Director Ed Zwick Reflects on his Latest Film
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Miner sifting through soil for diamonds. ©APGraphicsBank |
When I first read about Sierra Leone I was shocked. I'd read books about the colonial "scramble for Africa" and about the exploitation of its ivory, rubber and gold, but to learn the history of diamonds was to learn the story of Africa all over again.
In certain ways Blood Diamond is very conventional; it's an action drama about three people whose lives are forever changed by the discovery of a single rough stone. But because the story takes place in such a charged political context, it is also an opportunity to evoke complex issues seldom seen in Hollywood films. Entertainment and understanding need not be mutually exclusive, and political awareness can be raised as much by narrative as by rhetoric. Blood Diamond was quite simply a story that needed to be told, and fortunately Leonardo DiCaprio believed in it as much as I did and helped get it made.
I've been asked if a movie can really affect the hearts and minds of moviegoers. Obviously if a single piece of work was capable of bringing about immediate change, then something like Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, would have already gone a long way toward solving global warming. But raising consciousness is a distance event, not a sprint. One hundred and fifty years ago in this country it was entirely acceptable for a man to own another man. Twenty years ago people thought nothing of drinking and driving. Five years ago you could smoke in restaurants.
We have witnessed remarkable paradigm shifts, but they only came about as the aggregate effect of movies, songs, documentaries and editorials created a tipping point. As a filmmaker, all I can do is add my voice to the chorus.
Americans purchased nearly $38 billion worth of diamonds last year, accounting for more than half of global sales. I have nothing against diamonds (or rubies or emeralds or sapphires). I do object when their acquisition is complicit in the debasement of children or the destruction of a country. I find it unconscionable that the resources of the developing world are exploited for the sake of our vanity, and, above all, that billions of dollars of corporate profit are built on the backs of workers who are paid $1 per day.
The 2002 Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which certifies the legal origin of a diamond, is the result of increased public awareness. If this movie serves to heighten that awareness, and by extension to help strengthen and reinforce those aspects of the Kimberley Process that need attending to, then it will have far exceeded my hopes.
The story of Sierra Leone is not unique. Four million people have died in the Congo since 1998, and gold and coltan (a mineral used in our cell phones and semiconductors) have helped fuel that conflict. The Ivory Coast is on the verge of imploding in a struggle financed, in large part, by conflict stones. The hope is that in telling a story like this, we might help prevent it from happening again. 
For more information about buying non-conflict diamonds, check out AIUSA's diamond buyer's guide. »
