In life - like in a movie: Hollywood rewrites scripts in exchange for FBI assistance

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In exchange for help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Hollywood, they rewrite film scripts and glorify the Bureau’s characters. This "collaboration" already lasts over 80 years, and its goal is to improve the reputation of the FBI: filmmakers, at the request of the Bureau, strive for people to calmly perceive the existence of such a powerful organization as the FBI.

About how their joint work, told the publication BuzzFeedreferring to the documents at the disposal of the editors, which tell in detail about how the mutually beneficial collaboration of cinematographers and the Bureau occurs.

Director Henry Alex Rubin, working on the “No Connection” cyber-drama (2012), asked the FBI for help and wanted comments on the realistic scenario, but the Bureau decided to take the opportunity to improve their perception of their organization by society.

The FBI officer, who was reviewing the draft script, proposed to change the scene in which two agents aggressively interrogate the journalist.

According to the director, the agent said: “We’re not working at all. Our approach to people at least outwardly seems good and allied, and this attitude usually turns out to be much more productive than suspicion and aggressiveness. ”

Rubin changed the scene.

BuzzFeed Received official documents in response to a suit under the Freedom of Information Act, the information in them proves that the FBI actively seeks to control and improve its image through consulting work during filming.

Since 2012, the FBI's public relations group specializing in Hollywood has played a role in the development of hundreds of television shows, films and documentaries. Among them is “Watergate. Wreck of the White House ”, 2012 comedy fighter of the year,“ Undercover Agent ”; a film from the documentary series Fateful Meetings and many others.

According to the documents, these projects are considered as marketing tools for creating a new FBI brand.

“If we don’t tell our story, fools will gladly tell it for us. Most people form their opinion about the FBI through pop culture, not a two-minute story on the news, ”the presentation says. PowerPoint from August 2013 of the year in which recommendations are made to Bureau staff on using the media to their advantage.

This presentation also says that every week more than 100 of millions of Americans watch TV shows and documentaries about the FBI.

The FBI's public relations department, which acts as an intermediary between the entertainment industry and the Bureau, reviewed 2012 requests for help in media coverage only for 728 for the year. Consultations of the FBI are free for directors, they are of a different nature: from a cursory exchange of letters to several days of filming in the building of the FBI headquarters.

In most cases, requests relate to trivialities such as a quick fact check or permission to use the FBI logo.

In one consultation in March 2011, the Bureau considered the application of the writer of the musical horror comedy about the zombie Diamond Dead. According to the documents, the screenwriter "tried to insert the chase of the FBI for the zombies into the plot, because it seemed to him that the FBI might want to pursue the zombies." A member of the Bureau wrote in the application review report: “I advised him to talk to someone like the Department of Health, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or other government organizations that specialize in health and medicine. This is of no interest to the FBI if the zombies did not commit the crime. ”

FBI public affairs manager Christopher Allen said the Bureau could not provide updated figures on the number of projects it had been involved in since 2013. But production with the participation of the Bureau is actively continuing Watergate was released on September 29 of 2017. In October Netflix launches "Mind Hunter", a series about agents who study and track serial killers, and on CBS will air the 280 series "Think like a criminal." Netflix consulted directly with the FBI, and former agent John Douglas, who wrote the book "Mind Hunter" - a permanent consultant of the show. The creators of “Think like a criminal” also consulted with the Bureau, and in the new season, the supervising serial agent even got the status of a producer.

Although the FBI insists that it “does not edit or approve the work of filmmakers,” collaboration with the Bureau often means depicting his work in a favorable light. According to the documents, the FBI sometimes denied the right to use its logo in the film for rather minor reasons: in 2008, the request to use the logo was rejected because the FBI in the film "was assigned too small a role."

At the same time, in some projects, such as “The Silence of the Lambs”, “Johnny D.”, “Die Hard 4.0”, the Bureau provided tremendous help and even nominated agents to answer all the questions of the film’s creators and also allowed many days of filming in the FBI .

In addition, the Writers Guild holds regular FBI 101 seminars to instruct screenwriters on the work of the Bureau.

FBI Image Specialist Matthew Cecil said that the Bureau’s relationship with Hollywood has been going on for more than 80 years. According to him, the FBI is working very successfully in the direction of forming its positive image, while the CIA has never been good at it.

It is noteworthy that this collaboration is also positively assessed by the filmmakers themselves. Most of them said that they were deeply impressed by the professionalism and thoroughness of the FBI staff.

“They were very smart, they could easily see the main idea of ​​the script and predict its development,” said Peter Woodward, who wrote the script for the movie “The Unthinkable” in 2010.

The filmmakers explained that they are turning to the FBI because they want their work to be more realistic.

“I always thought the FBI was a very open, cooperative organization ... In fact, they were involved in my story no less than me,” Michael Felt admitted.

Before making a decision on consulting, assisting the project, it is estimated how loud it will be. The agency needs to know whether the project has been sold, given the green light, or is it still at the idea stage.

The 44-page table, which contains more 200 requests from 2005 to 2014, has Tom Hanks three times (Captain Phillips, Parkland, and Watergate). In another document, referring to the start of filming the blockbuster "Tough Nut 4.0", it was stated that the film is not about the Bureau - most of its screen time, the FBI characters describe the consequences of a hacker attack. Yet, the Department of Public Relations approved the two-day shootings at the Edgar Hoover Building, and an agent from the Los Angeles office took an active part in the production, including attending meetings. For comparison, a note to another project said “limited assistance, because this is the first work of a novice writer”.

Ed Saxon, the producer of The Silence of the Lambs, had an obvious personal benefit to the FBI. The terms of the agreement caused him some bewilderment: "We had concerns about how closely we work with the FBI and how much we heroize their characters, while the history of the FBI as a state body is, to put it mildly, complicated."

This prompted director Jonathan Demme to add a line into the film about the agency's violation of civil rights. “It was very important to Jonathan to make this film more than just an advertisement for the United States Police Department,” Saxon explained.

The film crew knew that the FBI viewed the project as a way to attract women to work. The producer is confident that “the picture of the heroic female agent or trainee agent as the central character corresponded to their goals.”

The FBI and Hollywood cooperation documents state that the ideal screen character from the FBI is “polite, approachable, and unlearned.” In April 2012, one of the creators of the action movie Empire State asked the FBI to use the Bureau stamp in the episode of the movie. The request was rejected, in part because coarse agents appeared in the script.

“The script inaccurately portrays the actions and personnel of the FBI, and therefore a request for the use of an official seal was denied via email on 27.04.2012/XNUMX/XNUMX,” the FBI Public Affairs Bureau said in a report regarding the film.

In 1960-1970 for years in TV shows, in the production of which the Bureau practically participated, it was strictly forbidden to show wiretaps. This rejection is today. In 2012, one request was rejected not only because "the agent has an incredibly small role", but also because the agent was "not depicted in the best light (using scare tactics, wiretapping and other surveillance methods)."

It is noteworthy that one of the most famous recent films that criticized the FBI, “Selma” (2014), which depicts the surveillance of Martin Luther King, was filmed from books, documentaries and disclosed FBI documents. At the same time, the film was not based on the advice of the Bureau itself.

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