The General's Daughter (2 page)

Some men, of course, would say, “We don’t need women in the military at all.” Others might say, “Women in the military are
okay, but only in traditionally female jobs.”

But I believe we’re past those attitudes, and only two questions remain: Should women serve in direct combat roles? And, Should
women be subject to the draft as men are?

Those are difficult questions, and they are not directly addressed in
The General’s Daughter,
though there is a sub-text in the book that raises these questions of full equality.

When I set out to write this post–Gulf War novel, the first thing I decided was that this novel was not going to be a polemic.
It was going to be as fair as possible to the men and women who serve in our military, it was going to be fair to the Army,
and fair to the concept of a gender-mixed military. But it was not going to be a politically correct paean where all the sisters
are terrific and all the brothers are male chauvinist pigs.

At about the time this novel appeared in the fall of 1992, the Tailhook scandal was rocking the nation. This was good for
the book, but it wasn’t good for a sane, impartial dialogue on the complex subject of a gender-integrated military. Most of
the news and entertainment media who interviewed me for this book wanted me to make some connection between
The General’s Daughter,
a novel, and the ongoing Tailhook scandal, which was turning into an hysterical witch-hunt.

The incident in question—a party that got out of hand—was all of a sudden offered as proof that the entire military culture
was corrupt and sexist. The fact that some men acted badly was never in doubt. But lost in the uproar was the fact that some
men acted honorably, and some women acted badly. The same military that was idolized by the media in the Gulf War was now
being pilloried.

The Tailhook incident was not typical, and the Navy brass should have made that clear and should have stood up for the Navy
and prevented the good name and reputation of its entire corps of fighter pilots from being dragged through the mud because
of one bad night that involved a relatively small number of individuals.

But the political climate in Washington, and the social climate in America, precluded any thought of fairness or truth or
rational discourse. Instead, heads rolled, careers were ruined, and the male-female divide got about ten miles wider.

But long before Tailhook, I set out to write a novel that addressed the questions and problems of men and women serving together
in the new Army. It was my hope not to pander to or exploit these headline issues; I wanted a novel that would deal with the
more universal and timeless issues of men and women: jealousy, sex, honor, truth, and the human capability to love and hate,
often at the same time. I’ve set all of this on an Army post, just to make things more complex and interesting.

This story
could
happen anywhere, anytime—in fact, you may find some similarities in this story to a Greek tragedy. But what happens in
The General’s Daughter
couldn’t happen quite like this, except on a modern American military base.

The Movie

The movie rights for
The General’s Daughter
were bought by Paramount Motion Pictures before the book was published in 1992. Sherry Lansing, the studio head, liked the
novel and saw it as a story that dealt with important issues in modern American society. At the same time, the story line,
plot, and characters in the novel were easily adaptable to the screen.

The screenplay went through several rewrites, as seems to be the case in Hollywood, and eventually morphed into a highly competent
draft by Christopher Bertolini, with some smart doctoring by the always brilliant William Goldman, and a final excellent polish
by Scott Rosenberg.

I’m often asked if I have any input into movie scripts adapted from my novels. The answer is, no. Screenwriting is not at
all like novel writing, and a screenwriter has to work with a novel that takes ten to sixteen hours to read, and turn it into
a screenplay for a movie of about two hours’ length. Obviously, something will be lost in the adaptation, and it’s difficult
for a novelist to cut this much from his or her own magnum opus.

I do, however, read the screenplays that have been written of all my novels, in their many drafts, and I offer suggestions.
In the case of
The General’s Daughter,
the final drafts stayed true and close to the substance and intent of my novel.

The first part of the movie was shot in and around Savannah, Georgia, which acted as the setting for the fictional Midland,
Georgia, in the novel. My fictional Fort Hadley somehow became Fort McCallum, and Ann Campbell, who is the general’s daughter
in the novel, became Elisabeth (Lizzie) Campbell in the movie. It’s not worth wondering about these small changes, and the
author is grateful that the movie didn’t become a musical comedy titled
Lizzie!

When a film adaptation of a novel gets off to a bad start, it usually stays on that path and ends up as an instant video rental
or a video-club giveaway.
The General’s Daughter,
however, started strong with good support and good ideas from Sherry Lansing, and from Karen Rosenfelt who is an executive
vice president of production at Paramount. Next, a producer was chosen—Mace Neufeld. Mace, with his partner, Bob Rehme, have
adapted Tom Clancy’s novels to the screen, and Mace himself has many successful films to his credit.

Ironically, Mace Neufeld had read
The General’s Daughter
when it first came out and made a bid to option it, but was outbid by Paramount. But now Mace and
The General’s Daughter
have been reunited, so to speak, through Paramount.

The next step was the screenplay, which I’ve mentioned, then came casting, and finding a director. The director chosen, Simon
West, made the hit movie,
Con Air.
He was not considered a natural choice for this kind of movie, but like most creative people, he wanted to do something different.
He said, “I really wanted to find a project that was a bit more serious. When
The General’s Daughter
popped up, I read the book, loved it, and jumped on board.” Simon shared everyone’s enthusiasm for the project, and the results
show.

Often, a movie sinks or soars on the choice of the leading man. The character of Paul Brenner in the novel is a wisecracking
and slightly smart-assed Irish-American from South Boston. I pictured Bruce Willis for the part and so did a lot of people
at Paramount, but Bruce Willis wasn’t available. Then one day, my agent, Nick Ellison, called me and announced that John Travolta
had signed for the part. John Travolta? as Paul Brenner? John Travolta is incredibly talented, but I couldn’t see him as the
character that I’d created, or even as the character that the scriptwriters had created. But I soon learned what it means
when they say that an actor or actress has range and depth.

I recall many years ago that when I heard that Marlon Brando had been picked to play the title role in
The Godfather,
I thought it was a bad choice. So did a lot of other people who’d read the book. But now, for all time and for all people,
Marlon Brando is The Godfather.

The role shapes the actor, and the actor shapes the role. So it is with John Travolta as Paul Brenner. Travolta
is
Brenner.

John Travolta brought with him his longtime manager, Jonathan Krane, who became the executive producer. Travolta and Krane
became involved with the script and also in the casting of the movie.

The leading lady presented a problem of scheduling, and the entire movie had been cast before Paramount was fortunate in signing
Madeleine Stowe who starred in
The Last of the Mohicans.
As with Travolta, I did not picture Stowe as Cynthia Sunhill (now Sara Sunhill) or Sunhill as Stowe. But once again I was
pleasantly surprised at how a talented star can mold a part so that it seems a natural choice.

The supporting cast is nothing short of spectacular. James Woods was born to play the part of quirky psychiatrist Colonel
Charles Moore, Timothy Hutton is the uptight provost marshall Colonel Bill Kent, James Cromwell, who plays the general, “Fighting
Joe” Campbell, told me he was an antiwar activist during the Vietnam War, but he acts like he had been an Army general once,
and Clarence Williams III as the general’s aide, Colonel Fowler, is so convincing that you believe he and James Cromwell served
together in the military. The alchemy among all these people is every director’s dream.

Last but not least, Leslie Stefanson, who plays the title role of the general’s daughter, is a newcomer to feature films,
but the performance she turns in makes her look like a seasoned actress. This is a young woman who has a great film career
ahead of her.

I don’t often picture any specific actor or actress playing a part I’ve created in a novel, but I had an eerie feeling when
I saw Woods, Hutton, Cromwell, Williams, and Stefanson on the screen. These were the people I’d created, right down to their
physical appearances and mannerisms. This is not to say that they didn’t define and expand on the characters and the roles—they
did. But they also seemed as if they’d stepped out of the pages of the novel.

The movie was shot during the summer and fall of 1998, and I chose not to visit the set in Savannah during the hot and difficult
summer shoot, but I did, with my agent, Nick Ellison, visit the set in October, when the shooting had moved to Los Angeles.

I should point out here that the Department of Defense was not involved with this movie. Mace Neufeld has a good relationship
with the DOD from his past films, but he felt that he should not seek government cooperation for this film. He said, “Over
the years, I’ve worked with many wonderful people from the DOD who’ve played an invaluable role in certain projects, but I
also know when the project is inappropriate and when to back off. It’s a relationship of mutual respect.”

My book was not antimilitary, and neither was the screenplay. But both book and movie raised controversial and sensitive issues
that perhaps would make the military uneasy. In any case, shooting a movie about the military without military cooperation
can be a little more difficult, and a little more costly. But it also has a liberating effect, both creatively and practically.

This is not to say that there are any glaring lapses of verisimilitude in the movie. In fact, Paramount hired a number of
military advisors to ensure military accuracy. I met several of these advisors on the set, and they seemed pleased that their
suggestions were acted upon by Mace Neufeld and Simon West.

The chief military advisor was Jared Chandler, a longtime associate of Mace Neufeld’s and a career reserve Army officer. Jared
worked on Mace’s
Flight of the Intruder
and
Clear and Present Danger,
and was always available on the set of
The General’s Daughter
when questions of verisimilitude arose. Veterans, like me, who like to pick apart Hollywood’s version of the military, should
find little to complain about in
The General’s Daughter.

Regarding my visit to the set, these visits can be unhappy occasions. There are legendary tales of East Coast novelists visiting
Hollywood—tales that go back, probably, to the days of F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s. Some novelists, like Fitzgerald,
are seduced by Tinsel Town and stay on long enough to ruin their careers. Most novelists come, look, and run back to their
relatively normal existences.

The movie business is like no other business on this planet, and Los Angeles is like no other city in America. Having said
that, I will say that no novelist should miss the opportunity to see his or her novel made into a film.

If fish and houseguests stink after three days, then novelists on a movie set stink after two. I spent two full days on the
set, and I was warmly welcomed and just as warmly sent on my way. It was a great visit.

One afternoon, Nick Ellison and I sat with Mace Neufeld and watched about a half hour of cut and edited scenes of
The General’s Daughter.
As the first scene came up on the video screen, I was anxious, skeptical, and New York cynical. I was prepared to wince.
Perhaps even have a cardiac episode. But from the first few minutes, I realized I was watching an exceptional production.
The performances from all the members of the cast were enthralling, and the interaction between the actors and actresses was
pure magic. When the lights went on in the small viewing room, Mace, Nick, the engineer, and I were all smiling. We had a
winner.

The movie,
The General’s Daughter,
is not the novel,
The General’s Daughter.
It is an adaptation. It’s easy for a novelist to complain or get angry at how his or her book was treated or mistreated.
In too many cases, these feelings are justified. The egos in Hollywood are big, and the story conferences are many. Studio
heads, producers, directors, and screenwriters engage in a collaborate effort that the novelist neither comprehends nor desires.
The result of collaborative efforts and compromises often lead to the proverbial committee-designed racehorse becoming a giraffe.
This process is inherent in the motion-picture business and will never change.

Sometimes, however, the moons, the planets, and the stars all line up, and many visions become a thing of magic. As I write
this, I have not seen the fully cut and edited movie, nor have I heard the musical score or the sound effects, or seen the
ending of the story. But I liked what I did see, on the screen and on the set.

The most common and frequent complaint of moviegoers who see a movie based on a book is this: The book was better than the
movie. One rarely if ever hears that the movie was better than the book, or that the novelist’s story and characters were
changed for the better. And you’re not going to hear that now. But what I can say is that the essence of my novel was captured
and conveyed on the screen through excellent acting, sharp and funny dialogue, and through the use of visual settings that
even the best novelist can’t convey on paper.