THE STATEMENT

interview |
Despicable
the
Michael Caine
Something very strange happened
to Michael Caine after filming
wrapped on The Statement. It was
something that had never happened to
him before; and something that will
sound familiar to anyone who’s taken
the most basic psychology course.
He forgot everything.
It was like when abuse victims block
out traumatic events — “except the
abuse was against me, from the
character,” Caine explains in that
instantly recognizable cockney lilt. The
two-time Oscar winner (for Hannah and
Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules) is
on the phone from the 200-year-old
barn he has transformed into a home
in the English countryside near London.
In the Norman Jewison-directed political
thriller, Caine plays Pierre Brossard,
a Frenchman who was responsible for
the execution of seven Jews while he was
an officer in the Vichy Milice during
World War Two. Ever since, he has been
helped by sympathetic forces within the
French government and the Catholic
Church to evade Nazi hunters, including
a motivated magistrate (Tilda Swinton)
and an army colonel (Jeremy Northam).
The film is based on the Brian Moore
novel of the same name, which was, in
turn, inspired by the real-life case of
French war criminal Paul Touvier.
“I’ve never disliked anyone quite as
much,” Caine says of Brossard. “I mean,
I’ve played quite a few villains, but
there’s always a lovable side to them —
gangsters and all that, you know, they
love their mums and that sort of thing.
But this is the most despicable person
ONE OF FILM HISTORY’S MOST AFFABLE OL’ BLOKES TAKES ON THE
MOST DISTURBING ROLE OF HIS CAREER, A NAZI COLLABORATOR IN
NORMAN JEWISON’S THE STATEMENT I BY MARNI WEISZ
I’ve ever played. And I cut myself off
mentally from him, so the day I finished
the film I couldn’t remember a thing
about what I’d done.”
The hate-filled Brossard couldn’t be
much further from Caine in terms of
personality and world outlook. The
amiable Brit with a filmography that
stretches back five decades proudly
extols his eclectic ethnic influences. His
father was Catholic, his mother was
Protestant, he’s married to a Muslim
and was educated by Jews after being
evacuated to a Jewish school as a boy
during World War Two (a bit of makeup
quickened his age from 70 to 80 for
The Statement).
“So when you start talking to me about
religion I’m very knowledgeable on all of
them,” he says with a laugh. “And not
from the outside, from the inside.”
Like Caine, the film itself benefits
from having a number of cultural
“This is the most
despicable person
I’ve ever played.
And I cut myself off
mentally from him,
so the day I finished
the fiIm I couldn’t
remember a thing”
famous 28 | january 2004
influences. It was shot in France
(locations ranged from Paris to the
seaside city of Nice), starred only
British actors playing French characters
(“We couldn’t have a real French person
in it, otherwise it would have made us
look like we were English,” explains
Caine), and was co-produced by yet
another country — Canada.
Robert Lantos, founder of Torontobased
Serendipity Point Films (Ararat,
Men with Brooms) bought the rights to
the book soon after it was published
eight years ago. And The Statement is the
first Canadian movie ever helmed by,
arguably, our country’s most celebrated
director, 77-year-old Jewison (Moonstruck,
In the Heat of the Night).
Plus, Jewison’s son, Kevin Jewison,
served as director of photography.
“There were lots of Canadians
about,” says Caine. “All the production
hierarchy were Canadian, we had a lady
line producer who was a Canadian, we
had a continuity woman who was
Canadian, I think, although she was
French as well. I couldn’t tell who was
French Canadian and who wasn’t
because the Canadians who were
French spoke English to me.” He
laughs a bit, then adds it would have
been fine if they’d spoken French, as
he’s quite fluent, but the Canadians
thought they were being polite by
speaking English to him.
So does just having a lot of Canadians
around give a movie set a Canadian
flavour? “No, all movie people are the
same,” Caine says, bluntly. “The French
are the same, the Italians, the Germans,
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