About The Production
The start of production in Mexico City
for MAN ON FIRE marked the culmination of a 20-year odyssey by director Tony
Scott and Regency Enterprises to bring the project to the screen. Regency
owner and founder Arnon Milchan purchased motion picture rights to the 1980
novel Man on Fire by A.J. Quinnell (a pseudonym – to this day, the author’s
name remains unknown to the public). The story’s protagonist, CIA
counter-terrorist John Creasy, appeared in three subsequent Quinnell
thrillers: The Perfect Kill, The Blue Ring and Message from Hell.
Milchan recognized the book’s cinematic
potential and approached director Tony Scott, who had just helmed THE
HUNGER, to develop a film based on the novel. “The story is a huge emotional
roller-coaster ride,” says Scott. “It’s about a guy who has lost his way and
is reborn by guarding a nine-year-old-girl. When she is kidnapped, he goes
after those responsible and works his way through the kidnapping chain of
command, and he is unforgiving in his pursuit.”
Despite his enthusiasm for the project,
Scott fell out and moved on to direct TOP GUN. Nevertheless, in the almost
two decades that followed, Scott’s interest in MAN ON FIRE continued
unabated. “The project stayed with me all this time,” he says. “I never
really lost sight of it.”
Years later, producer Lucas Foster joined
forces with Regency to develop another adaptation of Man on Fire, and
two-time Oscar®-nominated screenwriter Brian Helgeland (L.A. CONFIDENTIAL,
MYSTIC RIVER) penned a new screenplay. In 2003, Tony Scott, with whom Foster
collaborated on CRIMSON TIDE, signed in to direct, nearly two decades after
he had first encountered the project. Helgeland’s initial screenplay
drafts, like the novel, were set in Italy. But Foster and Scott, realizing
that that locale and its Mafia antagonists were tired – and that kidnappings
had virtually been eliminated in Italy thanks to tough new laws – had
locations scouted in Brazil, Guatemala and Mexico.
The filmmakers’ voluminous research
revealed that kidnapping has now become a way of life in Mexico City.
“Kidnapping is a huge business there,” says Scott, “very controlled and
organized. It’s an actual industry.” Scott researched case histories of
kidnappings in Mexico and screenwriter Brian Helgeland re-engineered the
story accordingly. “The research was invaluable in bringing a verisimilitude
to the story,” says Scott. “Even if the audience doesn’t know the procedures
and worlds we detail in the film, I think it will feel real to them.”
Scott says Helgeland’s contributions to the project were invaluable. “What
Brian did so well was create two stories,” says the director. “The first
story, or first half of the film, is about a guy finding his way back into
life through this child; the second story is his quest for revenge.”
Helgeland likens MAN ON FIRE to “Beauty
and the Beast.” “Pita knows there’s a heart beating away inside of Creasy,
even if he doesn’t know it’s there,” he says. “When the thing that brings
him back to life is taken away, he becomes enraged because now his heart’s
beating again.”
Taking on the role of the “man on fire”
is two-time Academy Award® winner Denzel Washington, who previously worked
with Tony Scott on the thriller CRIMSON TIDE. Scott recognized certain
qualities in the actor that would serve him well as Creasy. “I love Denzel’s
obsessive quality and his internal darkness,” says the director. “There’s a
hardness to Denzel that’s really interesting. He knows how to draw it out
and use it effectively. Denzel really brings across how Creasy closes
himself off as a defense mechanism against the world. So when his heart does
begin to thaw, it’s all the more moving.”
“Creasy has lost himself in alcohol, lost
his purpose and life, and couldn’t cope with what he had done as a
government operative/assassin and what he is good at,” says Washington. “He
is detached, and that’s what happens when you kill people for a living.
Creasy is a lost soul who no longer has the ability to love, and through
this little girl, he finds himself and reconnects with his soul and life.”
Indeed, despite his initial resistance to
Pita, Creasy cannot resist the youngster, who is bubbling over with life and
spirit. “She’s just exploding with possibility, emotion and curiosity – all
the things Creasy has rejected and denied himself,” says Washington.
Tony Scott and producer Lucas Foster cast
Dakota Fanning as Pita after they saw her work opposite Sean Penn in the
drama I AM SAM. Their pursuit of and faith in the young actress was more
than rewarded. “Dakota is among the most talented actresses I’ve ever worked
with, and she’s only nine!” says Foster. “She’s like the sun – a burst of
energy.” Adds Scott, “Dakota is uncanny – she’s nine going on 19. She has an
instinctual understanding of human nature. We’d be watching Denzel improvise
or pull and push scenes in different ways, and she was always able to go
with the flow.”
Fanning describes Pita as a girl who “loves life and loves to swim.” In
fact, the character’s aquatic abilities play a major role in bringing her
and Creasy together when the hardened bodyguard reluctantly agrees to coach
her in a swimming competition. While Washington trained to move and think
like a bodyguard under technical advisor and executive protection expert Don
Rosche, Fanning worked for months on her swimming, Spanish lessons (Pita,
with a Mexican father and American mother, is bi-lingual), and piano
lessons. She also spent considerable off-screen time with her on-screen
parents, Marc Anthony and Radha Mitchell, to help them bond as a family.
Bringing Creasy together
with Pita and her family is Rayburn, an old friend of Creasy’s who has found
success south of the border. At first, Scott had Oscar winner Christopher
Walken in mind to play corrupt lawyer Jordan Kalfus (a role eventually taken
by Mickey Rourke). “But I told Tony that I was fed up with playing bad
guys,” says Walken, with a laugh. “I wanted to play the good guy!” Scott was
more than happy to oblige and gave Walken the part of Rayburn. “Chris can
read the phone book and make it interesting and funny. He brings a lot of
dynamic shadings to Rayburn.”
Australian-born Radha Mitchell portrays
Pita’s mother, Lisa Ramos, the American “trophy wife” of a young Mexican
industrialist. Lisa, like Creasy, goes through a complex and unexpected
character arc, which Mitchell enjoyed bringing to life. “Initially, Lisa is
at a point of confusion, but as the story progresses she clarifies what she
wants out of life and what’s really important to her,” says Mitchell. “She
gets broken down by what happens, and she is rebuilt in a new way”
Lisa Ramos’ husband, Samuel, is a member
of the Mexican aristocracy who fears losing his lifestyle and family due to
a burdensome debt – leading him to take extreme measures that have dire
consequences. “Samuel feels a lot a lot of tension because he doesn’t have
the money he once had, and his wife loves to spend money,” says music
superstar and actor Marc Anthony, who takes on the role. “He adores his
daughter but cannot spend as much time with her as he’d like to, due to
frequent business travels.”
Anthony, who has appeared in seven
feature films, says MAN ON FIRE is his most challenging film role to date.
“I even found myself trembling at times working with Tony Scott and Denzel
Washington – they’re such formidable talents,” he says.
Famed Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini
portrays Manzano, whom the actor calls “an honest cop surrounded by
corruption.” Manzano uses Creasy – even as Creasy uses him – to fight Mexico
City’s wave of kidnappings. Scott and Helgeland created the character to
have someone to support Creasy’s relentless pursuit of the kidnappers – to
get Creasy information he wouldn’t otherwise have access to, and to have him
do what Manzano cannot do himself: find and stop the vicious kidnapping
cells.
Manzano and another character, newspaper
editor Mariana, played by Rachel Ticotin, represent a positive vision of
Mexico and provide a stark contrast to the kidnappers’ dark world of
corruption and crime. “MAN ON FIRE depicts the two halves of Mexico,” says
producer Lucas Foster. “The half that’s rampant with corruption and poverty,
and the other half made up of the people who are trying to clean up crime
and, especially kidnappings.”
Rachel Ticotin’s Mariana, looking to
expose the truth behind the kidnappings, helps Creasy make his way through
the kidnappers’ sophisticated organization. “She’s manipulating him into
doing what no one else can,” says Ticotin. “So it’s a weird relationship –
they’re using each other.”
“Creasy doesn’t know who organized the
kidnapping of Pita,” says Denzel Washington. “So he has to rely on Mariana
and Manzano. They can’t get the top guy, but Creasy can because of his
special training and the fact that he’s not encumbered by the Mexican
bureaucracy.”
Given Tony Scott’s extensive research
into Mexico and the social and political conditions that led to its ranking
as third in the world in kidnappings, it’s not surprising that the country
itself, as well as its capital, Mexico City, play important roles in MAN ON
FIRE. Scott captures Mexico City’s pollution, traffic and the cacophony that
bombard its citizens. “I wanted to make the city a major character,” says
Scott. “It has a rich cultural history and is full of visual contrasts and
architectural richness. It is sensual and beautiful and, at the same time,
it’s dark and dangerous.”
To give MAN ON FIRE a taught, claustrophobic, and reality-based feel, the
production filmed mostly on location throughout Mexico City. Shooting in the
oldest, largest and most traffic-congested city in North America was a
constant challenge. More than 50 vehicles moving cast, crew and equipment
had to negotiate the city’s narrow and crowded streets, spending hours
making their way through grinding traffic. In addition, general strikes were
an almost daily fact of life, and the filmmakers had to wade through Mexico
City’s labyrinthine bureaucracy of 17 mini-states, each with its own
municipality and governor. “But it was all worth it,” says Foster, “because
audiences will see a contemporary Mexico of extremes, brimming with light,
color and extraordinary people.”
“Extremes” might also describe Tony
Scott’s and director of photography Paul Cameron’s use of light, color,
exposures, and film processes to reflect Creasy’s emotional and
psychological upheaval during and after the kidnapping. “I like
experimenting with different cinematic methods to identify emotions,” says
Scott who, like Cameron, cut his filmmaking teeth in the
often-non-traditional world of making commercials. “The kidnapping scene
seemed a good point to try to identify the internal workings of Creasy’s
mind through cinematic technique.”
To achieve an often startling
photographic style, Scott and Cameron hand-cranked the camera to slow down
or speed up movement (a technique dating back to the silent film era), used
reversal film stock to make the colors more vivid, created multiple
exposures by imprinting three sets of images on the same plate of film, and
used Panavision XL cameras and even 16mm cameras for maximum
maneuverability. To add even greater visual impact to specific sequences,
Scott and Cameron employed multiple cameras, which often proved a formidable
challenge to the cinematographer. “Multiple cameras are insane!” Cameron
remembers. “We had to keep them all on a specific axis of light, which is
really tricky. But among the many advantages of using multiple cameras is
that you’re getting the performances precisely as they happen.”
Denzel Washington continues to be awed by
Scott’s directorial skills – and his penchant for multiple cameras. “Yeah,
we called him ‘Nine-Camera Tony’,” jokes the actor. “I didn’t know what the
heck he was doing with all those cameras [in reality, Scott used “only”
four], but it’s inspiring because he paints beautiful canvasses with them.”
Adds Washington, who made his directorial debut with ANTWONE FISHER in 2002:
“It was a real education for me as a new filmmaker.”
However formidable MAN ON FIRE’s look and
occasional non-linear editing style, Scott is quick to point out that the
technique is there to serve the story, its characters and its emotions. “The
film is an emotional journey,” says Scott. “It’s about rebirth and second
chances, and the lengths one man will go to when those very things are taken
away from him.”
Production notes (
by Brian Gallagher)
Premierefotos, April 2004:
click to enlarge
damit er dort
als Bodyguard die neunjährige Pita Ramos (DAKOTA FANNING), Tochter des
Industriellen Samuel Ramos (MARC ANTHONY) und seiner amerikanischen Ehefrau
(RADHA MITCHELL), beschützen soll.
