Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Directing Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Patricia Arquette in “Holy Matrimony”. Great Falls, Montana.

First day of shooting on Oliver Stone’s “SNOWDEN”

I was surprised when I first learned this about Snowden—that he enlisted in the US Army in 2004. He wanted to go fight in Iraq, but during basic training at Fort Benning, he broke both of his legs and received an administrative discharge. After that, he was still determined to serve his country (love him or hate him, you gotta admit the guy’s strong-willed) and so he ended up getting a job at the CIA, which is where his career in Intelligence began.

Today’s scenes felt like a really good way to start this shoot. It was hard, but of course, nowhere near as hard as real basic training. And me, I’m just honored and excited to be doing a soldier sequence with Oliver. I keep saying to myself: “fuck, this guy directed Platoon!”

Oliver Stone’s first selfie.

The Hindu has a feature on The Walk  called "A love letter to the Towers" with some new info and a few quotes from Zemeckis and Joe.

Here is an excerpt:

“To quote Francois Truffaut, ‘A really great movie is the perfect blend of truth and spectacle,’ and I think that’s what we go to the movies for,” says Zemeckis of his approach. “We go to see a story that is rooted in human truth and the human journey. But we also go to see a spectacle.”

The Walk promises to put audiences in the thick of the action, as close as any of us will ever come to walking amongst the clouds ourselves. Zemeckis explains with a laugh: “If you’ve got a fear of heights, you might not be comfortable watching a lot of this, but that was another thing I loved about it.”

But the film is also an exploration of what led up to the famous walk, including Petit’s earliest childhood obsessions, his romantic entanglements, and the volatile relationship with his surrogate father figure, Kingsley’s Papa Rudy.

“Walking on a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center is beautiful and physically daring, but there’s also a metaphor there,” says Gordon-Levitt of The Walk. “It’s about believing in yourself enough to say ‘I [can] accomplish anything… I [can] be the person I want to be.’”

As for the Towers themselves and the tragedy of 9/11, both Gordon-Levitt and Zemeckis see The Walk as a tribute, which, given the opening of The Freedom Tower, comes at a particularly appropriate moment.

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