Movies: "J Edgar" Interview, Dustin Lance Black's Cautionary Tale

Leonardo, Clint and "Historian" Dustin Lance Black on the J EDGAR set

NATHANIEL ROGERS
...would live in the movie theater but for the poor internet reception. He blogs daily at the Film Experience. Follow him on Twitter @nathanielr.

 
INTERVIEW
Last week we had a very brief chat with Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar winning screenwriter of Milk fame. After that historic success he had the opportunity to direct a picture (What's Wrong With Virginia?) and now he's back with a biographical screenplay for another famous director, Clint Eastwood. After brief introductions, we jumped right into the movie at hand and our conversation in full follows. Lance's sprawling screenplay for J EDGAR leaps back and forth across the decades to chart the entire professional life of the infamous FBI man J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) while perpetually glancing sideways at his notoriously intimate relationship with his right hand man Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). The movie is proving divisive but Oscar buzz, particularly for DiCaprio's baity lead performance in Best Actor, continues.

TOWLEROAD: This is your second feature film biopic of a famous gay American. Will we get a trilogy?

DUSTIN LANCE BLACK: No, You know... no plans in the near future. I'm doing the 'Barefoot Bandit' story on Colton Harris-Moore and then Under the Banner of Heaven after that. So nope. But these two, for me, Milk and J. Edgar were sort of bookends in a way. One is a mirror of the other.

J Edgar being the more cautionary tale?

Yes. I think so [Laughs]. One of them had extraordinary political power. The other one was just trying to get a small piece of it. One came out of the closet and by doing so spread hope. The other one stayed in the closet and spread fear and insecurity.

There is some poetic justic here. J. Edgar Hoover was known for prying into people's personal lives and here you are investigating his. Were you nervous about doing so, given that some people get angry when others speculate about the sexuality of the famous and the deceased.  

Well people have been speculating about J. Edgar's sexuality for generations now. People have been saying 'Oh, he ran around in cocktail dresses!' That, to me, didn't ring true and in my research proved not to be true. But also in looking into his record as a heterosexual he failed miserably. And so it becomes quite clear when you look at what he did and didn't do that whether or not he ever consummated it, this was a guy who was not straight. 

CONTINUED, AFTER THE JUMP...

Leonardo DiCaprio and Clint Eastwood Discuss Cross-dressing, 'Aggressive' Gay Kisses in 'J Edgar'

The Hollywood Reporter talks to Leonardo DiCaprio and Clint Eastwood about the upcoming biopic J Edgar. Sounds as though they play the gay element right on the edge.

On the gay kiss:

Neither Eastwood nor DiCaprio has drawn any conclusions about Hoover sexuality.

"Whether he was gay remains to be seen," Eastwood says. "But [he and Clyde Tolson] were inseperable (sic) buddies. Was that becase he didn't trust anybody else or was it a love story? I think they had a great affection; whether it was gay or not, I don't know."

DiCaprio elaborates, "What you cannot doubt is that Clyde Tolson and he had a relationship that spanned most of their life; they lived with each other, had lunch and dinner, and [Hoover] left everything to Clyde. Unarguably, they were partners in some sense."

The film depicts Tolson aggressively kissing Hoover on the mouth at the end of their fistfight.

And the rumored cross-dressing:

"Along the way, people accused him of [that]," Eastwood notes. "But nobody knows how accurate it was. Evidently the woman who accused him of that, her husband had been sent to the slammer by Hoover. So you don't know how much was vengeance."

Eastwood himself believes "there is a certain amount of truth" to all the allegations, but wanted to retain some ambiguity. One scene in the film shows Hoover wearing his mother's dress.

Leonardo DiCaprio is 'The Most Powerful Man in the World' in Posters for 'J Edgar'

Two new one-sheets have been released for J Edgar, featuring the barking visage of Leonardo DiCaprio as the former (possibly gay) FBI head.

The patriotic version, AFTER THE JUMP...

FBI Officials, Former Aide Tell Clint Eastwood They Didn't See Anything Gay About J. Edgar Hoover

Some insights into the upcoming Clint Eastwood biopic of J Edgar Hoover and the research Eastwood and the cast did on Hoover's rumored homosexuality from USA Today.

The folks at the Hoover Foundation don't seem too pleased that this angle was being researched or may be explored in the film, and deny that Hoover was gay, but don't want anyone to think it's because they're anti-gay:

William Baker, a former agent and Hoover foundation vice president, characterized Eastwood's letter as "polite, but non-committal."

"Concern still persists (that the angle is being explored)," Baker said. None of the agents interviewed has seen the film. What alarms them is what Baker has heard from people familiar with the movie and a suggestive image in the movie's trailer (Watch it HERE) Hoover's character clutching the hand of Tolson, played by Armie Hammer.

"We're caught in a dilemma here," Baker said. "We don't want to support something not based in fact, but we're not against the new FBI and diverse workplace."

Meanwhile, the Hoover Foundation chair had a bit of a stronger reaction:

"There is no basis in fact for such a portrayal of Mr. Hoover," William Branon, chairman of The J. Edgar Hoover Foundation, wrote to Eastwood this year. "It would be a grave injustice and monumental distortion to proceed with such a depiction based on a completely unfounded and spurious assertion."

Eastwood and DiCaprio met with the FBI earlier this year. Assistant FBI Director Mike Kortan told them the trail is cold on Hoover's homosexuality:

"Vague rumors and fabrications have cropped up from time to time, but there is no evidence in the historical record on this issue."

And a former aide to Hoover told DiCaprio the same thing:

"When the subject of homosexuality came up, I made it very clear that I never saw any evidence of it whatsoever," said DeLoach, 91, who served as Hoover's deputy director for more than five years. "I traveled with him, I ate in his home and he in mine. I knew Clyde Tolson to be Mr. Hoover's companion and best friend. When you are somebody like Mr. Hoover, I guess you need somebody to talk to."

Filmmaker Eastwood asked FBI about Hoover's sexuality [usa today]

Leonardo DiCaprio and Armie Hammer in 'J Edgar' Trailer: WATCH

The trailer for J Edgar, the Clint Eastwood biopic about FBI director J Edgar Hoover starring Leonardo DiCaprio (Hoover) and Armie Hammer (Clyde Tolson), has arrived.

Watch it, AFTER THE JUMP...

Dustin Lance Black: Clint Eastwood Never Made a Change to Gay Storyline in 'J Edgar'

Dustin Lance Black talks to NYC's Next magazine about the Broadway debut of 8, the play he wrote about the federal case challenging Proposition 8, and the forthcoming J Edgar Hoover biopic directed by Clint Eastwood.

Says Black of J Edgar:

“I wrote this with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine company, and there was never any limitation in terms of where I could or should go except they were very interested in finally figuring out the truth about Hoover. We all wanted to find out what really happened. What was his sexuality. What did it look like. I wanted to get to the truth of his political work and the things that deserve applause and things that were heinous. The gay stuff was only ever going to be a third of it. It’s not Milk, but it’s there. When I finished a draft I liked, and think I got to what the truth is, it’s a story that reflects what gay life was like pre-Stonewall, which was very different from what it looked like for Harvey Milk. That’s the script Clint and the studio read and I’ll tell you what—not only did Clint and the studio never cut or change a word, they never had a note about it. Clint said some things that were so incredibly moving that he understood the struggle young gays go through today. If anything, Clint made it even more human and universal.”

Eight Isn't Enough [next magazine]

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