In Passing: A Victory in Hollywood – Against the Odds

I have read the book and recently watched Mark Cousins’ exhaustive documentary, The Story of Film – all five DVD disks of it. It is very, very comprehensive. Hollywood is well and truly put in its place in this account of the history of cinema. It played its part – a leading part in some decades, but now is really a bit player in the history of this art.

The trouble is that it still wields power. Some months ago, in National Review, an article appeared which gives us some sense of the weak and dishonest culture which allows Hollywood to continue to crush goodness, beauty and truth. The truth about abortion is one of its casualties. The backstory of one film reveals just how destructive of truth a place like Hollywood is.

Nick Searcy is an American character actor. He has now directed and stars in a new film, which premiered in US theatres on October 12. He did so and risked his future career on the gamble – not because it threatened to be a box-office flop, but simply because of the truth the film set out to tell us.

Searcy was aware of something that really baffled him. “It is”, he says,”nearly impossible to find an adult person who does not have an opinion on the issue of abortion, and yet how little we all know about it — how it is done, what the laws are surrounding it, how it is regulated, legislated, and practiced. I wanted to share that knowledge.”

To do so he produced Gosnell.

No sooner had the word got out that the project pitched by Ann McElhinney and Kevin McAleer, the Irish husband and wife team behind it, was about to go into production than the machine began to work against it. Searcy’s name was in the front line for the attack.

“I  have been asked, over the years since we shot Gosnell in the fall of 2015, why I chose to take on the challenge of directing such a controversial project. I usually say that I did it for the same reason that I guest-hosted the Rush Limbaugh show — I thought it would get me more work in Hollywood.

“But seriously — I did have some trepidation. I knew that I could be demonized or shunned by many of my colleagues in the industry. This is a town that runs on fear. It is quite common for actors to think that every job they get could be their last. “You’ll never have lunch in this town again” hasn’t become a cliché for nothing.”

But he had read Andrew Klavan’s script for the film. Not only was he captivated by the horrific facts of the case of Kermit Gosnell. He was stunned by the knowledge the script provided about the facts of the procedure of abortion.

“I have always hated movies that preach at me, that try to manipulate me and tell me what to think about a story rather than just telling me the story. After a long period of developing a shooting script, the producers and I set out to make a movie that would inform and benefit people on both sides of this issue, no matter how passionate. I saw nothing to be gained from a film that preached or demonized one side or the other.”

This, he says, is a story about a serial murderer who was allowed to operate for 27 years. Fear of the politics of abortion is what enabled him to continue, undetected, for decades. What this monster did and how and why he was allowed to get away with it for so long are equally shocking. He believes that they succeeded. The film has a gritty “just the facts, ma’am” style, is well acted, with powerful, moving performances by Dean Cain, Sarah Jane Morris, and Michael Beach.

The film was made three years ago. Why did it take so long to get to the screens? Searcy admits his naivety about how the film would be received. “I truly believed that if we did it the right way, even the so-called Hollywood Left would appreciate our fairness in telling the story, see its value, and, furthermore, share our goals in getting this important story before the public.

“Sadly, I was wrong. As I said, this town runs on fear — the fear not only of failure but, more insidiously, of being shunned because of your political opinions. Many people, some of them good friends of mine, declined to work on this film, not because of its quality but because of the fear of reprisal or even ostracism by the groupthink herd in Hollywood. More than once, I was asked questions like “Are you crazy?” or “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Three years ago, when we made this film, there wasn’t even a candidate Trump, let alone a President Trump. The climate in this town is more toxic and hateful now than it has ever been for someone right of center. Put it this way: if they think you don’t have the right to eat in a restaurant with your family if you disagree with them, why would they hesitate to exclude you from the business because you don’t vote like they do?

This film had to go around Hollywood to make its way to the audience. For McElhinney, McAleer and Searcy and the others involved in the production it was a long and difficult road. Just as there is a grossly underrepresented citizenry in public life there is an underserved audience out there, an audience who wants to see truthful movies about serious issues and does not want to be told what to think by sermonizing, patronizing, or condescending filmmakers.  In Searcy’s view – and it is his hope as well, “If Hollywood is unable or unwilling to serve that audience, then a new Hollywood needs to be created, a Hollywood that is not controlled by fear. This film will become one more example of why we need to stop letting fear dictate what we, as artists, do in the film industry.”

I wonder if this subversive production, subverting the crippling culture of death gripping our society, might not figure in the next edition of Cousins’ book, which is in its own way a history, not of an entertainment industry but a history of the subversion of culture, good, bad and indifferent which is a big part of the history of cinema.