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the last detail in post-production.”
Miller also conducted interviews with those
directly involved, including Mark Schultz and his
fellow wrestlers, Nancy Schultz, employees of
du Pont, and the police officers assigned to the
case. “This story harbours some
uncomfortable truths,” he
says. “Everyone I spoke with
seemed to be guarding some
aspect of what happened.” It
then fell to screenwriters E.
Max Frye and Dan Futterman
B ennett Miller first came across the
story in a newspaper article. “The
circumstances seemed comical and
absurd, but the outcome was horrible and real,”
he says. “The deeply strange things that
happened on the du Pont estate were unlike
anything I had personally experienced, and yet
they felt familiar. There was something about the
story – or perhaps something beneath the story
– that wasn’t strange at all. In fact, the
opposite.”
To bring this true-life tale to the screen, Miller
embarked on extensive research into the case,
a process that took a number of years and went
beyond simply determining the plot. “I needed
to learn what hadn’t been known about the
story and that takes time,” he says. “My first
undertaking was authoring and engineering the
moments and sequencing what would become
the film – a process that allowed the film to
continue to reveal itself all the way through to
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The triangular true story of Olympic Gold Medal-winning wrestler Mark Schultz, his older brother Dave and
eccentric multi-millionaire coach John du Pont – and the events that transpired on the Foxcatcher ranch during
the late 1980s – is a disturbing and tragic tale that resonated with director Bennett Miller.
WRESTLING
FOXCATCHER
to sort the fact from the fiction and build a
complex, character-focused narrative.
“Making a film like this, which is not a
predetermined, connect-the-dots kind of
project, requires a leap of faith on the part of
the producers and actors,” Miller explains. “It’s
almost like going into a documentary, where you
don’t know exactly what form it will take when
it’s finished. The only way for the film to become
what it needs to become is to go into it with a
question mark.”
Undoubtedly the most fascinating player
in the Foxcatcher saga is John du Pont, the
fiercely patriotic “ornithologist, philatelist,
philanthropist”, coach and benefactor to
the US Olympic wrestling team through the
establishment of the Foxcatcher training facility
and his generous financial contributions to the
sport.
“He was highly competitive and yearned for
respect,” notes Steve Carell, whose disquieting
portrayal of du Pont in the film was rewarded
with an Oscar nomination. “I think he wanted
people to look up to him in the way they looked
up to Dave Schultz. He wanted to be one of
the guys yet still be held in a somewhat higher
regard than others. Ultimately he was unable to
earn that kind of esteem and admiration.
“I don’t see him as a monster,” he continues.
“He’s someone who was suffering from mental
illness and did something terrible. He was a very
sad, damaged human being.”
This story harbours some
uncomfortable truths.
Everyone I spoke with
seemed to be guarding
some aspect of what
happened.
WITH