MORE AT STAKE FOR KANSAS MOVIE THAN MEETS THE EYE.
Jon Niccum reported in the July 28, 2006, Lawrence Journal World describing Bunker Hill as how two writers: "have concocted a tale about how residents of the town react to an apparent terrorist attack against America."
Niccum does get a few questions out of Willmott like, “What happens in this little Kansas town when you lose total communication with the outside world?” Willmott recounts the impetus for the plot. “No one’s on the highway. No planes are in the air. Your car won’t work. What do you do? What happens is you kind of revert back to the old ways.”
And may I add since watching the filming in Nortonville, there isn't any electrical power or appreciable amounts of gasoline. The petroleum based energy shortage begins here.
Niccum's article is good enough to read and learn about the principal architects who wrote the script and story line. The reader will learn much about some of the motivations Kevin Willmott and Greg Hurd had in writing the movie and their backgrounds, but little else.
While it is too early to accurately report exactly what is the "message" of the movie, after all the film hasn't even made it to the editing room, it promises to be about much more than a "terrorist attack against America."
A "terrorist attack" angle might make a bonanza in ticket sales at the theaters, especially with the deluge of post 9/11 programs out now and the barrage of politicians at all levels pushing the fear button in our heads in public nearly every day, but I have a clue that there is more to this movie than meets any reporters' eyes.
Let Kevin Willmott state another important question that LJW reporter Niccum did draw out of him.
Kevin in that article said that, “The natural conclusion to me in a post-apocalyptic world is we would all become Amish. Computer use, getting online to find out what is going on — that would be gone. ... In many ways the survivalist guys become the leaders. Really the question becomes, where does democracy fit into this?”
Exactly, and as I have reported, analyzed and opined repeatedly in the Fightin' Cock Flyer broadsheet and blog about Peak Oil and drastic energy shortages challenging the world as being more important to all of us, where does our "inalienable rights" fit in?
Should we allow vigilantes, thugs and bullies rule people in forced isolation?
Mark my written words here, people are going to talk about this movie long after it's over.
Willmott's success at a recent Sundance film festival where his last film "C. S. A." played to four successive nights of sold out audiences and was consequently bought and distributed by IFC worldwide could be just the beginning of a controversial taste of the future of important independent film making coming out of Kansas.
After doing some research I have drawn up the conclusion that Willmott (who established two catholic homeless shelters and worked for civil rights in his youth) and co - writer Greg Hurd (a Lawrence minister) are putting something before audiences that will make them think.
Hurd hinted in the article that, "'Kansas is really where philosophies collide. They get to explode sometimes,' says Hurd, who describes the film as a 'post-modern western.'"
It is apparent from watching and talking to members of the staff and cast of the movie being produced in Nortonville that it is much more than some hokum fear flick like Night of the Living Dead or Mad Max. It is much more than many will come to expect from any horror flick.
The screenplay is naturally being held close (I tried to get a copy and failed) and the producers; Scott Richardson, James McDaniels (who also plays lead character, "Salem") and Kevin Willmott are not giving away much in the way of thematic analysis. Who can blame them? The movie produced largely with Kansas resources, with local investors and a tight budget utilizes a small army of very talented people, a majority coming from Kansas.
This is grassroot activist filmmaking at its best and Kansas is fortunate to witness and be the focal point of it.
Read the complete article at: New Willmott movie will infiltrate "Bunker Hill"
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