Star Apps: 'Rosewater'
Jon Stewart bought the movie rights to imprisoned Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari's best-selling memoir, "Then They Came for Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival." "The Daily Show" host didn't initially intended to direct "Rosewater" himself, but his investment in Bahari's story became so great that he saw no other way. I chatted with Jon Stewart and Maziar Bahari about "Rosewater" and the power of social media for political change.
First-time director Jon Stewart on the Rosewater set.
(Credit: Open Road Films)
Jon, with this film being your directorial debut, where did you draw inspiration from?
Jon Stewart: I was most influenced by Maziar and his story. The source material was there. As far as the visuals, the idea was to create a palette that the story could live in without the palette itself drawing your eye. So the idea was to create a quiet inauthenticity, 'cause we weren't in Iran; we were in Jordan. So environmentally and accent-wise, it lived in a world that wasn't discordant, so you could focus on the narrative of it. The prison was not going to be a dungeon, even though the expectations from Westerners was that Maziar was held in a dungeon without lights and with rats running around. But it's not that. It's a bureaucratic institution where they clean the floors.
Maziar Bahari: And the food is better than most airlines. That doesn't say much, but...
Did you always intend to step behind the camera at some point? Or did it just happen organically?
Jon Stewart: It was a relatively organic process that grew out of our collaboration early on, from the book and trying to produce the film, and not knowing our way around that process, and not knowing how glacial it is, and wanting this film to be seen in this century. Obviously we didn't have any money, and the writers we loved who had won all these awards were apparently busy being paid for other s---. So this was a question of feeling that this is a very relevant and urgent issue, and wanting it to be made, and wanting to maintain a certain amount of creative control around the process. We felt very strongly about certain aspects of it and didn't want to relent that to a larger entity that may have had a different take on it. Like, what if Maziar was a lesbian and not in a prison, like was actually in a rodeo or whatever -- trying to make it more commercial.
Maziar Bahari: But it also came out of a mutual trust. From the beginning, I was a fan of "The Daily Show" and trusted that image of Jon and his political point of view. Eventually Jon had a lot of emotional investment in the material, so we didn't want to hand it to someone else who would ruin it.
You've said that guilt was the motivating factor behind this film. How so?
Jon Stewart: We joke about that to some extent. It was more concern than guilt. Spoiler alert: Generally, we're not at the places we say we are on "The Daily Show." It's a picture that I'm standing in front of. So this is one of the first times we'd ever done something like this. So to have all the individuals that we had interviewed be arrested within the context of a much larger authoritarian crackdown within a culture -- we did not think, "Oh my God, three people we had interviewed were arrested and no one else, so this correlation equals causation." We felt a concern that something we were doing would be damaging to helping them get out. Or was there something on the flip side that we could do to help them get out? All of the people were urging us to keep talking about what had happened during that time and to bring awareness to it. I think that's why Maziar was so keen on getting the story out. There are so many people in this situation that you want to publicize their plight more than bury it.
In the film, Maziar uses Twitter and YouTube to stay informed and disseminate information about Iran's political uprising, which leads to his arrest. Do either of you use social media as a news-gathering source in your daily lives?
Jon Stewart: Yes, it helps me in the morning to figure out if there's traffic at Lincoln Tunnel. As it grows and becomes more sophisticated, people will figure out how to use it better. But generally I use it as another tool that allows you to further shade the info that you're aggregating and consuming. So get a good amount of social media, a good amount of long-form journalism, and throw in a little bit of TV. I think it has become a part of the daily routine, but I think it has to be filtered through the prism that you're putting all of your other info in.
Maziar Bahari: I'm a very active user of both Twitter and Facebook. I don't use it for personal information since I came out, for security reasons and also because I'm a very private person. So I don't like to put personal info up there, like my food or my pets. I'm big on Google+.
BBC journalist Maziar Bahari (played by Gael Garcia Bernal) was arrested in 2009, shortly after putting footage of Iranian election protests on YouTube.
(Credit: Open Road Films)
Is social media helpful in getting the word out during these types of situations? Or, as in Maziar's case, does it do more harm than good?
Maziar Bahari: It's definitely not harmful. Some people had some issues with Facebook and Twitter that intelligence agencies can get people's information through Facebook and Twitter, but that's a bigger issue. People can do it through other means as well. But these sites are expediting these nonviolent resistances all around the world. It maybe started in Iran, but since then we've seen it in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Hong Kong, and the Ukraine, because social media is about sharing data, and that's democratizing. But for these authoritarian states, where there are dictatorships, it's a scary phenomenon. They are scared of the free flow of information. I'm not sure what's going to happen in 10 to 20 years' time, but I'm sure the pace of change is going to be expedited.
Jon Stewart: I think it's also important to view it from its strengths and limitations. It's an excellent way for people to organize and spread information. Authoritarian regimes are built to stop the spread of information, but social media allows for a spontaneity and agility that the regime could not catch up to. It leveled the playing field to some extent from the powerful to those seeking to get out in the street. That said, it's limited in its efficacy of building lasting civic institutions and structures that need to be in place for those information technologies to be effective. It's not just about getting people out into the street. You have to find something to fill that power backing or whatever it is that you want to use as your reform.
Bahari (Gael Garcia Bernal) endured extreme brutality over 118 days in prison.
(Credit: Open Road Films)
Maziar, you went through hell in prison, without your family, friends, and creature comforts. Not to sound trite, but is there an app that could have helped you feel more at home in solitary confinement?
Maziar Bahari: Anything that I can use to communicate with my family and friends. Let's say Twitter.
Jon Stewart: You could use a LightSaber app to go out and start knocking people down.
Maziar Bahari: Jon, what would you have used in prison?
Jon Stewart: The Daily Show Headlines. I'd keep up on how the show is doing.
Rosewater opens today in theaters nationwide.
(Credit: Open Road Films)
