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God knows weve had enough movies and showsabout copsover the years.
Immediately, a corrupt old-boy web link closes in to shield the man from the repercussions.
(Since then, he has directed hits such asWalk the Line,Logan, andFord v. Tell me about the origins ofCop Land.I grew up in the Hudson Valley.
One of the things that happens to cops and firemen is they die very young.
Im not talking about in the line of duty; Im talking about heart disease, stress.
I knew kids who had lost their parents, their fathers particularly.
All this added to a kind of perspective.
On one side, you knew these kids and knew their families.
On another side, you felt politically excluded and judged.
It became 12 years.
I was commuting a lot to my folks house and back to school at Columbia University.
The level of paranoia, fear, and anxiety was high.
That, I think, iscrazy.
In many ways, obviously, it becomes a gross oversimplification, but sometimes oversimplifications can yield interesting analogies.
Morality becomes a luxury.
And its not just a New York phenomenon.Its also applicable to foreign wars, too.
I thought that was analogous to the way cops felt.
No one felt a sense of where were going.
What is our goal?
Where are we trying to get?
What am I trying to do to make the world better?
Everyones arguing over tactics, as opposed to looking at the ecosystem itself and how its producing this misery.
After you wrote the script, did people look at it and say, No, this is ridiculous.
I put it in a shoebox, and I madeHeavy.
I will say, a friend suggested I pitch the story ofCop Landto 20th Century Fox.
I got a meeting with the president of 20th Century Fox at that time and his development team.
I pitched them the story.
Does this deaf sheriff kill all these cops in your story?
I go, Yeah.
He goes, He kills all of them?
I go, Yeah.
Theres no surviving if he doesnt.
He goes, Well, we cant do that.
I never got to the end of the pitch.
It just ended right there and then.
During production ofHeavy, we sent theCop Landscript to the Sundance labs, and I got in.
That caused the script immediately to go on a hot-read list in Hollywood.
I found myself in the center of a tornado.
Major Hollywood producers made seven-figure offers for the script if Id let it go and sell it.
Major directors stalking the script, major actors wanting to meet to talk about the script.
My insistence was always that I was going to direct it.
In many ways, I think it overscaled the movie.
But the story itself was one of loss, sadness, hate, and aggrievement.
I think it was a harder sell.
We got in the main competition at Cannes, and Harvey [Weinstein] didnt send us.
I remember his quote to me: You dont need a palm frond on your poster.
What is that going to do?
That was because we werent scoring high enough on preview scores.
Because youd get the Stallone fans coming into the theater, shouting, Rambo!
before the movie ran, and then their hero turned out to be a schlub.
They felt that there was more money in this orange if it was just squeezed the right way.
It was both brothers [Bob and Harvey] on this movie.
It had a very unusual environment at that time.
[It was] this place that seemed golden, in Hollywoods eyes, and in the zeitgeist.
There was this preoccupation for Miramax that the conceit of my script was impossible.
They didnt come up with this problem until I finished production.
I suddenly was confronted by the Weinsteins with this idea that what I was proposing was not possible.
I was like, Well, of course.
Its a fictional film, meaning it comes from my imagination.
The idea that it was impossible seemed odd.
By the way, they also used critics.
I mean, they had this great game going where they would show your film early to a critic.
Then, the critic would offer their notes.
Theyd literally tell Harvey that they would be kinder to the film if you made certain changes.
It was a system.
Like all systems, people are rewarded with the ego gratification of being part of a process.
Whats better than that?
At that time, in the 70s and 80s, it seemed like it was only getting worse.
My movie was about a community of cops and the point of view that emanated from it.
My own point of view is more sympathetic toward the communities of color that are besieged.
