This Means War

Ridley Scott and Eric Bana: Unrelenting in "Black Hawk Down"

By: HUGH HART | Globe Correspondent

LOS ANGELES -Director Ridley Scott is chomping on a cigar in a Beverly Hills hotel suite, marveling over the weaponry he learned about while making "Black Hawk Down." "They can put a bomb through this window from 10,000 feet if they want," he says, pointing toward the creamy blue Los Angeles sky. "The thing would come right in here, not at the hotel, but through this bloody window while you and I were sitting here."

The high tech artillery was available to American forces during the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu chronicled in "Black Hawk Down," which opens Friday. Continues Scott, "The gunship, which is in Afghanistan now, can essentially cut a line of steel and hold back aggressors so that our guys could do their work."

As it turned out, that gunship was never deployed. U.S. soldiers "did their work" -- capturing two of Somalian warlord Aididıs lieutenants from a hotel in downtown Mogadishu -- but the price was high. When two Black Hawk helicopters crashed after being hit by rockets, the mission, planned as a 45-minute "extraction," turned into a chaotic 18-hour battle.

Televised images of captured Blackhawk pilot Michael Durant along with footage showing American soldierıs corpse being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu exacerbated the sense that this peace-keeping effort in famine-stricken Somalia had gone terribly wrong. Says Scott, "Of course I remember seeing the story on TV, but the event opened and closed like a shutter, and then it was swept under the rug. The military was really [pissed] off because it was perceived as a disaster. They lost 18 guys, and another one the next day, 19 guys in all, and it seemed all for naught, particularly as Somalia then reverted almost immediately to the usual behavior."

Seven years later, after steering "Gladiator" to a 2001 Best Picture Oscar, Scott was in the middle of editing "Hannibal" when he decided to make a movie out of journalist Mark Bowdenıs non-fiction account "Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War." "When I first read the book, I thought, hmmmm interesting. ŒCause you know, as a filmmaker youıre always hunting for a good yarn."

The set-up for this tale rivaled Shakespeareıs bloodiest tragedies. Aidia and his Habr Gidr clan had been intercepting U.N. food supplies intended for starving Somalians. Aidiaıs tribesmen were also charged with killing thousands of Somali civilians and disemboweling 24 Pakistani members of the U.N.'s peacekeeping force. On October 3, American leaders took action. "The book raises the eternal question: when youıre seeing this terrible behavior, should we or shouldnıt we go in?" muses Scott. "And then, once you get in, how the hell do you get out? The book to me became like a metaphor for everything thatıs happening right now in Afghanistan except this time it also has to do with retribution.

--- Citing as a touchstone "The Battle of Algiers," a riveting 1965 documentary-like feature about urban civil war, Scott resisted the temptation to clutter his film adaptation with Hollywood-style melodramatics. "The battle is a story in itself," he explains. "A couple of people said to me ŒWhat about backstory?ı I said ŒWhat backstory?ı The soldiers have already been there (at the base camp near Mogadishu) for six weeks. All the talk about Œmy wifeı or Œmy childrenı or Œmy dad was in the army,ı thatıs over.

"We've got two Black Hawk pilots sitting there arguing about scrabble. Thatıs the absolute essence of boredom. The feeling among the soldiers was, ŒChrist almighty letıs go out and do the job.ı Thatıs what theyıre trained for and like athletes, they really want to do it. So to have some story in there about a guy whoıs fundamentally a coward and re-finds his courage -- I didnıt want to do that. I wanted to just stay with the facts because then you donıt get sucked into dramatizing one particular character. This film is very much an ensemble piece."

--- "Black Hawkıs" big cast marked a big change for Australian actor Eric Bana. Joining Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor Tom Sizemore and some two dozen other young actors, Bana plays "Hoot" Gibson, a seasoned Delta Forces sergeant in charge of abducting the Somalian officers. He landed the role on the strength of his performance in "Chopper," an independent 2000 Australian film which starred Bana as real-life sociopath Mark "Chopper" Read. "In 'Chopper,' I was playing the lead and I was in every scene," says Bana, a few rooms down the hall from Scott. "Suddenly youıre in this big action movie, where you share the screen with all these other guys. I really enjoyed being a part of this big ensemble."

To prepare, Bana shed 50 pounds and learned commando tactics at Fort Bragg, North Carolina with actors William Fichtner and Nikolaj Coster-Walda. Their instructors: real Delta Force officers. Considered the militaryıs most elite troops, Delta operators secretly fight and gather intelligence in trouble spots around the world. Unlike most of the filmıs figures, "Hoot" is a composite character based on several unidentified Delta soldiers.

"There's definitely a vibe about these guys," says Bana. "The predictions I had in my head, that thereıd be this gung ho kind of facade, that wasnıt there at all. The people I met were impossible to pick out in a crowd, extremely intelligent and well mannered and mild. They had this quiet confidence that was really impressive."

Once filming began in Morocco last spring, Bana says director Scott choreographed "Black Hawkıs" seemingly anarchic street-fighting sequences with balletic precision. "The noise and the visual onslaught that you get is pretty amazing because Ridley lets the camera run for so long. Heıll tell you, ŒRun from here, go down the street, blow him up, turn around here, go over there, then get back to the Humvee. Itıs gonna take two minutes. ŒAction!ı And youıve got to hit everything right. I remember the first take I did, there were .50 caliber machine guns being fired and at least 100 militia men shooting at you at the same time, so it wasnıt hard to feel youıre in the middle of something dangerous and real."

The United States Army provided Blawk Hawk helicopter pilots and about 100 U.S. Rangers to enact key combat scenes. Three Battle of Mogadishu veterans served as technical advisors. Scott says "They were absolutely up front if there was something they thought was less than realistic."

To make sure the combat scenes packed a visceral wallop, Scott avoided "Blue Screen" technology, which inserts explosions and other special effects after the fact. "Blue screen is very efficient," he says. "The danger is, it can remove that sense of jeopardy, which is what you really want for this kind of story. You want to feel everything. The explosions on the ground, the RPGS, (rocket-propelled grenades), all that stuff is real." The combat sequences were so loud that Scott says he still hears white noise when heıs in a quiet environment.

When shooting wrapped last July, Scott faced a challenge in the editing room: How to keep the nearly non-stop barrage of firepower from wearing out viewers. Ridley says. "If you do gunshots and explosions and high velocity weapons for nearly two hours, youıre going to black out the audience."

Modulating the mayhem required some fresh thinking, says Scott. "The text book approach is, youıve got to (periodically) let the audience off the hook. I went into the project bearing that in mind, but then I didnıt know when to get off the hook. And then I realized, itıs not about getting off the hook, itıs about adjusting this relentless process. Whether you do it musically or with silences, thatıs very tricky orchestration."

In the end, Scott felt he needed to keep "the bomb" ticking. "Editing is really where you put the story together," he explains. "You can easily screw it up by stopping the film dead in its tracks because you want to hold onto a scene. Youıre driven by wanting to keep it but also by the fact that you know it stops everything dead for a minute, so you think ŒIıve got to get rid of it.ı Or, ŒHow do I have it and still keep it ticking,ı you know, like a bomb, because you want to have that ticking bomb, the plot. Itıs all about the plot."

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Scott faced one more unexpected hurdle. In August he and producer Jerry Bruckheimer screened a rough cut for Joe Roth and other executives at Revolution Studios, which distributes the film. They decided to release "Black Hawk Down" in March, 2002. Then terrorists attacked on September 11. Scott recalls, "It was immediately time to decide, do we continue as planned? Within 12 hours, Joe and the marketing guys came back thinking the same thing as me. '[Shit,] this couldnıt be more relevant. Letıs put it out right now.' And we didnıt change a thing."

Actually, Scott did add an epilogue referring to the events of September 11. "But then," he says, "We decided it's not needed. The film does that. So we took it out again."

For Scott, one battle was enough.