After a series of indie hits such as Animal Kingdom, Hesher, and The Rover, writer-director David Michôd signed on with Brad Pitt’s company, Plan B, to make War Machine, an  adaptation of Michael Hastings’ non-fiction book, The Operators.

The Operators is about the firing of U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal. The film on the other hand follows General Glen McMahon, played by Brad Pitt, as he is sent to Afghanistan to bring the war there to an end. The absurdist story highlights the various problems within the war machine of the armed forces, as audiences are invited to watch the General’s roller-coaster rise and fall in a film that is part reality, part parody.

Creative Screenwriting spoke with Michôd developing fiction from non-fiction, use of narration, and why you should treat your brain like an oven.

How did you get involved with War Machine?

Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner at Plan B brought me the book, and asked if I thought there was anything I could do with it. And it all kind of rolled from there.

I really love those guys, and I’ve been talking to them for years about us finding a way to make a movie together. I had been talking to them about making a movie from before I had even made Animal Kingdom.

They saw a couple of short films I had made and reached out to me. I’ve never forgotten that. They were the only Hollywood company that did, and it forever endeared them for me.

Was Brad Pitt always the ideal actor for the lead role?

Well, the hope was always that I would be writing a character for Brad to play, but you can never be sure.

I went and had a meeting with Brad, and we talked in broad brush strokes about intent and flavor. Then when I delivered a script, he jumped on really quickly. It almost felt like he was pushing all else aside and saying he wanted to make this movie and he wanted to do it now.

Did all of General Glen McMahon’s characteristics come from the book or were there some outside influences as well?

There’s very little in the visible characteristics of Glen McMahon that resemble Stan McChrystal.

Brad and I knew from the beginning that we were going to create a character that was much larger than Stan McChrystal. We both agreed that we wanted this movie to be about something other than one particular real-life guy. We wanted this movie to be about a much larger system

We wanted it to be about the entire institution, the way that institution interacts with the civilian executive and the media, and the way its different component parts act with one another. That, for us, was the core of the movie. It felt important to us that we extricate it from its real world foundation.

It’s amazing that a story like this can be told—both the book and the film—with the war still going on. Do you see this film as providing some clarity, or just highlighting some of the problems?

I would suggest that the two are the same. In a way, this is a movie about a conflict that has been running for close to sixteen years now, and it seems to be in an endless cycle of repeating itself. For sixteen years, it has been built on the same delusion, the same kind of fantasy end game.

What I wanted the movie to show is how that delusion is even possible. What is it that sustains a delusion of that nature, and how is it possible that seemingly otherwise smart and capable guys are able to lose themselves in catastrophic folly of this nature?

When you were reading the book, I’m sure there were certain truths that you felt had to be told. How did you decide when and where to add parody or satire?

The thing that I loved about Michael’s book was that it gave me a way in to a vague story I had been contemplating for quite a while. Finding some way of exploring the experience of modern war. What I loved about Michael’s book was that it gave me a way in that felt human. It was about hubris and vanity and ambition.

So the picking and choosing of pieces to leave in and leave out were how those pieces served that core concern. That’s when it gets easy. It has been true for me that when I know confidently what the themes of my movie are, and what it’s about on a certain super level, the movie sort of writes itself. Making those decisions about what to include or what to exclude make themselves very quickly.

Michael’s book caused some outrage when it first came out, not necessarily about the truth but about the fact that he printed the truth. Do you expect any backlash from the film?

I don’t know. To be honest, I really have no idea how this movie is going to land in the world, generally. It’s strange. It’s tonally adventurous. It’s dense in information. It’s politically complex, bordering on ambiguous. So the short answer is, I don’t know.

One thing that was very important to me was that those people with hard experience about the actual functioning of this machine, would feel on some level that it rang true. Even in the midst of it’s ridiculous absurdity, they would feel that it had something important to say.

My experience thus far is that it does or has. That’s what I care about the most. Whatever kind of “Washington” blow-back comes my way, I can live with. The military serves us. It exists in the service of citizenry, and I think our civilian leaders owe it to their constituents to hold the military to greater accounts than it has.

In the film there is a narrator who reads some quotes from the General’s fictional book, which form a humorous thread throughout the film. Where did this idea come from?

The voiceover for the film was written in one big block. It was a piece of writing in and of itself, that would stretch out from either side of the character’s appearance in the movie.

It was principally about taking a movie that was dense, complex, and tonally challenging, and then giving it a guiding voice. Then that voice had to present itself as sane and rational, because I was aware of the fact that I would be creating a very discombobulating experience for an audience. I felt it would to my advantage to create a kind of handrail.

What did you find to be the most difficult step while writing this movie?

Probably piecing together all of the years of reading and research I had done into one large, coherent thing.

To a certain extent, Michael’s book is about a war correspondence’s experience with a four-star general. But I knew I wanted to make a movie that was much larger, about the entire military institution and its functioning. I had accumulating a lot of research that needed to be somehow condensed and made coherent.

I needed to engage in deciding what belonged in, and what didn’t despite being interesting. But also, in finding a way to make the blueprint for a movie that would be fundamentally, tonally challenging.

I was immediately drawn to the almost ridiculous absurdity and the hubris at the center of Michael’s book. And yet I never wanted to let go of the horror that had made me want to make a movie set in the modern theater of war in the first place.

I knew that trying to make these things coexist inside one movie would be challenging, but it excited me because I felt that if I could make it work, it would make the movie feel defiantly unusual.

There are some great supporting characters, especially Michael Anthony Hall’s character, Greg Pulver.

Obviously Brad’s character is the central pillar of the movie. So the construction of the supporting characters were kind of determined by the ways in which they hang off that central pillar.

To the extent that this movie is about delusion, and how delusion is fortified by outside forces, it always felt important that among his cheer squad, he has one significant and powerful voice on his shoulder, that was forever enforcing his conviction and forever making him feel admired.

When you’re both the writer and director, do you picture the scenes and write out those details in the script?

Yes. I love writing when I direct, because the two processes are just part of the one larger thing. I start directing while I’m writing and I keep writing while I’m on set.

I start dreaming the movie while I’m writing. I start compiling music. I start feeling the flavor of the thing. By the time I walk on set, I kind of have it in my DNA. Then it just becomes a great hunting and gathering expedition.

What are the logistics behind that? How long did you spend writing the drafts?

This one was unusual in that I had done so much research. For two or three years, I had just been reading books about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but hadn’t found the outlet for it. Hadn’t found the story to tell. I couldn’t find my way in.

So by the time Michael’s book came to me, the writing part happened surprisingly quickly, especially for me. It just started flooding out of me.

I didn’t feel like I needed to slowly get the machine moving. It was almost like popping a pimple. The writing happened fast and focused.

Like I say, there is never really just a writing period—it just continues for me, in pre-production and then while I’m on set. It picks up a whole different steam when I get into the edit room.

Do you advise newcomers to try to be a writer and director in order to get their project made?

I try to avoid giving advice, because I never presume to know exactly how the world should turn. But I like writing and directing. And I like writer-directors because I think I can feel in their work that holistic, singular voice that, for me, is so important in great art. You can feel that this voice has been there since the moment of conception, and has been carried and refined and developed and layered right up until the end of the film. There’s something about that singularity that can result in exhilarating cinema.

Where do you think novice filmmakers or writers waste time in the beginning of their careers, and where could they better spend their time?

I think they can sometimes waste their time feeling like they need to be spending their time writing.

One of the great early lessons I learned was the importance of embracing the block. When hitting an obstacle, I have realized that for me, the biggest mistake is to try and desperately write my way out of it. Sometimes the most productive day can be where you don’t write a single word, so long as you’re thinking.

Treat your brain like an oven. You’ve got yourself a problem, so put that problem in the oven and let it cook. Let it stew. It always amazes me how problems do get solved if you just ruminate on them.

I used to think that a day where I didn’t actually put words on the page was a wasted day. But then I started to appreciate the value of simply sitting and thinking quietly.

It sounds like you carry the story with you and let it marinate. Are you generally focusing on one story at a time, or do you also write multiple stories at once?

I don’t have a golden rule there.

I love it when I’m in the zone. I love it when I’m just itching to get up in the morning so I can get to work on that one scene I’ve been working on for weeks—that one scene.

But I’ve also experienced there to be value in exercising the mental muscles in the way that you need to do to move between projects. So there is no one working methodology that I adhere to, but I generally believe it’s better to be too busy than not busy enough.

War Machine is now available on Netflix. 

[addtoany]