Argo is a 2012 American
dramatic
thriller film directed by
Ben Affleck. This dramatization is adapted from the book The
Master of Disguise by
CIA operative
Tony Mendez, and Joshuah Berman's 2007
Wired
article "The Great Escape" about the "Canadian
Caper",[3]
in which Mendez led the rescue of six U.S. diplomats from
Tehran,
Iran,
during the 1979
Iran hostage crisis.[4]
The film stars Affleck as Mendez with
Bryan Cranston,
Alan Arkin, and
John Goodman, and was released in North America to critical and
commercial success on October 12, 2012. The film was produced by
Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, and
George Clooney. The story of this rescue was also told in the 1981
television movie Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper,
directed by
Lamont Johnson.[5][6]
Argo received seven nominations for the
85th Academy Awards and won three, for
Best Film Editing,[7]
Best Adapted Screenplay, and
Best Picture, the first time since 1989's
Driving Miss Daisy where the Best Picture winner was not
nominated for Best Director. The film also earned five
Golden Globe nominations, winning
Best Picture – Drama and
Best Director, while being nominated for
Best Supporting Actor for Arkin. It won the award for the
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the
19th Screen Actors Guild Awards with Alan Arkin being nominated for
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role. It also
won Best Film, Best Editing, and Best Director (for Affleck) at the
66th British Academy Film Awards.
Plot
Militants storm the
United States embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, in retaliation
for CIA involvements in Iran. More than 50 of the embassy staff are
taken as hostages, but six escape and hide in the home of the
Canadian
ambassador
Ken Taylor (Victor
Garber). With the escapees' situation kept secret, the US
State Department begins to explore options for
"exfiltrating" them from Iran.
Tony Mendez (Ben
Affleck), a CIA exfiltration specialist brought in for consultation,
criticizes the proposals. He too is at a loss for an alternative until,
inspired by watching
Battle for the Planet of the Apes on the phone with his son, he
plans to create a cover story that the escapees are Canadian filmmakers,
scouting "exotic" locations in Iran for a similar science-fiction
film.
Mendez and his supervisor Jack O'Donnell (Bryan
Cranston) contact
John Chambers (John
Goodman), a Hollywood make-up artist who has previously crafted
disguises for the CIA. Chambers puts them in touch with film producer
Lester Siegel (Alan
Arkin). Together they set up a phony film studio, publicize their
plans, and successfully establish the pretense of developing Argo,
a "science fantasy" in the style of
Star Wars, to lend credibility to the cover story. Meanwhile,
the escapees grow frantic inside the ambassador's residence. The
revolutionaries reassemble embassy papers
shredded before the takeover and learn that some personnel have
escaped.
Posing as a producer for Argo, Mendez enters Iran and links up
with the six escapees. He provides them with
Canadian passports and fake identities to prepare them to get
through security at the airport. Although afraid to trust Mendez's
scheme, they reluctantly go along with it, knowing that he is risking
his own life too. A "scouting" visit to the
bazaar to maintain their cover story takes a bad turn, but their
Iranian culture contact gets them away from the hostile crowd.
Mendez is told that the operation has been cancelled to avoid
conflicting with a
planned military rescue of the hostages. He pushes ahead, forcing
O'Donnell to hastily re-obtain authorization for the mission to get
tickets on a
Swissair flight. Tension rises at the airport, where the escapees'
flight reservations are confirmed at the last minute, and a guard's call
to the supposed studio in Hollywood is answered at the last second. The
group boards the plane just as the Iranian guards uncover the ruse and
try to stop their plane from getting off the runway, but they are too
late, as Mendez and the six successfully leave Iran.
To protect the hostages remaining in Tehran from retaliation, all US
involvement in the rescue is suppressed, giving full credit to the
Canadian government and its ambassador (who left Iran with his wife
under their own credentials as the operation was underway; their Iranian
housekeeper, who had known about the Americans and lied to the
revolutionaries to protect them, escaped to
Iraq).
Mendez is awarded the
Intelligence Star, but due to the classified nature of the mission,
he would not be able to keep the medal until the details were made
public in 1997. All the hostages were freed on January 20, 1981. The
film ends with President Carter's speech about the Crisis and the
Canadian Caper.
Cast
Actor, producer and director Ben Affleck.
Affleck cast Goodman, Parks and Bishé after seeing them in
Red State.
Production
Filming
Mendez meets an agent at Istanbul's
Hagia Sophia before going to Iran.
Argo is based on the Canadian Caper that took place during the
Iran hostage crisis in 1979 and 1980.
Chris Terrio wrote the screenplay based on Joshuah Bearman's 2007
article in
Wired: "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans
from Tehran".[3]
The article was written after the records were declassified.
In 2007, the producers
George Clooney,
Grant Heslov and David Klawans set up a project based on the
article. Affleck's participation was announced in February 2011.[8]
The following June, Alan Arkin was the first person cast in the film.[9]
After the rest of the roles were cast, filming began in
Los Angeles[10]
in August 2011. Additional filming took place in
McLean, Virginia;
Washington, D.C.; and
Istanbul.[11]
As a historical piece, the film made use of archival news footage
from
ABC, CBS
and NBC; and
included popular songs from the era such as "Little
T&A" by
The Rolling Stones, "Sultans
of Swing" by
Dire Straits, "Dance
the Night Away" by
Van
Halen and "When
the Levee Breaks" by
Led Zeppelin.[12]
For its part, Warner Bros. used its 1972–1984 title featuring the "Big
W" logo designed by
Saul
Bass for
Warner Communications to open the film and painted on its studio
lot's famed water tower the logo of The Burbank Studios (the facility's
name during the 1970s and 1980s when Warner shared it with
Columbia Pictures).[13]
Release and
reception
Critical response
Argo was widely acclaimed by critics.
Rotten Tomatoes reported that 96% of critics gave the film positive
reviews based on 246 reviews, with an
average score of 8.4 out of 10. Its consensus reads: "Tense,
exciting and often darkly comic, Argo recreates a historical event with
vivid attention to detail and finely wrought characters."[14]
At
Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to
reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score
of 86, considered to be "universal acclaim", based on 45 reviews.[15]
Naming Argo one of the best 11 films of 2012, critic
Stephen Holden of
The New York Times wrote: "Ben Affleck's seamless direction
catapults him to the forefront of Hollywood filmmakers turning out
thoughtful entertainment."[16]
Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 4/4 stars, calling it
"spellbinding" and "surprisingly funny". Ebert chose it as his best film
of the year.[17]
The Washington Times said it felt "like a movie from an earlier
era — less frenetic, less showy, more focused on narrative than
sensation", but that the script included "too many characters that he
doesn’t quite develop."[18]
The craft in this film is rare. It is so easy to manufacture
a thriller from chases and gunfire, and so very hard to
fine-tune it out of exquisite timing and a plot that's so
clear to us we wonder why it isn't obvious to the Iranians.
After all, who in their right mind would believe a space
opera was being filmed in Iran during the hostage crisis?
“
”
—Roger Ebert, writing for the
Chicago Sun-Times[17]
Literary critic
Stanley Fish says that the film is a standard
caper film in which "some improbable task has to be pulled off by a
combination of ingenuity, training, deception and luck." He goes on to
describe the film's structure: "(1) the presentation of the scheme to
reluctant and unimaginative superiors, (2) the transformation of a
ragtag bunch of ne'er-do-wells and wackos into a coherent, coordinated
unit and (3) the carrying out of the task." Although he thinks the film
is good at building and sustaining suspense, he concludes,
This is one of those movies that depend on your not thinking much
about it; for as soon as you reflect on what's happening rather than
being swept up in the narrative flow, there doesn't seem much to it
aside from the skill with which suspense is maintained despite the
fact that you know in advance how it's going to turn out. ... Once
the deed is successfully done, there's really nothing much to say,
and anything that is said seems contrived. That is the virtue of an
entertainment like this; it doesn't linger in the memory and provoke
afterthoughts.[19]
Jian Ghomeshi, a Canadian writer and radio figure of Iranian
descent, thought the film had a "deeply troubling portrayal of the
Iranian people". Ghomeshi asserted "among all the rave reviews,
virtually no one in the mainstream media has called out [the] unbalanced
depiction of an entire ethnic national group, and the broader
implications of the portrait." He also suggested that the timing of the
film was poor, as American and Iranian political relations were at a low
point.[20]
University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole had a similar
assesment, writing that the film's narrative fails to provide adequate
historical context for the actual events it portrays, and such errors of
omission lead all of the Iranian characters in the film to be depicted
as ethnic stereotypes.[21]
A November 3, 2012, article in the
Los Angeles Times claimed that the film had received very little
attention in Tehran. The article referred to a review by
Masoumeh Ebtekar, whose memoirs are the only Iranian narrative of
the events.[22]
Despite the Iranian Government's response, sources inside Iran have
claimed that the movie has become massively popular, with bootleg copies
becoming bestsellers with high prices and copies being sold "by the
thousands", making multiple times the sales of Academy Award winner
A Separation, which was released almost a year before. Several
theaters have been secretly showing the film, including one at
Sharif University, with the participants giving a very positive
response. Interpretations of the film's popularity in Iran have varied,
ranging from the fact that the movie portrays the excesses of the
revolution and the hostage crisis, which had been long glorified in Iran
to regular Iranians viewing it as a somber reminder of what caused the
poor relations with America and the ensuing cost to Iran, decades after
the embassy takeover. Other Iranians have claimed that the high DVD
sales is a form of silent protest against the government's ongoing
hostility to relations with America.[23][24]
The film was nominated for seven
Academy Awards except in the Director category, and won three for
Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Achievement in Editing.
Following the announcement of the nominations,
Bradley Cooper, whose film,
Silver Linings Playbook was nominated in several categories,
said: "Ben Affleck got robbed."[25]
This opinion is shared by the ceremony's host
Seth MacFarlane[26]
and
Quentin Tarantino.[27]
Entertainment Weekly wrote about this controversy:
Standing in the Golden Globe pressroom with his directing
trophy, Affleck acknowledged that it was frustrating not to get
an Oscar nod when many felt he deserved one. But he's keeping a
sense of humor. "I mean, I also didn't get the acting
nomination," he pointed out. "And no one's saying I got snubbed
there!"
[28]
Box office
As of February 26, 2013, the film has earned $130,142,249 in the
United States and Canada, and $77,100,000 in other countries, for a
worldwide total of $207,242,249.[2]
Home media
The film was released in North America on February 19, 2013 on
DVD,
Blu-ray and with an
UltraViolet digital copy .[29]
Accolades
List of awards and nominations
Award |
Category |
Nominee |
Result |
85th Academy Awards[30] |
Best Picture |
Grant Heslov,
Ben Affleck and
George Clooney |
Won |
Best Supporting Actor |
Alan Arkin |
Nominated |
Best Adapted Screenplay |
Chris Terrio |
Won |
Best Film Editing |
William Goldenberg |
Won |
Best Sound Editing |
Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn |
Nominated |
Best Sound Mixing |
John Reitz,
Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia |
Nominated |
Best Original Score |
Alexandre Desplat |
Nominated |
AFI Awards |
Movies of the Year |
Ben Affleck, George Clooney, and Grant Heslov |
Won |
2nd AACTA International Awards[31] |
Best Film – International |
Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck and George Clooney |
Nominated |
Best Direction – International |
Ben Affleck |
Nominated |
Best Screenplay – International |
Chris Terrio |
Nominated |
British Academy Film Awards[32] |
Best Film |
Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney |
Won |
Best Director |
Ben Affleck |
Won |
Best Adapted Screenplay |
Chris Terrio |
Nominated |
Best Actor in a Leading Role |
Ben Affleck |
Nominated |
Best Actor in a Supporting Role |
Alan Arkin |
Nominated |
Best Original Music |
Alexandre Desplat |
Nominated |
Best Editing |
William Goldenberg |
Won |
César Award |
Best Foreign Film |
Ben Affleck |
Won |
Critics Choice Awards |
Best Picture |
|
Won |
Best Supporting Actor |
Alan Arkin |
Nominated |
Best Acting Ensemble |
|
Nominated |
Best Director |
Ben Affleck |
Won |
Best Adapted Screenplay |
Chris Terrio |
Nominated |
Best Editing |
William Goldenberg |
Nominated |
Best Score |
Alexandre Desplat |
Nominated |
Detroit Film Critics Society |
Best Picture |
|
Nominated |
Best Director |
Ben Affleck |
Nominated |
Best Ensemble |
|
Nominated |
70th Golden Globe Awards |
Best Motion Picture – Drama |
|
Won |
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role |
Alan Arkin |
Nominated |
Best Director – Motion Picture |
Ben Affleck |
Won |
Best Screenplay – Motion Picture |
Chris Terrio |
Nominated |
Best Original Score – Motion Picture |
Alexandre Desplat |
Nominated |
International Film Music Critics Association Awards |
Film Composer of the Year |
Alexandre Desplat, also for
Moonrise Kingdom,
Rise of the Guardians,
Rust and Bone and
Zero Dark Thirty |
Nominated |
Los Angeles Film Critics Association |
Best Screenplay |
Chris Terrio |
Won |
National Board of Review Awards 2012 |
Top 10 Films |
Ben Affleck,
George Clooney and
Grant Heslov |
Won |
Special Achievement in Filmmaking |
Ben Affleck |
Won |
Spotlight Award |
John Goodman, also for
Flight,
ParaNorman and
Trouble with the Curve |
Won |
Nevada Film Critics Society |
Best Picture |
|
Won |
Best Director |
Ben Affleck
Tied with
Kathryn Bigelow for
Zero Dark Thirty |
Won |
New York Film Critics Online |
Best Ensemble Cast |
|
Won |
Phoenix Film Critics Society |
Top Ten Films |
|
Won |
Best Director |
Ben Affleck |
Nominated |
Best Ensemble Acting |
|
Nominated |
Best Screenplay Adaptation |
|
Won |
Best Film Editing |
|
Won |
Roger Ebert |
Best Picture of the Year |
|
Won |
Directors Guild of America |
Best Director |
Ben Affleck |
Won |
Producers Guild of America |
Best Picture |
Ben Affleck,
George Clooney and
Grant Heslov |
Won |
Screen Actors Guild Awards |
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role |
Alan Arkin |
Nominated |
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture |
Cast |
Won |
San Diego Film Critics Society |
Best Film |
|
Won |
Best Director |
Ben Affleck |
Won |
Best Supporting Actor |
Alan Arkin |
Nominated |
Best Adapted Screenplay |
Chris Terrio |
Won |
Best Editing |
William Goldenberg |
Won |
Best Production Design |
Sharon Seymour |
Nominated |
Best Score |
Alexandre Desplat |
Nominated |
Best Ensemble Performance |
|
Nominated |
Satellite Awards |
Motion Picture |
|
Nominated |
Best Director |
Ben Affleck |
Nominated |
Best Adapted Screenplay |
Chris Terrio |
Nominated |
Best Original Score |
Alexandre Desplat |
Won |
St. Louis Film Critics |
Best Film |
|
Won |
Best Director |
Ben Affleck |
Won |
Best Supporting Actor |
Alan Arkin |
Nominated |
John Goodman |
Nominated |
Best Adapted Screenplay |
|
Nominated |
Washington D. C. Area Film Critics Association |
Best Film |
|
Nominated |
Best Director |
Ben Affleck |
Nominated |
Best Supporting Actor |
Alan Arkin |
Nominated |
Best Acting Ensemble |
|
Nominated |
Best Adapted Screenplay |
|
Nominated |
Writers Guild of America |
Best Adapted Screenplay |
Chris Terrio |
Won |
Historical
accuracy
Canadian
versus CIA roles
After the film was previewed at the
Toronto International Film Festival in September 2012,[33]
some critics said that it unfairly glorified the role of the CIA and
minimized the role of the
Canadian government (particularly that of Ambassador Taylor) in the
extraction operation.
Maclean's asserted that "the movie rewrites history at Canada's
expense, making Hollywood and the CIA the saga's heroic saviours while
Taylor is demoted to a kindly concierge."[34]
The postscript text said that the CIA let Taylor take the credit for
political purposes, which some critics thought implied that he did not
deserve the accolades he received.[35]
In response to this criticism, Affleck changed the postscript text to
read: "The involvement of the CIA complemented efforts of the Canadian
embassy to free the six held in Tehran. To this day the story stands as
an enduring model of international co-operation between governments."[36]
The
Toronto Star complained, "Even that hardly does Canada justice."[37]
In a CNN interview, former US president Jimmy Carter addressed the
controversy by stating: "90% of the contributions to the ideas and the
consummation of the plan was Canadian. And the movie gives almost full
credit to the American CIA. And with that exception, the movie is very
good. But Ben Affleck's character in the film was... only in Tehran a
day and a half. And the main hero, in my opinion, was Ken Taylor, who
was the Canadian ambassador who orchestrated the entire process."[38]
Taylor himself noted that, "In reality, Canada was responsible for the
six and the CIA was a junior partner. But I realize this is a movie and
you have to keep the audience on the edge of their seats."[36]
In the film, Taylor is also shown threatening to close the Canadian
embassy; in reality, this did not happen and the Canadians never
considered abandoning the six Americans who had taken refuge under
Canadian protection.[36]
Affleck asserted: "Because we say it's based on a true story, rather
than this is a true story, we're allowed to take some dramatic license.
There's a spirit of truth" and that "the kinds of things that are really
important to be true are—for example, the relationship between the U.S.
and Canada. The U.S. stood up collectively as a nation and said, 'We
like you, we appreciate you, we respect you, and we're in your debt.'...
There were folks who didn't want to stick their necks out and the
Canadians did. They said, 'We'll risk our diplomatic standing, our
lives, by harbouring six Americans because it's the right thing to do.'
Because of that, their lives were saved."[34]
British
and New Zealand roles
Upon its wide release in October 2012, the film was criticized for
its claim that the
New Zealand and
British diplomats had turned away the American refugees in Tehran.
Diplomats from New Zealand had proved quite helpful; one drove the
Americans to the airport[39],
and organised a place for them to hide if they had to change places.[40]
The British hosted the Americans initially, but the location was not
safe and all considered the Canadian ambassador's residence to be the
better location. British diplomats also assisted other Americans beyond
the six.[41]
Bob Anders, the U.S.
consular
agent played in the film by
Tate Donovan, said, "They put their lives on the line for us. We
were all at risk. I hope no one in Britain will be offended by what's
said in the film. The British were good to us and we're forever
grateful."[42]
Sir John Graham, the then-British
ambassador to Iran, said, "My immediate reaction on hearing about
this was one of outrage. I have since simmered down, but am still very
distressed that the film-makers should have got it so wrong. My concern
is that the inaccurate account should not enter the mythology of the
events in Tehran in November 1979." The then-British
chargé d'affaires in Tehran said that, had the Americans been
discovered in the British embassy, "I can assure you we'd all have been
for the high jump [i.e., in trouble]."[42]
Martin Williams, secretary to Sir John Graham in Iran at the time, was
the one who found the Americans and sheltered them in his own house at
first. The sequence in the film when a housekeeper confronts a truckload
of Iranian revolutionary at the Canadian ambassadors home bears a
striking resemblance to Mr Williams' own story. He has told how a brave
guard, Iskander Khan, confronted heavily-armed revolutionary guards and
convinced them that no-one was in when they tried to search Williams'
house during a blackout. Mr Williams said "They went away. We and the
Americans had a very lucky escape." The fugitives later moved to the
home of the Canadian ambassador and his No2.[43]
Affleck is quoted as saying to
The Sunday Telegraph: "I struggled with this long and hard,
because it casts Britain and New Zealand in a way that is not totally
fair. But I was setting up a situation where you needed to get a sense
that these six people had nowhere else to go. It does not mean to
diminish anyone."[42]
Imminent
danger to the group
In the film, the diplomats face suspicious glances from Iranians
whenever they go out in public, and appear close to being caught at many
steps along the way to their freedom. In reality, the diplomats never
appeared to be in imminent danger:
- In the film, while pretending to scout for filming locations at
a
bazaar, the crew face suspicious glances, and are accosted by a
few vendors, who suspect them of being American. In reality, this
scouting trip never happened.[34][36][44]
- In the film, the crew again encounters suspicion while
purchasing plane tickets to Zurich; in reality Taylor's wife bought
three sets of plane tickets from three different airlines ahead of
time, without any issues.[34][36]
- The film depicts a dramatic last-minute cancellation of the
mission by the Carter administration and a bureaucratic crisis in
which Mendez declares he will proceed with the mission. Carter
delayed authorization by only 30 minutes, and that was before Mendez
had left Europe for Iran.[45]
- In the film, there is again a tense situation when the crew
tries to board the plane, and their identities are nearly
discovered. In reality, there was no confrontation with security
officials at the departure gate.[46][45]
- In the film, before the plane takes off, gun-toting Iranian
guards try to stop the plane in a dramatic chase sequence; in
reality, there was no runway chase at the airport.[47]
As Mark Lijek described it, "Fortunately for us, there were very few
Revolutionary Guards about. It's why we turned up for a flight at
5.30 in the morning; even they weren't zealous enough to be there
that early. The truth is the immigration officers barely looked at
us and we were processed out in the regular way. We got on the
flight to Zurich and then we were taken to the US ambassador's
residence in Berne. It was that straightforward."[44]
Other
The film contains other historical inaccuracies:
- "It's not true we could never go outside. John Sheardown's house
had an interior courtyard with a garden and we could walk there
freely," Mark Lijek says.[44]
- The screenplay has the escapees—Mark and Cora Lijek, Bob Anders,
Lee Schatz and Joe and Kathy Stafford—settling down to enforced
cohabitation at the residence of the Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor.
In reality, after several nights—including one spent in the UK
residential compound—the group was split between the Taylor house
and the home of another Canadian official, John Sheardown.[44][48]
- The major role of producer Lester Siegel, played by Alan Arkin,
is fictional.[49]
- In the depiction of a frantic effort at CIA headquarters to get
Carter to re-authorize the mission so that previously purchased
airline tickets would still be valid, a CIA officer is portrayed as
getting the
White House telephone operator to connect him to Chief of Staff
Hamilton Jordan by impersonating a representative of the school
attended by Jordan's children. In reality, Jordan was unmarried and
had no children at the time.[50]
- In real life, CIA officer
Antonio Mendez has partial
Mexican ancestry, leading some critics to argue that Ben Affleck
should have cast a Hispanic actor, and not himself, in the role.[51]
- The
Hollywood sign is shown dilapidated as it had been in the past,
but it had actually been repaired in 1978, prior to the events
described in the film.[52]