To-hell-and-back Harvey - interview with actor Harvey Keitel - Interview

Interview, May, 1999 by Oren Moverman

Harvey Keitel has portrayed many men waging war with their demons. In this month's Three Seasons, he plays a Vietnam vet on a Journey to make peace with himself - and the word

Harvey Keitel has appeared in some of the greatest cult movies of our time, including Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Fingers (1978), and Reservoir Dogs (1992), He is a tough, perplexing screen icon, a prolific performer with more than sixty films in his oeuvre, a sixty-year-old adventurer who thumbs his nose at the artistic laziness that so often follows celebrity. Combining viciousness and nobility, suffering and machismo, the Keltel persona often seems to be at war with himself. One moment he is the swaggering, ballistic cop in Bad Lieutenant (1992), the next he's the peacemaking, Zen-like colonist of The Plano (1993).

His new film, the gorgeous Sundance winner Three Seasons, written and directed by newcomer Tony Bui, perhaps best represents Keitel at the moment. His behind in Vietnam, is most concerned with being a humanist and a human being. Like Keitel himself, it's as simple and complex as that.

OREN MOVERMAN: Your role in Three Seasons Is surprisingly small but it's pivotal because, as a veteran, you carry the weight of history into the narrative.

HARVEY KEITEL: I actually didn't feel the role was small. I felt the story was large, that the story was a heart and every character was a beat of that heart. The journey of this American soldier, for me, had the same weight as that of the other characters in the film. I was very moved by the idea that once upon a time there was a war in Vietnam, and here we are some thirty years later and Tony is waging another war - this internal war we all straggle with, to become complete. I myself did not fight in Vietnam. I served in Lebanon in 1958.

OM: How central is your military experience to your life and your acting?

HK: Well, it was certainly one of those extraordinary events in my life. You know that saying, "Once a marine, always a marine?" I am still a marine today. We shared this brotherhood of the spirit that to this day I feel, as do all former marines. It lifted me, it elevated me, it spirited me, it challenged me to my limits, and my limits were extended. That helped me sustain a great deal of struggle I encountered on my road to becoming an actor. I heard on the news that a large percentage of the members of Congress have never had military experience. That's mind-boggling to me. We cannot send other young men out to fight our wars while we enjoy the fruits of a democracy that we have never stood up for. That is not right. I personally am against the volunteer army. I think every young man should serve. I don't understand how we can allow our lower-middle class and underclass to fight our wars while the privileged never have to serve. That's a disgrace.

OM: Did that sense of obligation drive you to enlist?

HK: No. I was a young boy growing up in Brooklyn and me and my pals were looking for some identity in life. I'd been thrown out of school. We were seeking to find out who we were and the Marine Corps was, to me, one stop along the way. Two of my best friends and I joined together. By the way, I think we were the only three Jewish guys in our platoon on Parris Island.

OM: The scene in Three Seasons when your character first sees his daughter is very moving; there's a close-up of you where many conflicting emotions are displayed - pain, Joy, relief, anxiety. How do you approach such a difficult moment? Do you look through the eyes of the character?

HK: That ground is something I can't speak about. I can only do it. It's sacred to me, that work. I hope you understand.

OM: Do you find in general that it's difficult for you to talk about your craft?

HK: It's just a feeling I have that certain things have to be my own. It's not that I can't share them, because I do, but they have to be shared in another way - through the work.

OM: One of the things I found remarkable about Three Seasons is the absence of politics. Do you think that's what makes the film more universal and accessible?

HK: The absence of politics leaves room for the presence of soul. It's set in Vietnam, but it could be set in many places where a conflict destroyed the country and there's a process of rebuilding, of finding the place's identity. That theme of trying to reconcile, to find wholeness, is something I have always felt. Vietnam emerging from this history of conflict, and its struggle to build a structure, a society, an economy that can sustain its people, is something we can all identify with. Issues like poverty, homelessness, longing for someone, needing a job that brings one income so one can lead a life of dignity - these are all universal truths.

OM: Don't you think, though, that Western society is turning its face away from many of the things you've mentioned, Including a search for meaning, for compassion?

HK: Yes, I do. But I am not losing hope.

OM: You've made a lot of uncompromising, out-of-the-mainstream character choices. What attracts you to a role?