STACK NZ Jan-Feb #59

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I f any filmmaker understands the nature
of life inside a war machine it is David
Ayer. The 46-year-old writer-director of
End of Watch began his working life in the US
Navy, serving onboard submarines.
“I have lived in a war machine so I understand
the life and I understand the regard you have
when you are dependent on a machine in terms
of keeping you alive,” Ayer explains.
“In the Navy, when I first got to the boat, I
slept in the torpedo room on a weapons rack
next to a missile and if I wanted to turn over,
I had to get out of bed, turn over and slide
back in. And yet there is this idea of maintaining
your home and being ready to fight in it
– it is your living room and your office and
bathroom all in one.”
Ayer’s most recent movie is the WWII picture
Fury, which he wrote and directed. It focuses
on 24 hours in the life of a Sherman tank crew
fighting the Germans during the last months of
the war. The five-man team have served together
and suffered together through days of combat
and violence, and the bond they have formed is
made even firmer by the constricted space in
which they live and fight.
In truth, the writer-director regards the
tank crew as a family. “There is a bond that
men who face danger together have and it is
very clear in my work,” he says. “And I just
loved the idea of telling a story about a family in
a tank. It is really that simple. I wanted to tell a
story of a family under extreme conditions that
lives inside a war machine.”
The patriarch in this family is Don ‘Wardaddy’
Collier, played by three-time Oscar-nominated
actor Brad Pitt. “As a writer you have these
shadows, these shades in your head, and the
Wardaddy character was one of the first to
emerge from the mists,” Ayer says.
“It was this idea of a veteran who is an
absolute brutal warrior, yet has a big heart and
loves this family he has created. He loves his
men whose lives he is trying to preserve.”
These men are the gunner Boyd ‘Bible’
Swan (played by Shia LaBeouf); Grady ‘Coon-
Ass’ Travis, the loader (Jon Bernthal); and the
driver, Trini ‘Gordo’ Garcia (Michael Peña). The
audience meets the crew not long after their fifth
member, the assistant driver, has been killed. His
replacement is a rookie called Norman Ellison
(Logan Lerman), a typist with no tank training
who has been thrust into frontline combat due to
the US manpower shortage during the
last phase of the war.
Norman is an innocent, with no battle
experience, and it is up to Wardaddy to initiate
him into the ways of war. “It is the heart of the
movie,” says Ayer.
“Norman learns that he can’t be who he is
and expect to survive in that world, and I think
that’s part of growing up, part of life, and we all
go through that as we mature. From childhood to
adolescence and into adulthood, it has to be dealt
with and it is a painful process. Norman’s journey
is universal in that way.
Serving aboard submarines in the US Navy, and a love of classic war movies, provided
writer-director DAVIDAYER with the inspiration forWorldWar II film FURY.
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