It’s probable that writer-director Tom McCarthy’s new film “The Visitor” might be mistaken for an agit-prop drama, with political intentions waving proudly from its sleeve. After all, the story concerns Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a young man from Syria, who is detained by New York City police and found to be an undocumented citizen.
McCarthy, a seasoned actor (“The Wire,” “Boston Public”) and director of the 2002’s highly touted “The Station Agent,” doesn’t let his film fall into the trap of finger pointing. Instead, what emerges is a funny, touching, ultimately character-driven film that centers around Walter, an aging college professor (Richard Jenkins) who becomes friends with Tarek and his Senegalese girlfriend Zainab (Danai Gurira) just prior to the arrest.
We sat down with McCarthy to discuss detention center murals, steering clear of pontificating, and the novel he hasn’t written yet.
Prior to making this film, you worked with a volunteer group in New York called the Sojourners.Yeah. They’re based out of Riverside Church—a huge, massive church up on the Upper West Side—and they have all these social outreach programs. Many of them are sort of non-denominational; they’re just providing a base for people to reach out. I joined them because I’d read about the detention centers and I really wanted to go visit.
And you met a detainee that you stayed in touch with?I met a number of them over the years, but one particular guy I got very involved with, I visited for quite a while, like seven or eight months. He was a Nigerian gentleman who’d been in detention for about three and a half years at that point. Never had set foot, as a free man, on American soil. Had no lawyer. Had no connection to the outside world.
You found yourself getting involved. It’s just like in Walter’s case in the film. You get dragged into it emotionally. I’ll be honest—I was there on research, but I just started getting more curious and alarmed. I found myself visiting on holidays…you start to feel somewhat responsible. It’s amazing how, as an American, you want to put a better face to this man’s situation. It sounds a little bit, if not pretentious, sort of idealistic.
The title itself, “The Visitor” applies just as much to Walter mid-way through the film as it does to Tarek and his fiancée. Some of that title initially came from being in the Sojourners. If you wanted to be a “visitor” on a specific week, I kept seeing that word in their papers and documentations. Some of the facilities had little tags that said “visitor.” My design department mocked it up and I thought “That’s great, but I can’t use these stickers at all in the film. It’s the title of the movie!”
With the detention centers in the film, were they all sets, all mock-ups?All created. I’ve gotta say, it was a real credit to my production designer John Paino, and his scenic, Len Clayton. We went and visited the centers and they just made mental notes, made sketches while we were there. That set they built was so life-like and so creepy, with those doors like a decompression chamber. It’s very Orwellian and very jarring, very clinical. In the film, when Walter leaves, you see the painted mural of the Towers…
It looks like a kids’ mural of the Statue of Liberty and the American flag. And the Twin Towers.Yes! In the Elizabeth detention center, the detainees paint that. I mean, that’s some kind of prisoner of war shit. Seeing that subject matter and knowing the detainees were forced to paint it…it’s just very unsettling.
In your film, however, immigration policies and the people that enforce them come off as less a malignant force and more of a faceless whirlpool of “I’m just doing my job.”I’ve talked to a number of Homeland Security agents and they’re decent guys. They want to do the right thing, and these are middle class people trying to make a living, serving their country at some level. A lot of them come from the military, some come from the private sector. In terms of law enforcement and things, I certainly wasn’t trying to address the large question of immigration policies as a whole.
It seems that there might be a danger of straying into conspiracies and paranoia. Right. Or to pontificate! Or to try and solve it! Movies that try to solve race in 90 minutes!
“The Wire” just finished up its run and your character got away pretty clean. Are you getting any Scott Templeton hate mail?I just sent David Simon an email the other day and it said, “Thank you for making me the most disliked person in New York City.” And his response was something to the effect of, “Fuck ’em, you have a Pulitzer.”
Do you find it difficult being a Tom McCarthy in a world of Tom McCarthys? I’m thinking specifically of the author of the novel “Remainder” that came out recently.I get a lot of emails like, “Dude, and you wrote a book?” [Laughs] It immediately makes me feel bad about my accomplishments. I wrote my first piece for Ben Carlin, the guy who did “The Daily Show.” It’s called “Lessons I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me.” I wrote a piece for that. It’s the first time I’ve actually written something that’s in a book. So, now I’m kind of an author.
