Home grown terrorism and post-9/11 America in Night Moves

Jason Di Rosso: What made you set the movie in Oregon?

Kelly Reichardt: Oregon and Washington are the birthplace of Earth First and some of the more direct activist movements, which makes sense because there’s depleted old growth forests, and dams and water are a huge issue out there, ever more so. California’s going to go somewhere for their water as they have less and less of it. So dams and re-routing of water have been a huge issue out there forever, so it makes sense that that’s where the direct activist movements would have been born. Especially because you drive around and you can see what’s been lost. Even from my first film, Old Joy, some of that forest doesn’t exist anymore, it’s been clear cut.

Jason: Have you had a strong reaction to the film’s depiction of home grown terrorists? Were people surprised?

Kelly: No, but there were people, environmentalists I would say, who have been more upset that the film shows any kind of criticism on the left, considering how fairly beaten back the left has been in a post-9/11 world. A lot of the conversations have been the audience talking amongst themselves about what terrorism is. You know, if you have BP spilling billions of gallons of oil in the ocean and no one goes to jail and you have some kids who go out and set some Hummers on fire and no one gets hurt, or back when we made Old Joy there was a kid who burned down a McDonald’s out there and he’s just getting out of gaol. That was a 20-year-old who was just in his 20-year-old spunk, you know, fighting against the industrial powers. But then you see our government so tied in with people who are doing much more harm to the environment and not really paying any personal penalty.

Jason: So if you’re protected by corporate interests you won’t get punished, but if you’re an individual you will face the full brunt of the law?

Kelly: Especially in a post 9/11 world. They’ve pretty much stamped out the environmental extremists here because, you know, once you’re labelled a terrorist that’s pretty heavy duty, you pay real time. But the film is also not romanticising the idea of going and blowing stuff up. With the fundamentalism of Jesse Eisenberg’s character, we could have almost as easily been writing him into a story about the Tea Party extremists. He’s not a questioning person, he’s a person with an absolute belief in his own ideology and his own instincts, and he doesn’t really question what he’s doing until it’s too late.

Jason: He’s a great casting choice. I’d almost describe him as having an emotionally constipated presence on screen. He’s perfect for the role.

Kelly: That was my direction to him: ‘put on your constipated face!’ No, he’s an intense person and in life he’s the opposite of his character because he’s a completely questioning person, he never stops questioning. The Josh character is such a far cry from who Jesse is. But I think even in his stillest moments you can really see a mind at work behind his eyes. I really like him in the role so much.

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