HBO producer Ross Katz initially resisted a story by a retired Marine, then felt called to bring it to the public
By CURT SCHLEIER
HBO sent producer Ross Katz a copy of Michael Strobel’s story. The cable network wanted Katz to sign on to produce a movie based on Strobel’s experiences.
Strobel, now retired, was a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps. A veteran of Desert Storm based in Washington, D.C., Strobel felt guilty he wasn’t in Iraq. So as a kind of penance, he volunteered to take the body of a young soldier home. Strobel kept a journal about the experience that was published in several newspapers.
Writer and director of the HBO film Taking Chance, Ross Katz (left), talks to the film’s star, Kevin Bacon, who portrays the Marine Corps officer who escorts the body of a young soldier home. (Photo: James Bridges)
HBO was familiar with Katz’s work. He produced The Laramie Project, the film based on Moisés Kaufman’s play about the 1998 kidnapping and murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, a young gay man.
And while most young executives would be thrilled to sign on to a prestigious HBO project, Katz, 37, admits that frankly he wasn’t interested. “I sat on it,” he says about what became the film Taking Chance, which airs on Saturday night. “I felt bombarded by 24-hour news about the war. So many people were already weighing in about how they felt the war was being conducted. I thought as a filmmaker. What can I bring to this? There are plenty of movies, plenty of polemics.”
Katz had no idea what the Strobel story was about. But after he finally read it, “I couldn’t shake it. I believe not doing this is going to be a major regret of my life.” Yet he remained unconvinced that this project was for him.
That changed one evening when he came home and flipped on CNN. “A roadside bomb had ripped through a Baghdad market and I started to hate myself. I didn’t feel anything. I was desensitized. I felt very ashamed that I’m living in this country and do not know a single member of the military.
“I didn’t have any friends over there. I remember I went outside and looked around and wondered, Why’s everything so normal here? Parents have children dying.”
But what sealed the decision for him was that every night he’d watch the ticker on CNN and he saw the number of soldiers who died that day and the total for the war. “I thought they’re just numbers. How do we get to know their names?
“I learned early on that there was guilt among the Jews who survived the Holocaust, survived the camps while their families didn’t. They wonder why they survived while family members didn’t. I’ve read a lot about this; that guilt never goes away. Some decide maybe they survived to bear witness; their job now is to literally never forget.”
Katz decided that he had a responsibility to be a witness, too, to give a name to the nameless. So he signed on — but not just as a producer. He told HBO he’d write a screenplay on spec. If they didn’t like it, it wouldn’t cost them anything. Katz, who’d never written a screenplay before, worked with Col. Strobel and not only produced a wonderful script, but signed on as director as well.
The deceased soldier is named Chance Phelps, a 19-year-old killed by hostile fire in Al Anbar Province in 2004, just a month after he arrived in Iraq. Katz is faithful to Strobel’s story, and it is filled with heart-wrenching scenes of common Americans’ response when the inevitable byproduct of the war becomes real for them.
Strobel (played by Kevin Bacon) is upgraded to first class along every segment of his flight from Maryland to the small Wyoming town where Chance was raised. A stewardess on one of the flights visits him from the economy section and gives him a crucifix to pass on to Chance’s family. Numerous Native Americans attend the funeral because of the importance they attach to sending off a warrior in the proper way.
It is an interesting film in that there is no conflict. Katz did not set out to make a political film. Still, the film is riveting, perhaps no more so than in those scenes early on at the Dover Air Force Base mortuary where the bodies are painstakingly prepared for burial.
The mortuary is staffed by soldiers who volunteer for the duty. Perfection is the only standard. The attendants clean under the fingernails even though the bodies will be dressed in full dress uniforms with gloves. “No one is going to see those hands,” Katz notes. They take to their tasks with almost religious reverence.
Ironically, Katz ran into actress Tovah Feldshuh. “She said, ‘I was reading your screenplay, and I couldn’t help but think that they’re following Jewish tradition. You know what, honey, there is no greater honor in Jewish tradition than preparing the remains; you’re helping the helpless.’
“She was extremely emotional and had tears in her eyes.”
And so will most viewers who watch this sympathetic and compassionate film, Taking Chance.
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Taking Chance airs 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21 on HBO. Check local cable listings.
