Joshua Gill chats with Imperium director Daniel Ragussis…
In the lead up to Daniel Radcliffe’s new film Imperium, an exciting thriller that looks at the true story of an FBI informant that infiltrates a neo-nazi terrorist cell, director Daniel Ragussis speaks to staff writer Joshua Gill about the degree to which he researched the white supremacist community, how he was able to attach Radcliffe as the lead and his future prospects as a screenwriter and director.
Joshua Gill: So let’s jump straight in shall we? I understand Imperium was your feature length debut as a director. What was that transition like from making shorts to features?
Daniel Ragussis: Well that’s interesting. I’d done a very big short that was about Fritz Haber, the German chemist that invented chemical weapons during WW1…
I believe that was your thesis short film at University wasn’t it?
Well look at that you know more about me than I do. So as you know that was a very big production, it wasn’t as big as this (Imperium) obviously, but because it was so big it didn’t feel like there was an enormous transition in terms of the scale of things. I mean it was the same thing essentially, just three times the size. I think what the real challenge is, and I have noticed this in other first time directors, is the post process. When you’re at film school you’re working on your own time with no outside parties and all the rest of it, so to be in an environment where you have these incredibly firm deadlines and where you’re working with a number of other parties and partners, that is something I’ve never dealt with before. Now luckily we had great partners and they were very supportive of the film. The distributor let me have exactly the cut I wanted to have, so it worked out wonderfully, but there’s definitely a pressure and also a relentlessness to that environment. I used to say it’s kind of like the shoot; only it lasts for 6 months and you have no crew. It’s intense, but it all worked out fine and turned out well. I think that’s something as a short film maker you’re not as prepared for.
Now going Into Imperium, how did you manage working with a much larger crew?
It’s funny because the structure is the same right, so the departments might get bigger but the basic structure is exactly the same as what you’d done before. Luckily in my case, not only had I made Haber but I had made a tonne of short films before that, y’know I’d been in Columbia for several years. So I was very used to working within that model and structure. So now there might be 20 people in the art department instead of 8, but you know what everyone’s doing and what their jobs are, so I think that prepares you for it.
For those familiar with your short film, Haber, there a few striking similarities between the two films. As well as sharing a similar subject matter, both films examine the morality of decisions on a humanistic level. Is that something we should come to expect from you as an emerging director?
Yeah definitely. It’s something that… Well I find the reasons behind complicated moral issues and why people make the choices they do very interesting. For me with Haber it was the question “what makes a person who had that background as a humanitarian scientist do something like that?” At the time, this was a while ago when I made this film, but the film had a lot to do about the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. After 9/11 there was this kind of massive surge of patriotism around the country. I mean you had people in bars and people I worked with in the office saying things like, “I’d sign up and go to war tomorrow” all of which I suppose is understandable, but I was more interested in what happens when a patriotic fervour seizes a nation, and I saw the exact same things going on in WW1 and in the case of Fritz Haber, so for me it was kind of a way of looking at what was going on in the United States at the time in a much different time and place.
So you’ve almost come full circle in your process. You first looked at a modern event and then at the history of those patriotic responses, and then back to the present day where we seem to be seeing another resurgence.
Yeah, yeah exactly. Well in this case this is something that is still very much going on today and when I first came across the white supremacist community, and realised how broad and how deep it is, and that it’s composed not only of y’know the poor and the uneducated, but also the affluent and the highly suburbanised, all the things you hopefully see in the film. I was just shocked and thought it was a really important community I had to tell a story about.
In regards to your previous shorts and Imperium itself there is a notable heavy focus on the research side of things. It’s really wonderful to see in the film because it builds that believed texture of reality. How long did the research process take for your film?
I mean it always takes a long time. For Imperium I would say there was an initial period of about 4 months, where not only was I talking to Michael German (co-writer) y’know once a week where we had a standing four hour meeting, but I was also doing a tonne of my own reading and research. I was working pretty much 7 days a week, 12 hours a day reading white supremacist literature which was…
Fairly intense?
Yeah… really intense! Some people had even asked me were there times where you ever got disenchanted with the subject matter and that was really the only time. There were parts of those four months where I’d question “why am I doing this?” The world view they have is so dark, then the concepts they lead to are even darker and on top of that the fervent conviction these people have is also very depressing. Basically it’s a conspiracy theory, and what that means is that you take every point of evidence from the outside world that only serves to confirm your theory. So the more you try to convince one of these people that this isn’t true, the more they see those efforts as evidence that it is true. So all of that was really tough, but hopefully all of that enabled me to create and portray the world in an authentic and real way.
Did you take the research as far as to meet with anyone from the movement?
I didn’t y’know. I had books written by social scientists that had spent years living with those in the movement; I had memoirs from people who had left the movement and biographies of people that were still in the movement. Then there’s the online community which is enormous. I mean you can find people not only talking about their political views, but about their favourite composer or art class, or y’know exchanging recipes or whatever. So you get a very real and human view of the people who form those communities in that way.
I imagine that helped build the personalities of the characters you displayed in your film.
Absolutely. I mean for me I could never invent that stuff! I wouldn’t be able to imagine what those people think and feel without that insight. I mean I have to see the real thing, so it was useful in that regard.
Excellent. So it seemed the opening sequence of the film aimed to destabilise the stereotype of what people imagine a terrorist to be. Was that a conscious effort on your part?
Well first of all that opening sequence is very closely based on a case Michael German told me about. He had directed me to this case and I read about it and thought it was fascinating. This case was also emblematic of many other cases like it… so there’s this constant pressure politically and otherwise for law enforcement to find Islamic terrorists even in some cases where they may not be there. And that was also one of the things that Michael was very concerned about as someone who was working for the FBI; so I think from the beginning we talked about using that case and both agreed that it was a good way to open the movie and deal with the larger questions of what is a terrorist? Who is it we consider to be terrorists who are not terrorists? I mean when Neo-Nazis kill 3 people why is that not considered terrorism? I mean it’s still politically motivated violence, which is the definition of terrorism isn’t it? So I think there is a very important discussion that needs to be had about why do we call some things terrorism and some things not, and what’s the reason why not. I think there’s a conversation that probably needs to be had about that.
In regards to the process of creating the script with Michael German, what was his input in creating the personalities of the characters we seen on screen?
It was a little bit of both. He would come up with ideas and then also he would vet things. So not only vetting ideas of mine, saying is that realistic is that realistic ect. Then he would also read the drafts of the script and make comments saying “this is working” or “that’s not working.” He would also help with problem solving and the creation of the Script in some ways is just problem solving y’know? You lay out a story and then there or are all these issues with it and so to have a real life person that you can turn to you and say “there’s this particular issue” or “something needs to happen here” or “what might happen in this situation,” that was invaluable. I’m going to miss that next time!
Was that your first time to writing a script with someone else?
It was yes, yes.
How did you compare that with writing your own scripts?
It is interesting, because when it came to the actual pages that was something I was pretty much doing myself. It was more the creation of the story with Mike and brainstorming and then reviewing. So in that sense most of the hands of the computer that was me. That didn’t diverge from my own experiences and like I said to have a resource and somebody to bounce off that was extremely useful.
Revisiting once more the research behind your film. Was it at all difficult sourcing the images used for the white supremacist montages?
Well no actually. It was one of the inspirations for using all of those, there’s an incredible photographer who spent years photographing members of the white supremacist community and he is credited is in the film as Anthony Karen. So I became aware of his work even before making the film and used some of his photos in the initial pitch document that i was using for the movie. I love his photos and I think they’re amazing. I mean not only are photos of that community hard to find and to source as you can imagine, but he’s also got a very sort of humanistic approach to it in the sense that he tries to photograph people in their everyday life in these Communities, portraying them without judgement and all the rest of it. So I knew about his work and thought that it was important to sort of show the real thing in parts of the movie. So I approached him and I said “look we’re making this movie and as I have to say to everybody, we don’t have a lot of money…” and all the rest of it, but thankfully he was open to it and then his work became a huge part of the final film.
Well it seemed to work wonderfully in building pockets of tension of the film that were at times unbearable. Now it would be hard to mention Imperium without mentioning Daniel Radcliffe’s lead role in the film. So let’s just jump into it shall we?
Yeah, let’s do it!
So one of the first things to be announced about Imperium was Daniel’s attachment to playing the lead role back in July 2015. How were you able to secure him as the lead, and did you envisage Nate Foster being portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe?
Yeah I certainly did. A lot of the inspiration came from Mike German himself in the sense that when I first met Mike he’s this sort of thoughtful, unassuming, literate, cultured, likeable man and I sought of commented on this to Mike, and I said “don’t take this the wrong way but you’re not what I imagined an FBI undercover agent to be,” and that’s when he made the point that’s exactly what an undercover FBI agent is. It isn’t somebody that goes around kicking ass, it is somebody that someone likes, somebody someone trusts and wants to talk too. So right away there seemed an opportunity to portray an undercover agent in that way, which I didn’t feel I’d seen before. So then in terms of casting someone, Dan seemed to be perfect for the role. I then talked to Mike about it and he seemed really enthusiastic about it. But in terms of getting him for the role we first contacted his agents who gave it to him, he then responded to the material which was great. After that we had a Skype conversation and he wanted to do it, so we all felt really lucky and we went from there.
It seemed like it was a fairly quick process then?
Yeah, I mean it’s always difficult for first time film makers to secure any big actors for movies, y’know their taking a risk too which is understandable for them. They don’t know necessarily what they’re getting into, especially with first time film makers, so there’s a big leap of faith on their part as well and I’m just lucky and grateful.
So where did the interest in this subject matter come from?
I think it was a few things. I mean number one, I am just very interested in reason totalitarian ideologies for whatever and the way that they work. I’m even more interested in the reasons why people do the things they do; how do you create a system that convinces millions of people to actively engage in mass murder? I mean that is a fascinating question!
I have to agree actually, and it happens far more than people might like to admit too…
Yeah exactly, and under radically different stripes! You know fascists and diehard communists would both identify the other as their extreme enemy, yet there are unbelievable similarities in how their political systems work. There have been authoritarian leaders since the beginning of time but this sort of totalitarian thing with the Nazi’s and the Bolsheviks and communism; well that’s a 20th century phenomenon. So questions arise, how does it work? Where does this come from? How do people get sucked into it? Because, I mean look its people like you and me y’know what I mean?
Absolutely, these people were once average, normal people…
Exactly, these are normal people in mass movements, these are not fringe things, and these are things that appeal to tens of millions of people. I mean if they didn’t they wouldn’t be able to take a hold of society. So that’s the really fascinating thing for me… how do people use ideas and words to assemble political power? I always think the profession closest to mine is a psychologist, that’s the one with the most overlap, you’re constantly trying to understand why people do what they do and what they think. It’s also the same for actors, and if you have a good director actor relationship you’re both trying to attack the psychology of the character, only from different viewpoints, but you’re asking the same thing which is “why did he say that? Why did he do that? Why is he making those choices? So I think that interest in why people are different from me and why they do the things they do is probably a common theme that runs through everything.
So forgive me if I’m wrong, but I’ve read a number of rumours that suggest you have three other scripts currently in development.
I do actually yes!
I was wondering if you could share whether there was any surrounding interest in those scripts, and whether we might see them on the big screen in the coming years?
Well I mean hopefully they will! Certainly a lot of my time is taken up with the final stages of promoting Imperium and travelling with all the rest of it, and in between all of that I’m attempting to get my work out there and meet the people I need to meet, and start the initial steps of getting those projects made. Because it does take a while to get a movie made and there are a lot of pieces that you have to put together, cast, money, all the rest of it, but I am hopeful that I’ll have that opportunity. I mean if you’re a film maker all you want to do is keep making films! Oh God please let me make another movie!
Well it was wonderful to meet and speak with you Dan!
Likewise! It was a pleasure Joshua…
Our thanks go out to Daniel for his time and interest in speaking with us. Imperium is out now in UK cinemas – read our review here.
Joshua Gill
. url=”.” . width=”100%” height=”150″ iframe=”true” /]
https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
