Marine Corps Fights to Polish Image in 'Windtalkers'
Jaime Jeske
Marine Corps Fights to Polish Image in 'Windtalkers'
By David Robb
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, June 15, 2002; Page C01
LOS ANGELES
In the original screenplay for the new MGM movie "Windtalkers," a Marine
nicknamed "The Dentist" creeps across a battlefield strewn with the
bodies of Japanese soldiers. "The Dentist bent over a dead Japanese
soldier, doing what he does, relieving the dead of the gold in their
mouth," the original script reads. "The Dentist twists his bayonet,
struggles to get the gold nugget out of the corpse's teeth."
"Come to Poppa," says The Dentist.
It's a grisly scene, one of several that you won't see in the World War
II-era movie -- directed by John Woo and starring Nicolas Cage,
Christian Slater and Adam Beach -- which opened yesterday. The scene was
written out of the script after the Marine Corps and the Department of
Defense -- which lent production assistance to the movie -- complained
about it.
When filmmakers ask the Defense Department for help, they have to submit
their screenplays to Phil Strub, the head of the department's film and
TV liaison office in Washington. He reviews them for accuracy and to
determine whether they will help the military's recruiting efforts.
Hollywood's top producers regularly trek to Strub's office, pleading for
assistance. Strub has clout. If he likes a script, he can recommend that
the Pentagon give the movie's producers access to billions of dollars'
worth of military hardware -- ships, airplanes and tanks. But if he
doesn't like a script, the producers will have to make the changes he
recommends if they want the military's assistance.
That's what happened to "Windtalkers," which tells the story of Marines
assigned to guard the Navajo "code talkers" who used their unique
language to confound Japanese code breakers.
After receiving the original "Windtalkers" script on Jan. 28, 2000,
Strub passed it along to Capt. Matt Morgan, the head of the Marine
Corps' film liaison office in Los Angeles. Morgan liked the script, but
had some major reservations. He discussed the Dentist scene in a March
3, 2000, memo to Strub.
"This has to go," Morgan wrote. "The activity is un-Marine. . . . I
recommend these characters be looting the dead for intelligence, or
military souvenirs -- swords, knives, field glasses. Loot is still not
cool, but more realistic and less brutal."
Strub agreed. "Stealing gold teeth, yep, has to go!" he wrote back to
Morgan.
A few days later, Morgan sent a memo to Terence Chang, Woo's producing
partner. "The 'Dentist' character displays distinctly un-Marine
behavior," he told Chang. "He is, in fact, committing an atrocity. While
I recognize the war in the Pacific was brutal, I don't see a need to
portray a Marine as a ghoul."
Morgan said he told Chang: " 'Listen, if you're gonna do something like
this, is this gonna be something that's gonna be dealt with in the
movie? Because you don't deal with it. I mean, you just got a guy who
shows up and he's doing it like he was washing his car or something.'
And I say, 'If you're gonna portray this, let's deal with it. The why.
The how. Was it reciprocal? You know, because the Japanese were doing
awful things to the Marines, too.' So Terence said, 'You know what? John
[Woo] doesn't like this scene either. It's gonna go away.' And I think
by two more drafts, it was gone."
But Chang said that the scene was cut because the movie was "too long"
anyway -- not because the Marines complained.
Screenwriters Joe Batteer and John Rice fought to keep the scene in the
film, but in the end took it out. Batteer said the scene was dropped
only after the Marines objected. "The Marines' notes came prior to the
decision to drop that," he said.
"Through Terence Chang we got the word. It was, 'You gotta lose the
filling-pulling,' " Batteer said. "We saw Morgan's missive about the
ghoulishness. We argued that it was true, but we ultimately relented and
yanked it, no pun intended. We tried to argue our case, but it was a
fine line because we had to appease the Marine Corps and the studio. The
studio wanted the cooperation from the Marines."
"They said a Marine would never do that," Rice said. "But who can say
one Marine would never do that? "
Despite his claim that this kind of atrocity was "un-Marine," even Capt.
Morgan acknowledges that such crimes were committed.
"You can look at various books about Marines in World War II, and this
obviously happened," Morgan said. "I am very proficient on my Marine
Corps World War II history, and I know that these things happened.
Horrible, awful atrocities happened, especially in the Pacific."
Another scene that Morgan and Strub didn't like involved a war crime
committed by the lead character -- Sgt. Joe Enders, played by Cage. In
the original screenplay, Enders kills an injured Japanese soldier who is
attempting to surrender.
In his memo to Strub, Morgan wrote: "Enders uses the flame-thrower to
toast the Japanese cave. One of the soldiers attempts to surrender, and
Enders happily roasts the unarmed man. Killing this man is potentially a
war crime, and an experienced Marine in a signal unit would know how
rare and valuable a Japanese prisoner is."
Morgan relayed his concerns to Chang, and that scene, too, was written
out.
Chang said he and Woo "hated that scene" because "it was too brutal. It
would be very hard for the audience to sympathize with Enders later on
in the movie."
Once again, the screenwriters fought to keep their vision intact. "It
showed that Enders was enraged and wanted to kill Japanese," Batteer
said. "We didn't want to paint him in a positive light. We wanted to
show him as a damaged guy."
But in the end, they bowed to pressure from the Marine Corps and the
director.
As in any film production, tensions arise about whose vision will make
it to the screen.
"Everybody has an agenda," Batteer said. "It's a collaborative art form.
You have the writer and the director and the studio, and in this case,
you also have the USMC, and everybody has their point of view, and
everybody compromises."
The military also wanted the producers to change a scene in which Enders
is given orders to kill his Navajo code talker should they face imminent
capture. The battle over this scene raged for weeks, and once again the
Marine Corps' version of history won. Only this time, the writers'
version was backed by not only the code talkers but also the U.S.
Congress.
In the original script, a Marine Corps major tells Enders: "We can't
risk one of our code talkers falling into enemy hands. If there's a
chance that he might be captured, the code will be deemed more important
than the man. If it comes to it, Enders, you're going to have to take
your guy out."
Morgan, however, called such kill orders "fiction." And Batteer recalled
that one of the producers called to say the Marines were concerned about
the scene. "They essentially denied that such orders were given," he
said. "The Pentagon requested that the language be altered to make it
not quite so specific."
Chang said he still believes that Marines had been ordered to kill the
code talkers rather than to allow them to fall into enemy hands.
"The whole movie was based on that assumption," he said. "We did talk to
code talkers, and they said that was true. Why would they lie to me? But
I also understand the Marines' position."
In the end, Chang agreed to make the change requested by the Marines. In
the movie, the major now tells Enders: "Under no circumstances can you
allow your code talker to fall into enemy hands. Your mission is to
protect the code at all costs. Do you understand?"
Chang noted, however, that "it's still pretty obvious" what is meant
when Enders is given his orders.
Several of the Navajo code talkers have said that there were indeed
orders to kill them in the event of capture. John Brown Jr., one of the
original 29 code talkers, told Reader's Digest: "The Marine order was to
let them shoot you if you were captured. That was war. We were
obligated."
In his imperfect English, code talker Carl Gorman, who died in 1998 at
the age of 90, told "CBS Evening News" in 1997: "Orders was given that
if any of the code talkers being captured, shoot the code talkers."
Even Congress concurs. Two years ago it passed a bill awarding
Congressional Gold Medals to the 29 original code talkers. The medals
were presented by President Bush to four of the five living original
code talkers at a ceremony last July in the Capitol Rotunda.
Batteer and Rice, whose movie had just finished shooting in Hawaii, sat
just a few rows back from the honorees. As he watched the ceremony, Rice
was well aware that the language the Pentagon had forced the producers
to remove from his screenplay was part of the very bill Congress had
passed authorizing the medals.
The legislation states: "Some Code Talkers were guarded by fellow
Marines, whose role was to kill them in case of imminent capture by the
enemy."
"It was kind of ironic," Rice says.
The Marine Corps, however, still insists that no such orders were given
and is trying to get Congress to rewrite the legislation.
The writers said they were relieved that the Pentagon didn't insist on
more changes.
"We're happy that's all they wanted," Batteer said.
"The integrity is still there," said Rice.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company. All rights reserved.
Jaime