At the end of the film, Pierce presents the stats. They‘re shocking, and the numbers keep going up.
Pierce says she learned about stop loss from her younger brother who’d joined the military following the 9-11 terrorist attacks and had served in Iraq. “We became a military family,“ says Pierce, “and I became personally aware of what soldiers were going through. My brother wasn‘t stop loss-ed because of some medical conditions, but his buddies were. I heard their stories and knew I wanted to make a film about them.
MERIN: Why did you choose to make a narrative feature instead of a documentary?
PIERCE: Actually, when my brother enlisted, I wanted to understand what he was experiencing and started making a documentary about soldiers. And, as I discovered more--particularly about stop loss--the project turned into a narrative feature, telling the stories of several soldiers.
I like documentaries and watch a lot of them, but narrative features are more mainstream, and I wanted this film to have mainstream exposure and a mainstream audience--and, fortunately, I was able to make that happen. I wanted a cast of actors whose appeal and charisma reach out from the screen and grab you--so you’re caught up in their stories, their situations. What interests me most as a filmmaker is uncovering essential human truths of the story, finding out what happens to and between characters. Making a narrative feature actually gives me more control over the story and how it develops. Writing the script is an organic process--finding the truth is being open to what feels right.
Making a documentary film is like making a narrative feature in many ways. And in the end, they must both present compelling stories that engage the audience, that make people care.
I based the script of Stop Loss on hundreds of hours of interviews with soldiers and their families. The characters in the film are composites of the soldiers I interviewed--their language and experiences are real. We went as far as we could to make the film real--the actors went to boot camp with soldiers who’d served in Iraq and we had military consultants and veteran soldiers on the set while we were shooting. In the combat scenes, we would turn to them and ask whether we were getting it right--or, when they’re in Iraq and chasing the terrorists, I wanted to know what they would say to each other, how they would communicate when and where to fire or not, and the language the actors use is what soldiers said when they were in Iraq in that situation. Another example is the way the soldiers line up, or ’stack,’ as they call it, to protect and cover each other when they’re on a mission or in a possible sniper situation.
We’ve heard from Iraq vets at every screening that we really got it right. That’s the level of truth and reality we demanded of ourselves. And I think we got it right.
MERIN: The footage looks authentic. Did you use any actual combat footage, or was everything staged?
PIERCE: Everything was staged.
MERIN: That’s amazing. There’s a such a strong cinematic distinction between the combat sequences and the scenes that take place in Texas. How did you accomplish that? Did you have a special crew shoot the combat sequences? Where did you shoot them?
PIERCE: I’m glad to hear to say that. It’s what we wanted. But we didn’t change our cinematographer to get it. We just had a great Director of Photography in Chris Menges, whose work is amazing no matter what he’s shooting. We shot in Morocco, but there’s a story about getting there. We were originally supposed to shoot the Middle Eastern exteriors at the Alamo--because it was supposed to save money. I didn’t think the Alamo would work, but I took the suggestion seriously and asked my Production Designer and other crew members to do a budget indicating what it would cost to rebuild and decorate the Alamo to look like a Middle Eastern town. Their budgets showed it could be cheaper to shoot on location in Morocco--so we got to do it there and I’ve been told it’s accurate. That’s what the combat zones look like.
