I think you handle that really well. I think those who are on the fence will be able to identify with those who are skeptical, who can see where there’s no room even to discuss it. You know, “Shut-up” or “Cut his mic”.
Kupsc: Yeah, that’s nothing I invented. I had a funny reaction when the Bill O’Reilly type talk show host cuts off the mic of his guest because she’s saying something that he doesn’t want to hear and he basically shuts her up.
I showed that film in Europe once and people were like, “Oh my God, this is so preposterous. This is pure fantasy. How can a talk show host say this to his guest?”
Bonanno: Not in America, either, that’s for sure.
Kupsc: They were completely unaware that this particular reaction was based directly on humorous clips of Bill O’Reilly doing exactly that. That’s a very specific behavior of such a host which is deliberately abusive and entertaining. Abuse is very entertaining to people in America. Physical and verbal abuse is what drives the ratings up. That’s what we have. It’s a game show.
Bonanno: Something I did is I wrote a letter to Bill O’Reilly which I obviously never got an answer to and I never expected to. I tried to egg him on a little bit by saying, “Just think how famous you would be. You’d be like Walter Cronkite if you just changed, if you turned, you did a 180 and said, “I’ve been wrong about this. I’ve just been doing it for the money.””
I don’t know if people would start throwing eggs at him, speaking of egging him on or he would take some of the skeptics with him.
It’s not necessarily right wing or left wing, either. I think that’s one thing people have to understand about this.
Kupsc: Well, Bill O’Reilly, in the early ‘90s, right after “JFK” came out and it was a very popular subject to discuss, basically came out and said the CIA was involved in the assassination when he was still a journalist. You can look up his comments on that.
Something happened to him along the way. He was always very unpopular with his colleagues. I know people who worked for him back in the day.
Now, he could not get any more popular than he already is with the American public. Americans, I don’t know why, they love jerks.
Bonanno: They do love some.
However, I think they’d like this movie. It’s a great movie. I don’t mean in the sense of winning an Academy Award. Considering the resources you had to work with, it’s in no way “hackish”. It wasn’t second rate. It’s as good as some movies I’ve seen and not as good as others as far as the quality is concerned.
Kupsc: I really appreciate that.
Bonanno: It’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, unwatchable. I appreciate that and I appreciate your making the movie.
I would like to hear your take on the election. I don’t think you’re going to be telling me who the better candidate is, but I’m just guessing here.
