Based on true events, FOXCATCHER tells the dark and fascinating story of
the unlikely and ultimately tragic relationship between an eccentric multi-
millionaire and two champion wrestlers.
When Olympic Gold Medal winning wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing
Tatum) is invited by wealthy heir John du Pont (Steve Carell) to move on to
the du Pont estate and help form a team to train for the 1988 Seoul Olympics
at his new state-of-the-art training facility, Schultz jumps at the opportunity,
hoping to focus on his training and finally step out of the shadow of his
revered brother, Dave (Mark Ruffalo). Driven by hidden needs, du Pont
sees backing Schultz’s bid for Gold and the chance to “coach” a world-class
wrestling team as an opportunity to gain the elusive respect of his peers and,
more importantly, his disapproving mother (Vanessa Redgrave).

Flattered by the attention and entranced by du Pont’s majestic world, Mark comes to see his benefactor as a father figure and grows increasingly  dependent on him for approval. Though initially supportive, du Pont’s
mercurial personality turns and he begins to lure Mark into an unhealthy lifestyle that threatens to undermine his training. Soon du Pont’s erratic behavior and cruel psychological game-play begin to erode the athlete’s
already shaky self-esteem. Meanwhile du Pont becomes fixated on Dave, who exudes the confidence both he and Mark lack, knowing that these are things even his money cannot buy. Fueled by du Pont’s increasing paranoia and alienation from the brothers, the trio is propelled towards a tragedy no one could have foreseen..

FOXCATCHER is a rich and moving story of brotherly love, misguided
loyalty and the corruption and emotional bankruptcy that can accompany
great power and wealth. As with Academy Award® nominee Bennett Miller’s
previous feature films, CAPOTE and MONEYBALL, he explores large
themes in society through his complex character portraits of real people.

All of Bennett Miller’s films, including
his first, the documentary THE CRUISE,
are centered on real people with vivid
personalities in unusual circumstances.
And despite the stockpile of evidence
that was collected during the years of
preparation for FOXCATCHER, in the
end those stark facts become the seeds for
drama, and many of them, as the actors have
indicated, were distilled and transformed
through the process.

“It’s fact to fiction as  a vehicle back to truth, says Miller. Some  months after CAPOTE was released I  received a letter from Harper Lee. She said  the film was a demonstration of fiction as
a means towards truth. There was, as she  pointed out, a great deal in the film that we  had invented, but that ‘The film told the  truth about Truman.’ That’s what I have
tried to do with FOXCATCHER.”
Miller first heard about the story of  eccentric multi-millionaire John  Eleuthère du Pont (Steve Carell) and a  pair of world champion wrestler brothers,  Mark (Channing Tatum) and Dave Schultz
(Mark Ruffalo) when executive producers  Michael Coleman and Tom Heller showed  him a newspaper article about the story.
“The circumstances seemed comical and  absurd, but the outcome was horrible and  real, says Miller. The deeply strange things
that happened down there were unlike  anything I had personally experienced and yet they felt immediately familiar. There was something about the story, or perhaps
something beneath the story, that I sensed wasn’t strange at all. In fact the opposite.”
While his initial impulse to take on the project was immediate, the subsequent time and energy Miller ended up pouring into it was expansive. As he had previously done with CAPOTE and MONEYBALL,
Miller embarked on a research journey that would last several years. “I wanted to learn what hadn’t been known about the story and that takes time. It takes years and it takes interest and care, he says.
This is a story with some uncomfortable truths, everyone I spoke with seemed to be guarding some aspect of what happened.”

Miller traveled all over the country—to
Iowa, California, Colorado, Missouri, and
Pennsylvania—to find materials and to
interview dozens of people including Mark
Schultz, Dave’s widow Nancy, their friends
and fellow wrestlers, people who had
worked for du Pont, police, and anyone
who had lived any part of the story. In
addition to all the first-person accounts, he
assembled a trove of video of both du Pont
and the Schultz brothers.
While Dave was only a little older than
Mark, they didn’t have a typical brother
relationship. Their parents split up early,
and Dave took on a parental role for Mark as they moved between their parents’
homes, fending for themselves.

Mark had
an incredible love, reverence, and need
for his brother—he relied upon him for emotional support, a partner to wrestle
with, and as a coach—but at the same
time he was very jealous of Dave’s success,
and his inner turbulence escalated as
the years went by. “Mark was always that
little brother that just couldn’t break out,
couldn’t figure out how to do it on his own,
says Tatum. He always had to rely on Dave,
and this kept him from having his own life,
his own career, and the thing he wanted
most—his own respect from people.”
Mark’s confused vulnerability makes him
turn his pent-up anger on himself as
much as on his wrestling opponents—at
times he literally hits himself in the face.
Says Tatum: “I don’t think anybody could
punish Mark more than he could himself
and I think he hardens himself against the
world by punishing himself.”

Throughout the filming and later on in the
editing, Miller tried to distill the meanings
of scenes down to their essence—using
visuals whenever necessary. In fact, a
large portion of FOXCATCHER plays out
wordlessly. “Bennett believes that character
and story are enough to carry us through
long periods of silence, says Ruffalo. He
isn’t afraid to let a movie breathe like
that.” Says Tatum: “He sees the little
things. He’s obsessed by the moments in
between. What most people will see when
you wrestle is the big moves, the big huge
slams, the activity, but he really focuses on
those moments when it dies—where the
person goes in their head when they are
not doing the big things.”
Says Ruffalo: “Bennett used the metaphor
of a rock garden. You see a rock sticking out
but it’s only a small percentage of what’s
buried and out of sight. The meditative
glimpse of the story you get in this film is
so profound, but at the same time you still
have this sense of a much deeper, denser
story underneath. He doesn’t tie it all up
neatly for us. He leaves us very much in
the same place that most of the people
who experienced this kind of tragedy have
been left. Which is wondering how this
happened, and why it came to pass?”

Related Images: