Bryan Gunnar Cole’s film Day Zero posits a near future that’s pretty provocative: The U.S. is at war with Iran, and the draft has been reinstated. Three quasi-estranged childhood friends are given thirty days to report for duty and must grapple with what that means to their belief systems and those they love.

The film is opening on a small scale on January 18, and courtesy of a local publicist, Past the Popcorn Managing Editor Greg Wright had the chance to speak with Cole over the phone about the big day.

You must be pretty excited about the release of your first feature film.

Bryan Gunnar Cole: Yes, my first narrative film feature; and I’m excited about every project I undertake. So it’s always exciting to show your work and get a response, and provoke some social discourse. So that’s what it’s really about—entertaining people, and getting people to talk and come together. It’s always special. And a film like this, with the kind of cast we have which is so great and so supportive, is a special one for sure.

How did Elijah Wood and Chris Klein and Jon Bernthal get involved with the project? Because that is a pretty dynamite cast you’ve got there.

BGC: Yeah, it is. Well, we were very fortunate there. First of all, we had very talented producers—Anthony Moody, and the writer (who was also our executive producer) Robert Malkani—who were very good guys and very smart, and were able to get the script in front of an agent at William Morris who took a shine to it. And that was a big step for us because—and not to be too cynical—in an industry that kind of prides itself on saying “no,” William Morris said yes. And they got behind the project and were able to get the script in front of first Chris and then Elijah Wood and Gin Goodwin; and Sofia Vassilieva, who is also so good in the film even though the part is small. So that’s how they came on board, through William Morris. And then Jon is actually a great story because he read the script and was like, “I gotta check this out!” He flew himself to New York, where we were actively searching for other actors for the role of Dixon; and he basically just barged into the auditions and said, “I’ve got to play this character.” And as soon as he walked in, it was like, “That’s the guy.” So he really had a fire in his belly to play this character and had actually written the producer and said, “You don’t know me from a hole in the wall, but I’m going to play Dixon in your movie.” And he’s just been a blessing to the project from the very start.

Now, you mentioned getting a “yes” from an industry that prides itself on saying “no.” I ran across a rather sobering fact today when I was doing research for my 2007 “ten best” list. There were 611 theatrical releases in 2007.

BGC: Wow.

Yeah, wow. And with all of that boxoffice competition, one of the films that was a strong contender for my top ten, a small film called Steel City, came in somewhere around 500^th on that list with a boxoffice gross of $10,000.

BGC: Yes.

That’s got to be pretty sobering, knowing that’s what you’re facing in this industry. With all of the talented people who want to make films, the industry has to say “no” to so many because the screen space in the theaters is so limited. So knowing that attention is going to be so limited, it’s got to be intimidating knowing you’re going into the market with an independent film like this.

BGC: Intimidation is not something I think about a lot because when you set out on a journey to make a film—and I’ve been lucky enough to have been in this industry for a long time now, and then before that in fringe theatre, so it’s not like I ever took the easy road—if you’re thinking of intimidation, then you’re not going to take those first steps. If you believe in yourself, and if you believe you’ve got something to learn in the process, and if you can put it together in a way where you can bring people into a theater or cinema and say, “Check this out; I think you’ll enjoy it, and I think it will maybe spark some dialogue, and maybe you’ll think a little differently or consider something that you hadn’t thought of before”—that’s why you do it. But if you think that the powers that be are going to squash you at the outset, then there’s really no reason to get up in the morning and go do it. So I just don’t take that into consideration. I do listen to people when they say, “I don’t think that’s a very good idea for this reason…” Then you say, “Well, okay, maybe I’m not presenting my idea right, or maybe I need to think about a different way of saying what I’m saying.” It doesn’t dampen your spirits to say it; you just have to listen to the gatekeepers a little bit. But at the end of the day, if you believe in what you’re doing and you’re doing it in a good way, it’ll find its place.

It’s interesting that you bring up—well, not interesting, really; it makes sense—the notion of making a film that might change someone’s point of view. Day Zero seems really well structured to do that because in the three characters—Aaron, Dixon, and George—you have very different perspectives on the whole issue of the draft and military service. And they all change their points of view.

BGC: Yes.

So to me, the film came off as very objective about the issue. Was that your intent—to try to give a balanced presentation?

BGC: Well, first, you’re the first interviewer who’s actually seen the film, so I’m excited that you got a chance to see it. But I really believe in trying to find the truth of each character and trying to find the core of a story while allowing it to take the audience on a journey; and I don’t like to impose too much on a story. I think it’s all in there. So my job as a filmmaker, I think, is to just harness as much truth as I can—especially in a fiction film. You know, you’re taking an imaginary circumstance and trying to make it truthful for people so that they go on the journey and believe what they’re seeing; and in this case, using any kind of hammer wasn’t going to be the right approach, and certainly there are different levels of belief that [are portrayed] in the film. I wanted each of the characters to discover that for himself, and bring us to a conclusion that was as ambiguous as it was provocative—so that when you left the theater, you took those last two faces with you. We didn’t want to bring people to that place and say, “Hey! This is right,” or “This is wrong.” Emotion isn’t right or wrong. Beliefs aren’t right or wrong. They’re what you feel and what you believe; and what happens with the characters in Day Zero is that they get different perspectives and learn to see the others’ points of view.

Well, you really nailed it from that perspective, as far as I’m concerned—the ambiguity and provocation. Now, this occurred to me based on something you said earlier. Given the nature of the film industry, it almost seems as if the personalities in Day Zero can be read as metaphors about filmmaking, then, too. Was that in your mind at all while making the film?

BGC: Could you give me a little more context for that question?

Well, particularly the contrast between Dixon and Aaron—one guy being very driven and knowing what he wants, even if it’s a little offbeat (and not coincidentally being played by Jon, who knew what he wanted and went out and got it), and the other being very unmotivated and uncentered and unfocused, having no idea what he wants—seems to me like it could be a metaphor for people who are either going to succeed or fail in the film business, too.

BGC: Well, I think that’s kind of like life. You set off on every journey with certain expectations—and there will always be new obstacles and opportunities along that road. And it’s what you do with them that matters. Some people don’t change course and they barrel through every obstacle—and they miss the fact that there may have been opportunities, maybe a different way of doing something. And Dixon’s character does change. He’s on the verge of understanding that love is important—[more so than] these deeply held beliefs. And I think George comes to see that there’s a sense of personal responsibility that may go beyond his small sphere of influence, that there might be something larger at play. So each character faces a dilemma at a different point in the film—and of course, Aaron’s dilemma is not about whether he will go, but what will happen to him when he does. And he’s pretty sure that he’s doomed. And what he does what that understanding is the emotional core of the end of the movie.

To me, there were a couple of obvious homages in the film. They may not have been intended, but with Aaron there seemed to be a healthy dose of Taxi Driver.

BGC: Well, the film is shot to evoke a Viet Nam-era picture. It’s desaturated, there’s a lot of hand-held camera work—the costuming, the palette, the art direction.

More Mean Streets than Taxi Driver.

BGC: Yeah. That may have been the product of the fact that we didn’t have a lot of shooting time.

Like Mean Streets.

BGC: I could give you some pretty scary numbers to that effect. But we wanted a very gritty feel, and I’m very comfortable—and so was my cinematographer Matt Clark, who has done a wonderful job—walking in some pre-trod trails. But some of those films, like Taxi Driver—that’s part of the cultural landscape now, and a guy like Aaron wouldn’t have any other way of understanding how to express himself in physical change, unless he grappled with some cultural icon like Travis Bickle. So it was not a direction that I gave Elijah; but we did have discussions about parts of certain films that these characters would have loved. And Taxi Driver was one that came up.

Did The Fabulous Baker Boys surface at all in your thinking?

BGC: No! Why was— That’s interesting!

In Dixon’s living situation and his relationship with the girl—

BGC: Oh, yeah! You know— Wow. I had completely— You know, I have no idea if that was in the writer’s mind when he wrote that character. For me, it was just what it was. But the film’s style and approach— I just loved Bob Rafelson and Hal Ashby, those kind of 1970s filmmakers; Haskell Wexler and Medium Cool. Those are some of the films that I watched and talked about with my DP a lot, because in our palette and art direction and in how we used our camera we wanted to evoke this Viet Nam-era film style; but also to convey the idea that history, oddly, does repeat itself.