When life and art collide: talking to Joel Schumacher about what happened when the real-life D.C. sniper crisis led to the postponed release of this month's Phone Booth, his movie about a fictional sniper

PATRICK GILES: "Art imitates life; life imitates art" is a cultural bromide--but just a few weeks before you were about to release your latest film, Phone Booth, which concerns a sniper attack, you came close to living it. What happened?

JOEL SCHUMACHER: It certainly was peculiar to have the original release of this film coincide with the sniper killings in D.C., because I'll tell you how long ago Larry Cohen wrote it-he first told the idea to Alfred Hitchcock!

PG: You're kidding me! Hitchcock died in 1980, so that means this premise was concocted more than 22 years ago-

JS: Larry said, "I have this idea for a movie set entirely in a phone booth. Do you think it would work?" And Mr. Hitchcock told him, 'You're just going to have to try it." Years later, I was offered the script, and eventually directed the picture. It was supposed to be released in November 2002, but in the middle of the sniper crisis, it was pushed back to April.

PG: These circumstances remind me of what happened to The Manchurian Candidate [1962], John Frankenheimer's thriller about political assassination. In the wake of President Kennedy's assassination, the film was pulled from circulation and went unseen for several years. Both pictures seem almost creative premonitions.

JS: First of all, it's terrible that something like these sniper killings around Washington, D.C., could happen, but here's the thing: There is absolutely no work of fiction that can come close to reality. For instance, there's a recent case where this educated dentist--with her stepdaughter in the car--ran over her husband. If you had a research screening on a film with that story, the audience would immediately say, "A woman like that would never do such a thing!"

PG: It is, of course, highly doubtful John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo [who are currently charged with the D.C.-area shootings] could have known about your picture. But what a strange coincidence!

JS: [sighs] In a country with 250 million people and something like 250 million guns, there will always be stories involving hostages and snipers. Unfortunately, we live in this gun culture. But unlike the sniper situation in D.C., the sniper in Phone Booth has an agenda. In his mind, he is playing God--he spends a great deal of time researching his targets. The situation with the accused D.C. snipers, on the other hand, was so random--[the victims were] whoever just happened to be in the target range at the time.

PG: Which seems even scarier. Certainly, the wall-to-wall media coverage going on at the time heightened fears. It might have led to Phone Booth being attacked, or even blamed for "inspiring" real-life snipers, had it been released as originally planned.

JS: Oh, it's a hot-button issue for the media to leap on any form of entertainment: "The TV show made me do it," "PlayStation 2 made me do it," "Marilyn Manson made me do it."

PG: Remember the Dan White case? He was the San Francisco politician who assassinated Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone [in 1978]. His attorney copped what came to be known as the Twinkie Defense, saying eating too much junk food impaired White's conscience and judgment.

JS: That's right! I think the media have a wonderful catbird seat for themselves here, because they get to totally exploit crime--story after story, endless interviews--and glorify criminals. And then they can say, "It's entertainment that's causing this!"

PG: Phone Booth is a virtuoso turn for Colin Farrell. whom you discovered when casting your film Tigerland [2000]. Did you discuss the delay with him?

JS: Colin is such a wonderful actor, and he's great in Phone Booth--it's all him. I think we both sensed something coming as the situation in D.C. developed, and I do remember he wasn't bummed out about the delay, at all. He totally understood.

PG: So was postponing the film a decision you and the studio came to together?

JS: It was a Fox decision, since they owned the picture, but we knew it was coming and were supportive of it. Last fall, our trailers were running in theaters, and we were getting a very positive, generous response from the press after a great showing at the Toronto Film Festival, but as soon as the sniper shootings happened, nobody said, "Let's release it right now!" I mean, can you imagine if we had run commercials for a movie about a sniper while all that was going on?

PG: It's refreshing to hear you talk about all this without pouting, "How could this happen to my movie?"

JS: I don't think movies are the most important thing on the planet. They're my life's work, and I feel very privileged to make them, but I don't think movies and [we filmmakers] are more important than the human race.

PG: That's so nice to hear from someone in Hollywood! [both laugh]

JS: Oh, there are plenty of people in Hollywood who feel that way--you just don't hear from them enough. It's the Courtney Loves who get all the press! [both laugh] You have to be very Zen about these things. No one knows the right time to release a film. It's always a crapshoot, and anybody in Hollywood who tells you it isn't, is lying. If people could figure that out, everyone would pick the perfect time for releasing their movies.

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