My tiny part in Charlie Wilson’s War

January 16, 2008

And I mean barely dis­cern­ible. Towards the end of Charlie Wilson’s War, Texan con­gress­man Wilson (played by Tom Hanks) hav­ing helped fin­ance the cov­ert war in Afgh­anistan looks up at a TV screen and sees Dan Rather intro­duce a piece that begins with the final column of Red Army tanks cross­ing the Friend­ship bridge back into the old Soviet Union.

There is a brief upsot and the voice of CBS News cor­res­pond­ent Barry Petersen comes through, nar­rat­ing their depar­ture. Watch­ing it took me instantly back to Feb­ru­ary, 1989.

I took in Petersen’s piece as a very junior CBS staffer, track and rushes. I remembered the shots and the script. Barry always did an on-camera count­down into his pieces to cam­era: “In — uh — three — uh — two — uh — one…”

But what I most remem­ber from those day of mul­tiple tel­exes to arrange satel­lite paths, microwave hops to earth sta­tions, and unre­li­able land­lines, is the sheer num­ber of people involved in co-ordinating the whole pro­cess. Staggering.

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

fh January 16, 2008 at 09:45

I had a similar thought, for different reasons, when reading about the Telegraph’s on-line TV experiments: eg, http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/threelinewhip/jan08/right_on.htm

And I like the comment posted:

Put a camera on your shoulder and start walking the streets,then you will have a real show of real ugly people in the real ugly world and you think it wont work?

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JohnofScribbleSheet January 17, 2008 at 05:33

Your Famous!

Reply

Shutter January 27, 2008 at 02:00

Forgive me. The headline says your part “in”….

I had disgusting thoughts about what to do with Julia Roberts’ body double … can I credit myself with a part “in” the fillum ?

Reply

Adrian Monck January 27, 2008 at 02:30

Sure you can.

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