THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 13, 1996 TAG: 9607120061
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: 130 lines
AS THE SMOKE SETTLES over a downed Medevac chopper somewhere in a Persian Gulf desert, the mystery of what happened to the combat squad deepens.
Capt. Karen Walden, who was in command, died on that day. Most of her squad survived. Now, she is being considered for the Medal of Honor - the first time the honor would have gone to a woman in combat.
Politicians want her to win it. The Rose Garden ceremony, with her little daughter accepting the award, would provide the country with the soothing kind of hero, this time a heroine, that it most needs. But does she deserve it? Conflicting accounts of what went on during that Persian Gulf encounter begin to surface.
The situation is fictional, presented in the new movie ``Courage Under Fire.'' The questions it raises, though, are very real.
Women in combat!
It is a theme that movies have almost totally ignored. Yes, Ingrid Bergman led armies in ``Joan of Arc'' (1948) but she was playing a saint - and a saint from another century. Women like Sigourney Weaver, in ``Alien'' (1979) and its sequels, took charge, but only when the men had been eliminated. Jane Fonda battled for the galaxy in ``Barbarella'' (1988) but that was science fiction, and predominantly campy.
Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge strapped on six guns and fought it out in the revisionist Western ``Johnny Guitar'' (1953), a film that is still debated in film circles. Marlene Dietrich and Una Merkel fought it out in the most famous of movie saloon brawls, in ``Destry Rides Again'' (1939). But these were women-to-women conflicts.
When movies go to war, the women stay behind the lines. ``Mrs. Miniver'' (1942) is the most famous film about a woman on the home front. It won an Oscar for Greer Garson and contributing mightily to America getting into World War II.
``Courage Under Fire,'' starring Meg Ryan as the combat officer being investigated and Denzel Washington as her investigator, attempts, ever so superficially, to catch up with the modern military. It examines the feelings of men who must now go to war with women by their sides.
Behind the scenes is a debate that is almost as interesting as the movie itself.
Director Edward Zwick was first promised Pentagon cooperation, but just before filming began in Texas, the government backed out of the project. Zwick, who gathered with his cast in Washington, D.C., to unveil the film a week ago, was not dissuaded.
``We were planning one of the biggest tank battle scenes put on film since `Patton' (1969) and, suddenly, we had no tanks,'' he remembered. ``The Department of Defense, I think, was worried about how the Medal of Honor plot was going to be treated.''
Forty-year-old British Centurions were shipped from Australia and disguised to look like Abrams and T-54 tanks, straining the $40 million budget. Then the tanks were quarantined for weeks when they arrived - reportedly to ensure that no disease-carrying animals lodged in their treads. Eight Desert Storm veterans were brought in to pilot the mock Abrams tanks, giant Hueys and fast-flying Cobra helicopters.
Zwick feels that the theme of women serving in combat was not at issue in his deliberations with the Department of Defense.
``It's an issue that I think American society is getting ready to think about,'' he said. ``In modern combat, physicality is not so much the issue. With modern technologies, it's a matter of pushing buttons. The peril is behind the lines as much as on the line - in the barracks - anywhere vulnerable to long-range missiles. Women in the military now are increasingly in peril.''
But Ryan, usually a star of romantic comedies, would seem the least likely actress cast for the first woman combat officer in the movies.
``That's exactly why I wanted the part,'' Ryan said as she sat in the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington. ``This woman is heroic in every sense of the word, just by being there. I've been called `pert' and `cute' enough. Maybe Sandra Bullock can take over those roles now. Personally, I don't think I was ever `pert' or `cute.' But then I'm not `butch' either. That's what they call Karen Walden, the woman I play. That's a buzz word, you know?''
Ryan, brushing her fingers through her still-short-cropped hair, talked extensively with military women before beginning the movie. ``Sexual bias? Well, what I got from talking to them was mostly a kind of stoicism - a kind of grin-and-bear-it feeling. I got the idea that it's been a tough row to hoe. But I don't get the idea that some other people have - that the the women's movement has passed them by. Actually, they have made huge strides.''
``I don't think that women in combat is really any issue anymore,'' the actress said. ``The issue is how men adapt to it. With modern technology, women are as qualified in combat.''
She admits, though, that she recoiled when she went into pre-film training on how to handle an M-16 rifle. ``It was much too easy to learn,'' she said. ``It would be much too easy to use. The theory that any feeble idea could be backed by a rifle is frightening. During the filming, I kept saying to myself `People do this in combat. People have done much more than this.' ''
Ryan went through a month of heavy boot camp training to prepare for the role.
``I actually worked longer in preparing for the role than I did in playing it,'' she said. ``I had biceps like - WOW! A real cut look, I kid you not. I met Arnold a few weeks ago and I actually felt very simpatico. But after all that weight lifting, they put me in combat clothes and you don't get to see any of my muscles! I asked Ed if I couldn't just flex my bicep for the camera - just once.''
Even at that, she isn't rivaling Demi Moore who shaved her head for ``G.I. Jane,'' the movie that is currently before the cameras. (It is expected to be a good deal less serious than ``Courage Under Fire.'')
``I need my hair,'' Ryan said as she grinned broadly and ran her hands through the locks. ``Hey, I'm not competing with Demi on that level. No way.''
Asked if she had ever been required to be heroic in real life, she didn't hesitate to answer. ``I gave birth to a 10-pound baby boy. That is heroic enough.''
She says she doesn't plan to take son Jack to see ``Courage Under Fire.''
``He's not old enough to understand it yet, and seeing mommy under fire could be traumatic. I did take him, though, to see Daddy (actor Dennis Quaid) in `Dragonheart.' He loved that, but I had to explain that Daddy was making believe and was in costume to run around with a dragon.''
Lou Diamond Phillips took time out from playing the king in Broadway's ``The King and I'' to fly to Washington to share the screening with his ``Courage'' co-stars. In the film he plays a gunner who questions the ability of Ryan's character in combat.
``Could she carry me out of there? Did she have the physical strength to be there? The character I played had those questions and I tried to play them. My own opinion is that a capable woman is just as capable as a capable man in the situation, but that's not the position I was playing. I thought of my father, who was in the military for much of his life. He would not have approved of women being in combat. He is of another generation. It is a discussion that the American fighter has to deal with today that earlier generations never had.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
20TH CENTURY FOX PHOTOS
Meg Ryan
Denzel Washington
Ryan and Matt Damon by CNB