“The big red flag for me”: The movie Gary Oldman thinks let itself down
After making his film debut in the early 1980s, Gary Oldman has gone on to conquer the world of cinema. A South London boy with big dreams of the stage and the screen beyond, Oldman’s story is rich with moments of true cinematic greatness.
His early efforts earned him a brilliant reputation as an actor, and he doubled down on his early promise with acclaimed efforts in the likes of JFK, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Leon: The Professional before the 20th century drew to a close.
From there, Oldman established himself as one of the greatest actors ever produced by his native Great Britain and he is equally admired on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Having established himself as one of the most reliably powerful actors of his generation, perhaps the most impressive thing Oldman has produced has been the wide range of performances, in a wide range of different movie styles.
While the likes of The Dark Knight, Darkest Hour and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are among Oldman’s greatest efforts on screen, there are several other performances worthy of note, say his 2000 turn in The Contender.
Directed by Rod Lurie and starring Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges and Christian Slater, The Contender tells the story of a fiction United States President and the kind of difficulties he faces while appointing a new Vice President, with a thematic focus on the Monica Lewinsky scandal that surrounded former US President Bill Clinton.
The film saw Oldman play Republican Congressman Sheldon Runyan, who stands in the way of Ohio Senator Laine Hanson, who is becoming the country’s new vice president. Democratic President Jackson Evans believes that he will be able to smash through the glass ceiling as his swan song, but Runyan believes that Hanson is unqualified and backs Virginia Governor Jack Hathaway instead.
The Contender was very successful as a box office hit and received two Academy Award nominations, but Oldman couldn’t help but feel disappointed by some of its facets. In a 2000 interview with Venice Magazine (via The Hollywood Interview), the actor spoke of his impressions of political drama and how one part of it, in particular, served as a “big red flag” in his estimation.
“The turning point for me was the score,” Oldman said. “That was the big red flag for me.” What the actor means by that is that he felt that every time his character Runyon would appear on screen, “dark, sinister music” would begin to play, which he felt “contaminated the audience” and prevented them from making up their own mind.
The bread and butter of any political drama is to deliver an unbiased account, but Oldman felt that director Rod Lurie had forced the audience’s hand with their impression of the characters as per the film’s score. Oldman had hoped for a “quirky and witty” score for The Contender, but what finally made its way into the film was something akin to “horror movie music”.
According to Oldman, an earlier cut of Lurie’s film had been “more ambiguous and more loyal to what was originally on the page”, but the final cut was something that seemed disingenuous to the story that told the audience “this person’s good, this person’s bad”. In the press at the time of the film’s release, there had been talk of a rift between Lurie and Oldman, but the actor explained that it was more of a contractual issue with producers DreamWorks.
It is so often the way with Hollywood cinema. Big productions mean big budgets, and with every dollar added to the coffers of a production comes another piece of silvered expectation, as the need for a return grows.
Despite Oldman’s disappointment with the music of The Contender, he seemed to enjoy his time making it, admitting that he enjoyed working with the cast and crew. Sadly, though, there would always be a sour taste in his mouth concerning the way his character was represented as a result of the unbiased score.
