C6

PHOTO GALLERY Celebrity mug shots newsday.com/celebs

SUNDAY, OCT. 11, 2015

DRE

AM

WO

RKS

PIC

TURE

S/

FOX

200

0PI

CTU

RES

/JA

AP

BUIT

END

IJK

movies newsday.com/movies

BY FRANK LOVECESpecial to Newsday

The term “water-boarding” didn’texist in 1957,when the FBIarrested theSoviet spy knownas Rudolf Abel.

In fact, as the many booksabout the events behindSteven Spielberg’s “Bridge ofSpies,” opening Friday, tell us,neither we nor the Sovietsused torture against espionage

detainees such as Abel in theUnited States or his counter-part, American spy pilot Fran-cis Gary Powers in the U.S.S.R.

“As soon as you starttorturing the people that wehave, well, then, you give theother side permission and

cause to do the same exactthing, and that’s not whatAmerica stands for,” says TomHanks, who plays attorneyJames Donovan, recruited bythe U.S. government to defendAbel (Mark Rylance) at trial.

Speaking at a Manhattan

news conference for the film,he adds that, “As soon as youstart executing anybody youthink is going against yourcountry, well, you’re not thatfar removed from the KGBand the Stasi, and that’s notwhat America was about”during, at least, the timeframe of the film — a fraughtfive years when nuclear jit-ters, the policy of mutuallyassured destruction, the con-struction of the Berlin Walland an often-heated Cold Warrivaled or even surpassed the

post-9/11 fears of today.“Spielberg was a child when

he was taught in school to getunder the desk or fill up thetub with water” in case of anuclear detonation, “and hehas very vivid memories ofthat,” says Alan Alda, whoplays Thomas Watters, Dono-van’s senior partner at theirlaw firm. Speaking with aNewsday reporter in a hotelsuite before the news confer-ence, he recalls how he him-self, as a young married man,found it “heartbreaking to see

Steven Spielberg’s new ‘Bridge of Spies’historical thriller is set in the early ’60s butreflects on some of today’s tough issues

COLDWARCHILLS

C6

NEW

SDA

Y,

SUN

DA

Y,

OC

TOBE

R11

,20

15ne

wsd

ay.c

omFa

nfar

e

newsday.com/movies

Unlike some historicaldramas, “Bridge ofSpies” hews fairly

closely to the eventsspanning 1957 to 1962.] Purported artist-photographer Rudolf Abel wasarrested June 21, 1957, thoughat a Manhattan hotel and not athis Brooklyn Heights studio asseen in the film. AttorneyJames Donovan, of Wattersand Donovan, took on Abel’sdefense after other lawyershad declined the U.S.government’s request. OnOct. 25, 1957, a jury found Abelguilty of three spying counts,and on Nov. 15, he was

sentenced to 30 yearsimprisonment, which he beganserving in Atlanta.] Civilian CIA pilot FrancisGary Powers was shot downover Soviet airspace onMay 1, 1960. In July, he wasindicted to stand trial beforea military tribunal, and onAug. 19, after a three-dayproceeding, was found guiltyand sentenced to three yearsin prison and seven years in awork camp. While the filmdoesn’t go into it, Powers’wife and parents said theywere “impressed” by theirson’s Kremlin-appointeddefense counsel, Mikhail K.

Grinev, and Powers himself,even after his release, neverclaimed any mistreatment atthe hands of his captors.] The arrest of grad studentFrederic Pryor in East Berlinon Aug. 5, 1961, receivedvirtually no coverage hereuntil after his return.] And while anyone soinclined can look up thehistorical record, we’ll refrainfrom giving spoilers about theevents on Germany’sGlienicke Bridge on Feb. 10,1962, at 8:52 a.m. Berlin time, orat Berlin’s Friederichstrassecheckpoint moments earlier.

— FRANK LOVECE

kids have to cope with that fearthat ordinary, everyday lifecould be over in an instant. Soit was a very serious part ofour lives.”

BASED ON REAL EVENTS“Bridge of Spies” chroni-

cles the real events surround-ing insurance attorney andformer Nuremberg Trialsprosecutor Donovan as henegotiates a prisoner ex-change of Abel for both Pow-ers (Austin Stowell) —whose Lockheed U-2 spyplane was infamously shotdown over Soviet airspace onMay 1, 1960 — and FredericPryor (Will Rogers). Pryorwas a hapless Yale doctoralcandidate from the Detroitarea, who was doing graduatestudy at West Berlin’s FreeUniversity and got caught

behind the quickly built Ber-lin Wall on Aug. 5, 1961.

“I don’t remember anyfeeling of relief” about theeventual prisoner exchange inearly 1962, Alda muses,“because the [U.S. and SovietICBM] missiles were still there,and there were plenty of otherthings to be concerned about.”

That included the Cubanmissile crisis that veryOctober, when the world cameclose to nuclear Armageddon.Yet, even in that era, despitegenuine terror that “theCommies” were going todestroy America,contemporary news accounts

and the various books writtenby Donovan, Powers andindependent historians de-scribe no Guantánamo Bay orAbu Ghraib prisoner abuse, notorture in hopes of squeezingout information.

“There is so much relevancebetween the story in 1960 andthe story today,” says Spiel-berg at the news conference,pointedly adding, “The ColdWar was polite in terms of theway we spied on each other.”

Fortunately, for all the seri-ousness of the subject matter,Spielberg kept his set free ofangst.

“He’s so available as aperson,” says Water Millresident Alda, who helpedcreate the Alan Alda Centerfor Communicating Science atStony Brook University, and isa visiting professor at that

college’s school of journalism.“He’s got this whole movie inhis head . . . and, yet, he’stotally relaxed on the set. Yousee him building these shotsimprovisationally, which hecan do because he has so muchexperience.”

Which doesn’t mean hedidn’t plan well beforehand.Some of the movie’s moststriking scenes take placearound the Berlin Wall, some300 yards of which produc-tion designer Adam Stock-hausen reconstructed “on theborder of Poland andGermany,” the director says,“in a town called Breslau” —or Wroclaw, historicallydepending on whether Ger-many or Poland claimed it.“There are still bullet holesin the buildings from WorldWar II there,” says Spielberg.

“They never repaired thebuildings.”

COLD FEET ON COLD WARThis wasn’t the first time

Hollywood took an interestin this story, he notes. Thelegendary Gregory Peckobtained rights to it in 1965and “got Alec Guinness toagree to play Abel. Peck wasgoing to play Donovan. Andthey got [future Oscar-win-ner] Stirling Silliphant towrite the script. And thenMGM at the time said, ‘Nah,I don’t think we’re going totell this story.’ ”

Fifty years later, Spielberg,with Matt Charman and thefilmmakers Ethan and JoelCoen as screenwriters, has toldit to a world much differentthan then — making the verysame story a different story.

Tom Hanks, as lawyer JamesDonovan,meets with his client,Soviet spy Rudolf Abel (MarkRylance), in “Bridge of Spies.”] Video: newsday.com/movies

U.S. spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers, center, during his 1960 espionage trial in Moscow.D

REA

MW

ORK

S/

FOX

200

0PI

CTU

RES

/JA

AP

BUIT

END

IJK

AP

/TA

SS

It’s all in the details . . .

C7

Fanfarenew

sday.comN

EWSD

AY

,SU

ND

AY

,O

CTO

BER11,

2015