Local author Jeff Biggers joined director Andrew Davis, known for his films "The Fugitive," "Holes" and "The Guardian," to write "Disturbing the Bones." The novel is a political thriller about nuclear arms, America's civil rights, and cold cases.
WVIK News spoke with filmmaker Andrew Davis before he arrived in Davenport for a special event at The Last Picture House. Below is an edited transcript for clarity.
WVIK: I noticed in some other interviews, Andrew, that this idea for Disturbing the Bones actually took a number of years. Can you kind of go through the process of the initial idea and also working with Jeff and turning this into a novel?
Andrew Davis: Sure. Well, let's see. I became aware of an archaeological dig called Koster through one of my mentors, a man who was at the University of Illinois when I was there in Champaign-Urbana. And this is in '64 to '68, quite a few years ago. He went on to work for the State of Illinois Department of Transportation, which was monitoring and supervising this archaeological dig. It was a dig along the Illinois River called Koster. And it became one of the most significant finds in North American archaeological history. They found 26 layers going back 13,000 years in one campsite. The floodwaters kept making a timetable of what the history of these people were. And so I thought this is a very interesting setting for a story about what will we be remembered for. Are we going to be remembered for our missile silos and our bunkers under the ground in this terrible atomic war? Are we going to be remembered for the atomic war that we could be starting around the world? And then years later, I worked on a film with Gene Hackman and Tommy Jones that I directed called "The Package", which was a story about the Soviet and the American generals not wanting a peace treaty, not wanting to give up their weapons, not wanting to give up the nukes. And there was [an] attempted assassination of Gorbachev in Chicago. And there was an Oswald-type Kennedy conspiracy involving the thing. And so that was the second element. And then the third element was the history of Cairo, Illinois, the southernmost town in the state of Illinois, further south than Louisville, where Dred Scott was imprisoned nearby, where General Grant ran the Union Army, and where in the '60s when Blacks boycotted downtown because of racism and inability to find jobs and be served in restaurants, the Klan rose up and Nazis came down from Chicago. And John Lewis was down there and Julian Bond and Jesse Jackson. It became a hotspot of civil rights issues. So those three elements became the basis of the story. I had been working on the idea of a screenplay for a long time. And I met Jeff, and I read a book that Jeff wrote called "The Reckoning at Eagle Creek", which is a tremendous story about mountains. And it's a story about a mountain top removal in Kentucky right across the river from Cairo. And it is what his family had gone through trying to deal with the destruction of their 200-acre farm that had gone back into the 1850s and how they had to move to Chicago and live in Little Appalachia on the north side of Chicago. So I found a writer who I felt had a real understanding of southern Illinois, and who was quite a wonderful wordsmith. And I said, how would you like to work with me on the screenplay? And we started working on it. And after a while, I got frustrated that I couldn't put everything in the screenplay that I wanted in terms of backstory and texture and who the characters were. And I said, let's just write a novel, and then we'll go back and take out whatever the best parts of that novel are and put it back into a screenplay. And so that's how we did it. And it was great working with him. We worked remotely. He was in Iowa and Illinois, and I was in California. And some of it was during COVID. And so we would share things on Zoom and send drafts back and forth to each other.
WVIK: I know of your work as a director with The Fugitive and Holes and Under Siege. You mentioned starting with the idea of a screenplay. [Are] there any certain parts in the novel that you and Jeff – if you're writing, you're like, 'Oh, man, this would just look amazing on the silver screen'?
Davis: (laughs) Silver screen. Well, I think that, you know, the idea of the dig itself – I mean, this was an amazing setting. You had acres of the ground being taken up and all these different students and the volunteers working in the hot summer air, you know, trying to find the truth about how these people live. This great archaeologist from Northwestern University there. And then the idea of this bunker that – one of the main characters, the heavy in the story, who's a general, an ex-Army general who worked in the – you know, building bunkers all over the world, Army Corps of Engineers general. And that would be pretty interesting. And then, of course, Chicago, which I love. And I'm from Chicago. I grew up in Chicago originally. And all the textures of Chicago and the idea of a peace conference going on in Chicago at some point with thousands of people coming from all over the country to support or protest it and having the world leaders there. So "The Package" is a film that is going to be shown, I think, in a few days in Iowa. And they're also showing it at the Chicago Film Festival on the 26th. And it's a movie that's very resonant of these issues with trying to deal with the issue of how we deal with these weapons. In our story, there's an accident that triggers the whole thing. It's a terrible accident in Siberia and Mongolia that causes the world to stand up and say, we've got to get rid of these weapons.
WVIK: And I know you mentioned in your previous response kind of Chicago you were born there. A lot of your movies are filmed in Chicago. What is it about the Windy City that made you want to come back, especially for Disturbing the Bones? Because as you mentioned, it is focused on Cairo, but it's also set in Chicago.
Davis: Well, you know, if you understand who people are who come from Chicago, there's a 60 -year -old cop who I could relate to because I grew up on the South Side. And I've worked with a lot of Chicago police in my different movies. And so I understood that world somewhat. And also, you know, the idea that the atom was split at the University of Chicago by Enrico Fermi, the atomic age began with that. And so that was a great reason to come back to Chicago for this peace conference, which we've done in other movies, too. I've showed the University of Chicago as a place of great importance in terms of the history of this world. So those things resonated with me. I understood the neighborhoods, the ethnicity, and I knew that, you know, I could write it so I had a real visual sense of what I was talking about because of the area I knew.
WVIK: And I know the book focuses mostly on nuclear weapons and how that affects our country and our people, especially in small communities. But I know with artificial intelligence is kind of a thing invading every single industry, the military industrial complex is utilizing it. It's being used in book production as an author, as a director what have you been noticing with artificial intelligence? What's your opinion on it?
Davis: Well, I think it's a blessing and a curse. I think it could be an amazing tool for helping people improve their lives. And at the same time, something can go terribly wrong. Maybe these weapons will be launched without our understanding why they're being launched. There can be accidents. There can be problems. Something could be programmed to say, you know, even though the president says don't launch, we're going to launch. So it's something that's very scary, and we don't know what's going to happen with it. There's a lot of controversy about it. Certainly in the movie business, people are both hating it and loving it. You know, years ago I said to Tommy Lee Jones, you know, there's going to come a time when your kids are going to decide whether you're going to be in a movie or not, and you'll be long gone. Because he's been scanned enough times, I think. So, you know, it's difficult. It's difficult to figure out what's going to happen. I don't quite understand all the strengths and weaknesses of what could happen, but we definitely have to keep our eye on it.
WVIK: And going to the book's writing process, what was it like? And correct me if I'm wrong, was this the first novel you co-wrote?
Davis: It was the first novel I wrote, and it was the first novel that I co-wrote. And Jeff has written many wonderful books, but this is the first novel he [co]-wrote also. So it was a real first-time collaboration, and I think it was really worthwhile because we had four eyes rather than two. We could constantly be editing and questioning and offering ideas to each other.
WVIK: And with your experience with that, is this something you guys would like to come back and make another book, write another book together? I don't want to spoil anything about "Disturbing the Bones", but it could continue in some way.
Davis: Well, I think we really appreciated the process. It took a long time. I think the next time, depending on whether we can figure out who the characters and story should be, it would be easier because of the confidence we would have having pulled this off. But, sure, I would be open to it. My role is really not as a writer but as a filmmaker, but the film business is in really tough shape right now. And maybe I can tell stories on paper easier than on film.
WVIK: Do you still have a passion to go back to directing if the opportunity arose?
Davis: Oh, well, I plan on trying to make this into a movie, that's for sure. As far as the screenplay, and we will go back now and update the last draft we had of that screenplay and put the best parts of the novel in and see if we can get it made.
WVIK: Is there anything about the book, I may not have asked at this point, that you would like to talk about? Anything that you think would be interesting for potential readers out there when the book does come out next week? (Book is out now)
Davis: Well, I think it's a combination. The feedback we're getting is really wonderful because people are calling it a page-turner. They're really fascinated by the characters. It's compelling in terms of what's going to happen next. And it's an interesting weaving of these different stories that deal with broad, big issues, global issues, and also there's a very personal story involved in it. You've got a young archaeologist from southern Illinois who winds up helping a cop from Chicago who lost his mother when he was 14 years old. He's back down there trying to figure out what happened. He never knew what happened to his mother. And then you've got, you know, a namesake of Alexander County in southern Illinois who turns out to be a heavy, and he's sort of woven into the world that they're trying to figure out.
WVIK: Thank you so much, Andrew. And I wrote down this question. And forgive me if this is something that you wouldn't want to answer, but I was curious if there was any artist, director, author that you wish was still with us today making a book or a movie, if there was anybody that would come to mind.
Davis: Oh, boy. Well, Studs Terkel would be an author, a journalist, a raconteur. I thought that he was an inspiration to both Jeff and I. And in terms of directors, oh, my gosh, you know, I think it would be nice if Stanley Kubrick was around and Norman Jewison and, you know, a few of those great old filmmakers would be terrific.
WVIK: All right. And with that, Andrew, I want to say that's all the questions I have, unless there was anything that you would like to talk about regarding "Disturbing the Bones".
Davis: No, I just hope people can come see us in Iowa. We're going to have a screening. And I hope that "The Package", we'll talk about the book, I'm sure. And just tell everybody. Tell everybody to read the book and help me get the movie made.
WVIK: Yeah, that would be wonderful. And I think for our listeners, that event is this upcoming Thursday, the 24th, at the Last Picture House in Davenport.
Davis: That's exciting. I'm really looking forward to it. Thanks so much for calling.
WVIK: Thanks so much for talking with WVIK today.
Davis: Thank you. Bye-bye.
WVIK: Bye, Andrew.
Biggers and Davis are signing books and introducing Davis' film "The Package" at The Last Picture House on Thursday, Oct. 24th, starting at 6 p.m. The book "Disturbing the Bones" is released by Penguin Random House and is on sale now.
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