Rachel Ballou, manager of The Villages theater division, has once again found a compelling independent film — winner of many national and international festival awards, including ‘best drama’ at the Cannes Film Festival — which audiences should find poignant and meaningful. Beginning with the premiere of Fort McCoy, on Friday, August 29, audiences at the Old Mill Playhouse on Lake Sumter Landing in The Villages will have a memorable treat in store.
In a nutshell, the interplay of well cast characters in this World War II drama show how love can grow against formidable odds. Set on the home front in Wisconsin, the film also convincingly shows how war can find victims in rural America — thousands of miles from the battlefront.
Writer, co-producer and star, Kate Connor’s German-born American grandparents, played by (co-producer) Eric Stoltz and Kate Connor herself, moved to Fort McCoy in 1944 to help with the war effort.
Connor, who dedicated the flick to her mother, based the tale on family stories she heard her whole life — unknown stories that Connor felt needed to be told. So many events depicted in the film had a profound impact on Connor’s family — her mother, grandparents, great aunt and uncle and great grandmother. They spoke of their wartime memories with such clarity and conviction, Connor had little trouble recalling them in detail more than half a century later. Family members always looked back at their time at Fort McCoy with both nostalgia and sadness, having made so many friends who never returned from the war. And they were, of course, devastated by the horrors of the Holocaust, revealed when Allied forces liberated the concentration camps.
Kate Connor was at dinner one night with a producer friend when the subjects of family and the war were discussed. He suggested Connor turn her memories into a film. Intrigued with the idea, she began by flying from California to the Midwest, visiting the army base and surrounding towns — and thoroughly researching the old data, much of which was still on microfiche.
In an exclusive interview, Kate Connor, who was awarded ‘best actress’ at the Milan Film Festival for her role in Fort McCoy, told villages-news.com: “I wanted people to know about Fort McCoy during World War II. Not a lot of Americans realize how close the war came to America — and how profound its effects were, overseas and at home. Not a lot of Americans realize we had both German and Japanese prisoners of war right here in Middle America.” As a German-American, Connor’s grandfather knew only German when he started kindergarten, and her grandmother cooked German food, which they shared with both American soldiers and German POWs.
Eric Stoltz gives a powerful performance as the grandfather, an army barber, who takes a stand when a Nazi SS officer threatens his wife (Kate Connor). Her Catholic sister (Anna Gerky, played by Lyndsy Fonseca) falls for a Jewish soldier (Sam Dolnick, played by Andy Hirsch), who is haunted by the death of his best friend. The couple is encouraged by an audacious friend (played by Camryn Manheim) and discouraged by Father Mivkovek (a priest played by Seymour Cassel — the only cast member old enough to remember World War II first hand). Grandfather Frank’s daughter also befriends a young German prisoner boy in a bittersweet relationship.
Connor’s great uncle, depicted in the film, was actually caught in a foxhole for days and had to use his friend’s dead body to save his own life. The film also chronicles his real-life courtship of Connor’s fiery great aunt, whose devotion never waned during their more than sixty-years together. Connor’s great uncle read the script before he died, and was proud to know the story would be brought to life. Another great uncle, sailor ‘Uncle Bud,’ did truly heroically save his ship from sinking, and Father Mivkovek was a close family friend who kept in touch for the rest of their lives.
The film-makers took poetic license changing the name from Camp McCoy to Fort McCoy, because Camp McCoy sounded too much like a children’s summer camp. “We were scouting around, looking at military bases all around the country, facing lots of Washington red tape, when the Department of Defense surprised us,” Connor said. “In a rare decision, they allowed us to film scenes at this active military installation, where 1,100 actual barracks and other buildings from World War II were still standing. So some of the film was shot in California and some was shot on location in Wisconsin, and has an authentic feel.”
Care was taken with costuming, with some Nazi uniforms rented; some vintage civilian clothing found in period collections, and some of the children’s outfits custom made. “Vintage clothing houses didn’t have a lot of World War II era childrens clothes,” Connor revealed. The sound track also includes some of World War II’s most famous artists, like Edith Piaf, Jerry Mercer and the Pied Pipers. “‘I Remember April,’ which plays on a car radio in the film, was my aunt and uncle’s favorite tune throughout their long love affair together,” Connor revealed. They are portrayed by Lyndsy Fonseca and Andy Hirsch.”
Asked to comment on the movie’s sub-title line “Between Good and Evil Lies a Long, Blurred, Line,” Kate Connor told villages-news.com: “many German soldiers, Nazi SS officers, were totally complicit with Hitler’s evil plans; but then, many others were not, including a twelve-year-old German prisoner boy. People in that era were everything you could think of — both good and evil, and everything in between.” Connor likes Tom Brokaw’s description of Americans during those war years as ‘The Greatest Generation.’
Connor loves “the phenomenally talented” Meryl Streep, and Sean Penn. “Both can play anything;: and among this film’s cast, she loves Eric Stoltz. “He plays the role with subtlety and is so full every single moment.” Connor collaborates well with Stoltz on and off the screen. “A role model is Eleanor Roosevelt,” Connor continued. “Like my grandmother, she was a strong woman, way ahead of her time — who cared very much about women, children and the downtrodden.”
It is Connor’s wish audiences will take away the knowledge that in spite of all the tragedies of war, there was a strong sense of community — that everyone came together for the war effort — and to help each other get through difficult times. “I hope they leave with a positive feeling that there is hope for the future,” she said.
