When Ed Zwick signed on to direct the film Blood Diamond in 2004, he didn't know he was joining a collective Hollywood crusade.
But what has emerged in the last year is a conspicuous influx of socio-politically oriented feature films that take on anything from fast-food conglomerations to foreign policy-or in Zwick's case, illegal diamonds from Sierra Leone.
Of course, Zwick didn't know that other topical dramas, such as Fast Food Nation, The Last King of Scotland or Catch a Fire would surface on big screens within months of each other.
"It's very hard for there to be a trend in Hollywood because all of us in our separate places about two years ago were thinking that we were the first people to ever have these ideas," Zwick said in an conference call. "It doesn't take a genius to have seen what's gone on in terms of the exploitation of resources in the Third World."
The conflict in Blood Diamond revolves around the illegal diamond trade that funded military arms purchases during the civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s.
Genius or not, Zwick found himself disturbed but motivated to shed light on the origins of these "blood diamonds," a colloquial term coined by human rights organizations.
"In America, we're not just the world's largest consumers of diamonds, we're the world's largest consumers of everything," Zwick said. "To have an awareness that the things that we buy come from some place and that the people in those places aren't necessarily benefiting from them is an important thing to begin to think about."
The film is a fictionalized story starring Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator), Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) and Djimon Hounsou (Gladiator) as three very different individuals who collide over the common objective of obtaining a precious pink diamond. For Hounsou's character- a Mende-fisherman-turned-mine-laborer-it means the freedom of his son. For DiCaprio's character-an ex-mercenary-turned-reluctant-arms-dealer-it means his own emancipation from his corrupt trade.
But even with this fictional plot, the film has caused a stir in the diamond industry, pushing nervous retailers like Zales and Tiffany & Co. to issue public statements condemning the sale of conflict diamonds. DeBeers, a South African company, had even greater concerns about the film's incriminating tone.
The World Diamond Council went so far as to send a request to Zwick to include the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme, a system which requires certificates of origin for any internationally derived diamond product.
Zwick declined.
"Their job as a trade industry is to try to enhance the image of their product," Zwick said. "But not to tell a story about what happened for fear this might influence the image of a product would be to say one shouldn't make a movie about what happened in Germany in 1945 though we've since become allies."
Nevertheless, for Zwick and his all-star cast, the film was less about pointing fingers and more about humanizing a chaotic region.
"First and foremost... the movie has to be emotionally moving and it has to be a good story and there have to compelling characters, otherwise it being a political film doesn't translate," DiCaprio said in the conference call.
To paint an authentic portrait of the chaos that afflicted Sierra Leone, the cast and crew shot on location in Africa. Hounsou, a native of Cotonou, Benin, said that shooting in the region resonated emotionally for him. But even those who entered Africa as foreigners were moved by the country's dire situation.
"It really drives home what I've philosophically known for a while, which is that we have every right to be so grateful for everything that we have," Connelly said in the conference call. One major challenge for Connelly was her role as an American journalist who becomes entangled with the two men in their diamond hunt.
"[Journalists] know that they can't necessarily put down the camera or the pen and paper and actually pick up a person or a child and do much immediately," Connelly said.
Blood Diamond was able to help by setting up a fund in Mozambique to aid locals. With Warner Bros. as additional financial backers, the production was able to bring almost $50 million directly into the local economy.
"We didn't feel right about going to shoot there without giving something back," DiCaprio said.
Some critics have questioned whether or not such films elicit public action. Their impact, however, is most likely dependent on how willing audiences are to add another issue to an already-loaded domestic platter.
After all, what use is there for a politically charged film when it's preaching to a jaded audience? But for Hounsou, at least it's something.
"Movies now are used as an instrument to teach and certainly to educate people around the world of the infectious roles of diamonds... and other minerals and oil and so forth," Hounsou said. "As the citizens of this world, then, it's our right, it's a duty, and we cannot stand by and watch and not do anything. It would be intolerable."
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