American actor and filmmaker Clint Eastwood says that his latest film, the biographical drama Richard Jewell is very pertinent for today’s time, as reported by news agency IANS.
“Before working on this picture, I didn’t remember the details too much. I can’t think of where I was at the time, but I remember when they said that they had a guard who found the bomb, who was a hero and then a suspect”, the 89 year old artist said.
He further added, “I remember that, but I didn’t know too much about it, and in hindsight I had forgotten about it. But when I read the article and the script, it seemed like a really interesting subject for today.”
Richard Jewell is based on the 1997 Vanity Fair article American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell by Marie Brenner, and the 2019 book The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen.
The film depicts the aftermath of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, in which security guard Richard Jewell had found a bomb and informed the authorities to evacuate, only to be later wrongly accused of having placed it himself.
Jewell was cleared by the FBI 88 days later, although his reputation was never restored. He passed away in 2007.
Talking about the film, Eastwood also said: “Well, because I thought it was very pertinent for today. This everyday guy who was getting the ultimate bad deal from everybody because they were concerned the event was going to shut down, and the city had millions of dollars invested in it. So, they just went ahead and pinned it on this guy who was vulnerable.”
Richard Jewell was released on 13 December and met with mostly positive critical reception.