West Windsor-Plainsboro�s Hollywood connection is back in the news, with the superstars who started it all � Bryan Singer and Chris McQuarrie � working together again on a major motion picture, �Valkyrie,� and two other WW-P alumni also making entertainment news.##M:[more]##
Singer, Class of �84, and McQuarrie, who graduated a year later, bring to life the true story of the men who led the operation to assassinate Hitler. It opens on Thursday, December 25, and stars Tom Cruise. Meanwhile another former student from WW-P has turned up in the new movie �Milk,� (see below) and a writer from the Class of 1999 has had his first novel published by Simon & Schuster (see sidebar).
Singer, a graduate of West Windsor-Plainsboro High School, Class of 1984, is the director and producer of �Valkyrie.� His award-winning and successful films include �Public Access,� �The Usual Suspects,� �Apt Pupil,� �X-Men,� and �Superman Returns.� Singer�s entry into series television with �House,� a show set in the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, has received both Emmy and Golden Globe awards. He is also executive producer of the television series �Dirty Sexy Money.�
McQuarrie, born and raised in Princeton Junction, worked for a detective agency in North Jersey after high school graduation. According to his biography, �four years later he applied to the New York Police Department and was on his way to the academy when former schoolmate Bryan Singer offered him the opportunity to write their first feature film, �Public Access,� winner of the 1993 Sundance Film Festival�s grand jury prize.�
In 1995 they collaborated on �The Usual Suspects,� a film on the New York Times� list of the 1,”000 greatest films ever made and on the Writer�s Guild of America list of the 101 greatest screenplays. McQuarrie spent the next several years dividing his time between rewriting studio movies, including Singer�s X-Men, and developing material with a focus on true stories. He also wrote and directed �The Way of the Gun.�
McQuarrie was in Berlin in 2002 doing research for a project when, during a tour of the city, he came across Stauffenbergstrasse, the street named after German Resistance fighter Claus von Stauffenberg. There he found the Bendlerblock, the site of a monument to the German Resistance that McQuarrie found profoundly moving.
�Of course, I wanted to know more,� says McQuarrie. �It was a story that revealed not all Germans supported Hitler, that there were all kinds of resistors, including those in the military, and some who were willing to stand up and say no.�
�Valkyrie� was a chance not only to take on his first true story but to also explore a period in time that has held a dark fascination for Singer since childhood, when his Jewish background made him acutely aware of the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and the Nazis.
�At a very young age, I learned there were Germans who had tried to kill Hitler,� Singer says. �I didn�t know specifically about Stauffenberg and Olbricht, but I had heard about a bomb in a briefcase, and to me that was always a big deal, to understand that all Germans weren�t Nazis. It would be devastating at such a young age to believe that the whole of a country could be filled with such hate, and it was good to know there were a few who tried to stand against it.�
�I�ve always had an interest in exploring the Third Reich,� Singer says. �I touched upon it in a film I did based on a Stephen King novella (�Apt Pupil�), and again in the first �X-Men� with the concentration camp scene. But �Valkyrie� was a chance to segue into a realistic portrayal of that world through an extraordinary true story.�
McQuarrie continued his research, focusing on Stauffenberg and his key role in planning the July 20, 1944, assassination plot against Hitler � including his ultimately carrying the bomb intended to change the world. �A theme I am always attracted to is that of someone who is forced to step outside their reality and, by doing so, becoming a far bigger person,� McQuarrie says. �Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators were all men who had wives and children and established reputations. They knew going in they had little chance of success, and they understood if they failed it would mean certain destruction. That�s what we wanted to honor with this story.�
Although McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander, his writing partner, found that the drama and tension of the story were important, they compressed the timeline to fit a two-hour screenplay and focused only on a handful of the 200 people hanged and 700 arrested for their involvement. �The tension in the story is anchored on the affection we develop for these characters,� says McQuarrie. �The suspense lies in witnessing what these men go through in choosing to join the plot, and the decisions they make in the course of its fateful execution.�
McQuarrie and Alexander soon realized that many of the military men, committed to the German people, did not know how inhumane things in the concentration camps would become. �This was a culture where people truly believed that when you gave your word it was for life, and these men had all sworn an oath of loyalty to Hitler,� says McQuarrie. �Yet they ultimately reasoned that Hitler broke his oath to the country with the atrocities he and his ministers were perpetrating. They realized they had to do something for the sake of a different future � even if it meant being vilified as traitors by their fellow countrymen. It was an agonizing moral dilemma.�
�We wanted to make clear that assassinating Adolf Hitler wasn�t enough, because that wouldn�t guarantee his Nazi government would fall. They also had to find a way to topple his regime,� says McQuarrie. �Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators used Operation Valkyrie to make it look as though Hitler�s closest inner circle had killed him and was trying to take over in Berlin. Posing as the legitimate government, the resistance would quickly mobilize the Reserve Army to seize control of the government.�
The film, shot in Germany, used some civilian and government buildings; Bendlerblock military headquarters; the former Luftwaffe headquarters, now the Ministry of Finance; at Tempelhof Airport, where there is a large structure that was used by the Nazis; at the Messe Berlin, which was originally built by the Nazis for the World�s Fair in 1933; and the exterior of the house where Stauffenberg lived.
�It was truly moving to shoot in the Bendlerblock,� says McQuarrie. �We first had a moment of silence in honor of the men who died there before reading a letter written by one of the conspirators. In it, he expressed his hope that they would be seen as patriots and not as traitors. We were surrounded by deep emotions over what we were commemorating.�
Singer, who was more interested in revealing the true story, did not want to create a documentary film. �We had private meetings with members of the Stauffenberg family,� Singer says. �On the other side, we met with Hitler�s former bodyguard, who, I believe, was the last person to leave the bunker where Hitler committed suicide. These meetings were done specifically to bring new perspectives and ideas to the material. They were very informative, and sometimes transformational in terms of what we learned.�
�Stauffenberg was an intense, charismatic individual, so we needed an actor who could really portray that,� says Singer. �I was really excited when Tom [Cruise] came on board. Very few actors are able to pull off those hero roles, but Tom completely does. He was an important part of getting the movie made, and he and his performance will be a really important part of bringing the story to the world.�
