of pre-production. I had 2 months of pre-production to pick locations and finalize details, finish the casting, and hire and organize the production crew.

I was aware of the importance of the Armenian audience to the success of this film and accordingly, I knew the value of getting the details right as best as I could, given the necessary compromise of film making.

We wanted a PG-13 rating, not an R so that teenagers and families could see the film together. We deliberately stayed away from long lingering shots of the brutality and violence that the Turks perpetrated on the Armenians in order to stay away from the R rating.

How is that you have been attracted to directing films that capture historical events?

Audiences learn more from films today than they do from history books. Today’s audiences in particular get much of their history from films, popular culture and media. Who knew about the Cambodian killing fields until the film “The Killing Fields” came out? That movie put Cambodia in the consciousness of the world. “In the Name of the Father” informed audiences on Irish politics and contemporary history. “Hotel Rwanda” educated an audience about a genocide they knew little or nothing about. “The Promise” is the first Hollywood film about the Armenian genocide and in the course of its theater run, followed by cable and DVD and Netflix, there will be a greater recognition and understanding of the Armenian genocide.

What can you say about the distribution of “The Promise”?

We have Open Road as the distributor of the film and they have had great success with important themed films. “The Promise” is scheduled to be released in the US on April 21, throughout Europe on April 28 and Asia in early May. We will have about 2,000 theatres showing “The Promise” in the US. I’m doing as much press and publicity as I can. After this interview I’m leaving for London.

Open Road certainly sees Armenians as its core audience to generate box office momentum. Even the best of films are fortunate to last three weeks in a theatrical run. The first weekend and week is of critical importance. We are hoping that the film will get great word of mouth to keep it going.  “Hotel Rwanda” was also considered a specialty film and the word of mouth kept the film going and going and their DVD sales were terrific, eventually resulting in an Oscar nomination. I’m hoping this film follows the same route. All the ancillary avenues follow the box office success in theaters.