STACK #123 Jan 2015

DVD&BD

FEATURE

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Serving aboard submarines in the US Navy, and a love of classic war movies, provided writer-director DAVIDAYER with the inspiration forWorldWar II film FURY.

I f any filmmaker understands the nature of life inside a war machine it is David Ayer. The 46-year-old writer-director of End of Watch began his working life in the US Navy, serving onboard submarines. “I have lived in a war machine so I understand the life and I understand the regard you have when you are dependent on a machine in terms of keeping you alive,” Ayer explains. “In the Navy, when I first got to the boat, I slept in the torpedo room on a weapons rack next to a missile and if I wanted to turn over, I had to get out of bed, turn over and slide back in. And yet there is this idea of maintaining your home and being ready to fight in it – it is your living room and your office and bathroom all in one.” Ayer’s most recent movie is the WWII picture Fury , which he wrote and directed. It focuses on 24 hours in the life of a Sherman tank crew fighting the Germans during the last months

of the war. The five-man team have served together and suffered together through days of combat and violence, and the bond they have formed is made even firmer by the constricted space in which they live and fight. In truth, the writer-director regards the tank crew as a family. “There is a bond that men who face danger together have and it is very clear in my work,” he says. “And I just loved the idea of telling a story about a family in a tank. It is really that simple. I wanted to tell a story of a family under extreme conditions that lives inside a war machine.” The patriarch in this family is Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier, played by three-time Oscar-nominated actor Brad Pitt. “As a writer you have these shadows, these shades in your head, and the Wardaddy character was one of the first to emerge from the mists,” Ayer says. “It was this idea of a veteran who is an absolute brutal warrior, yet has a big heart and loves this family he has created. He loves his

men whose lives he is trying to preserve.” These men are the gunner Boyd ‘Bible’ Swan (played by Shia LaBeouf); Grady ‘Coon- Ass’ Travis, the loader (Jon Bernthal); and the driver, Trini ‘Gordo’ Garcia (Michael Peña). The audience meets the crew not long after their fifth member, the assistant driver, has been killed. His replacement is a rookie called Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), a typist with no tank training who has been thrust into frontline combat due to the US manpower shortage during the last phase of the war. Norman is an innocent, with no battle experience, and it is up to Wardaddy to initiate him into the ways of war. “It is the heart of the movie,” says Ayer. “Norman learns that he can’t be who he is and expect to survive in that world, and I think that’s part of growing up, part of life, and we all go through that as we mature. From childhood to adolescence and into adulthood, it has to be dealt with and it is a painful process. Norman’s

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