A fingerprint can be seen on the cover of the German edition – like a maze that the main character has to find his way out of. Because it’s about a political bet against the surveillance state: ten people – five professionals from the environment of the secret services and five laymen – are to hide under the radar of all search services for 30 days without their whereabouts being found. Anthony McCarten’s “Going Zero” will be released simultaneously in 24 languages on Wednesday.
The now 63-year-old author was born in New Plymouth (New Zealand) and wrote the theater hit “Ladies Night” with Stephen Sinclair at the age of 25. Novels and screenplays followed, for which he was nominated for an Oscar several times (including “The Theory of Everything” and “Darkest Hour” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”). He lives in London.
AZ: Mr. McCarten, “Going Zero” is a tech thriller that contains elements of a spy thriller and a political thriller.
ANTHONY MCCARTEN: The idea dictated the form. It was the first time that I had material that had to be told as a thriller. I’ve never written a thriller before. The challenge of using this book to produce something as formally precise as a Swiss watch movement inspired me. In addition, there was the requirement to create some of the characters in the novel in a nutshell, without clichés, and to be just as careful with the language as with screenplays. That might also explain why it is a thriller with literary elements and also with ethical and moral questions.
The idea that we leave a digital trail everywhere, even if we just turn on the light, is oppressive.
Going Zero kicked off at a dinner party with friends in 2016. We were sitting around a table, chatting animatedly, until someone noticed that he was seeing an advertisement on his smartphone at the same time. Finally, we got the impression that the cell phones were listening to us. And we wondered how advanced digital surveillance was and how to escape it. I developed this thought further: what if you are forced to stay under the radar, the digital with all its new technical possibilities?
McCarten: “The social networks are part of a matrix”
As early as 2012 you said that Facebook is the industrialization of friendship.
I think social media is part of a surveillance matrix that is ubiquitous. Facebook & Co lead to personal freedom being further curtailed, that individual judgment is further restricted. We can no longer be sure how much our thoughts are really still ours. The limits of the individual, of the self, are currently eroding.
You are not active on social networks.
Not at all. Although I cannot prevent third parties from reporting about me and posting pictures, I do not use the networks myself and do not pay attention to them. But my children do it all the more intensively.
In the novel, we as readers experience an unreliable narrator who nevertheless tells an authorial story. How did you manage that?
Before I start writing a novel in earnest, I need to know the ending. Because only when I know the goal do I also know how wrong tracks can develop artistically. I had to deal with ten candidates who not only challenged the technical surveillance apparatus but also the readers. They try to disappear and are smarter than the readers. Normally I develop the plot relatively quickly and then the slow and persistent paperwork begins. Here I worked 80 percent on the plot, including the writing process, which took three years. Sometimes it felt like a giant crossword puzzle or like a chess game with an incredible number of different possibilities. There were times when I thought I couldn’t do it. But in the end I managed to put the right pieces of the puzzle in the right places. My appreciation for thriller writers has grown a lot since then. This also affects the speed, i.e. the speed within thrillers.
There are some interesting personal names in “Down Zero”, for example Cy Baxter, who is vaguely reminiscent of Marc Zuckerberg or Elon Musk.
As I write, the names often change. Sometimes there is a sound that helps me go deeper into the character. Cyrus is lucky. On the one hand, it refers to cyber and the entire resonant space and, on the other hand, to the founder of the Persian Empire, who ultimately failed because of the Iranian queen Tomyris. That’s where the parallels come in handy.
McCarten demands: “Stop granting unlimited rights to certain apps”
Aren’t we benefiting from the advances in digital development?
I guess we’re in the middle of a revolution and reacting very slowly to the dangers. We need a break, as is being demanded by scientists right now. Perhaps regulations and tests are needed, like with food or medicines.
What can the individual do?
End the passivity and better understand the power that comes from digital surveillance. And address these considerations again and again. Imagine what happens when this power is massively abused. Stop giving certain apps unlimited privileges. We need a period of regulation so that these rights are not even sought. The balance between privacy and the need for security is already off balance. The latter is promoted by governments and digital corporations. A new awareness of this imbalance should arise. Maybe my book will ultimately be more than a drop in the ocean. Europe is further ahead than the USA in this regard.
But they also give a voice to advocates of unrestrained digitization. Cy says people crave surveillance: being watched feels a little like being loved.
We believe privacy is very important to us. But we often don’t realize how little privacy we have left. When we share our secrets with someone – be it with an algorithm or with artificial intelligence – we feel that they care about us in some way.
Her success with screenplays has been enormous for many years. In 2017’s “The Darkest Hour” you portray Winston Churchill as British Prime Minister at the beginning of World War II, who calls Roosevelt and pleads, but in vain, for arms. Is history repeating itself in Ukraine?
Roosevelt’s hands were tied by US neutrality laws and isolationism. The scene with the phone call is tragic, but also a bit comical as you see the great ally USA squirming to justify the lack of military aid or to make up for it with symbolic gestures. The scene is an example of in-depth research that leads to astounding detail. And then you put that out there as a film and it affects people in very different ways. Roger Federer, for example, said he saw the film before the Australian Open final and then won it.
“In London, Brexit has made things worse in every respect”
You first came to Munich in 1993 as an actor in a zombie film by Peter Jackson. The second time in 2007 as a novelist. Then they came to Buch & Café Lentner a third and fourth time. That changed your life, because you fell in love with the visitor Eva Maiwald.
Eva and I are still a couple, but the center of our lives is now in London. Here in Haidhausen we have an apartment as a second mainstay. Her parents live here, we have a lot of friends here and we come back about four times a year. Munich is a wonderful city. In the morning I jump out of bed, buy fresh bread, read the newspaper in cafés, a meat loaf roll at noon and a wheat beer in the evening. The waiters know me and I enjoy the atmosphere. In London, Brexit has made things worse in every respect. And social networks and the resulting increased power of fake news also led to Brexit. Britain is now suffering the consequences caused by misleading algorithms.
Was your proximity to Munich helpful when researching your play and the film “The Two Popes”?
Yes very. Eva’s father worked under Cardinal Ratzinger when he was archbishop of Munich and Freising. That was an important source of information. Many of the details that make up the joke in the film come from the interviews I conducted with Eva’s father. This allowed me to emphasize the human aspect of the Bavarian Pope, right down to his habit of drinking Fanta with dinner.
They also wrote the screenplay for the film “Bohemian Rhapsody”. In the film, Freddie Mercury spends very bad times in Munich. Barbara Valentin does not appear at all. Shouldn’t this phase deserve more attention here?
Freddie had a very good time in Munich. He celebrated great parties and felt very comfortable here. But he also overdid it. His drug use was high. He burned the candle at both ends. So overall it was a difficult time for the band. Freddie’s excesses, his solo projects almost blew up Queen. In Munich he had cut himself off from the mother ship. But even as a musician he needed his bandmates. That is what the film focuses on. The dramaturgy prevents Freddie from showing nice details in Munich. For that I apologize to the Queen fans in Bavaria. A whole film could have been made just about Freddie’s extravagant life in Munich.
An exciting artistic collaboration also took place between Yoko Ono and John Lennon. Her script for the film, working title Yoko Ono & John Lennon, is finished.
We are currently looking for a director and hope to shoot the film later this year. My goal is to show Yoko as an independent artist. It wasn’t just Beatles fans who mistreated her. She was portrayed as crazy, she made John even more eccentric than he already was. Two weeks ago I was with her and John’s son Sean in New York at the Dakota Building. We discussed details and he told me that Yoko is now in foster care north of New York. I hope that she will still enjoy the film, because it means that the general public can see a lot of things in her life in a new and different way.
Anthony McCarten: “Going Zero” (Diogenes-Verlag, 464 pages, 25 euros)
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2023-04-25 04:34:07
#interview #screenwriter #Anthony #McCarten #digital #break
