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PUSHING TIN
Learning
the hard way
The thought-provoking film, for the first time, tackles the stress and
anxiety faced by the workers of the air traffic control industry...
Fox 2000 Pictures’ Pushing Tin chronicles the inner workings of Traffic
Controllers at New York Terminal Approach Radar Control (TRACON) Centre,
a veritable pressure cooker of the air traffic control industry, and focusses
on the men, who stew in that atmosphere of stress and anxiety. Nick Falcone
(John Cusack) is an air traffic control freak at TRACON, the chaotic air
traffic facility on Long Island that handles upto 7,000 flights a day
into and out of the finite air space above Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark
airports. Nick works the Newark radar scopes, the busiest of them all,
and he is the best, until Russel Bell (Billy Bob Thornton) comes to town.
Russell - a cross between a motor-cycle riding cowboy and a Zen master
- has come to New York looking for heavier traffic, and his penchant for
high risk challenges unnerves Nick.
If not for Nick’s family, he wouldn’t have been in touch with
the world outside TRACON. His wife Connie (Cate Blanchett), a mother of
two, is not exactly intelligent, but conscientiously dabbles in classes
to improve herself, even while showering her husband with all the love
he needs.
Compared to them, Russell and his wife Mary (Angelina Jolie), are something
else. The teetotaller Russell is quite mysterious and intimidating. Intense
video games are what he plays to relax and he enjoys a hot relationship
with his voluptuous young wife, who dresses like tart and has a weakness
for booze.
There is a lingering feeling of one upmanship between the two men, who
thrive on living dangerously, confident in their ability to always come
out on top. Despite an unwritten rule in the profession that controllers
don’t sleep with colleagues’ wives, Nick can’t resist taking
advantage of Mary’s drunken vulnerability one evening.
But that doesn’t make things better for Nick, even though he has
now trumped his rival in the ultimate way. Instead, he becomes paranoid
of Russell and his traits, that ultimately assume monstrous magnitudes.
And in this rivalry, the winner — not the loser - will lose it all...
his job, his marriage, his mind.
Pushing Tin, which focuses on the complexes in people’s lives, was
inspired by the New York Times’ Sunday Magazine article published
in 1996. The piece written by Darcy Frey entitled Something’s Got
To Give chronicled the inner workings of the New York Terminal Approach
Radar Control (TRACON) centre, and the stress they faced.
Veteran Hollywood producer Art Linson read the article and subsequently
bought the rights to the story since he felt it would be a great premise
for a movie. “Darcy’s article was funny, serious and truly original.
He captured the juxtaposition of the dramatic hazards of these guys’
jobs with the comic energy of their personal lives, and exposed the readers
to a strange new world, a world we certainly have never seen on film before,”
says Linson. The producer then got Glen and Les Charles to pen the script
for Pushing Tin.
Linson and Laura Ziskin, president of Fox 2000 Pictures, then approached
British director Mike Newell (Four Weddings And A Funeral), who, alongwith
the Charles brothers, worked together on several drafts, creating a final
script that Newell describes as “a movie about people crashes, not
plane crashes.”
According to Newell, the film is a dynamic exploration of a high stress
work process. “I love that aspect of it because work and stress is
universal. Everyone believes that their job is uniquely stressful,”
opines the director, “Whether you talk to an insurance salesman or
steel-worker or a gardener, they all will tell you that what they do is
more stressful than anything else. That idea, that everyone’s job
is stressing them to death, made me laugh.”
In Pushing Tin, says Newell, the madness that is inherent in the air traffic
control job of the two heroes, starts to resemble a virus, just running
rampant. “It starts to invade every aspect of their lives, infecting
their health, their marriages, and ther minds. These guys are obsessed
with and terrified by their job at the same time. They have to find all
sorts of escape routes in their emotional and psychological lives. The
fallout of all this stress is where the drama, the humour and the morality
tale come together in the story of the rivalry between Nick and Russell.”
The filmmakers were sure who they wanted to cast in the roles of the two
diametrically opposed characters. Says Newell, “I wanted John from
the very beginning. He is theatre-trained, and can take a lot on his shoulders.
He has a kind of manic quality mixed with a little boy charm and innocence
which works well for the character of Nick Falcone.”
Though the director admits that the story mostly revolves around Nick
and Russell, he maintains that the film comes alive because of the ensemble
of actors, including Cate Blanchett and Angelina Jolie as the respective
wives. The two actresses in turn were bowled over by the well-written
script and Mike Newell’s body of work.
Director Newell has the last word as he says, “Essentially, the film
is about success and failure. Everybody experiences a little of both in
their life, whether it’s work-related or family-related or love-related.
It is how one handles success or failure that makes us different from
each other. And that’s what can be seen in the film through the reactions
of the two characters.”
