Walker (film) - Production

Production

Alex Cox first visited Nicaragua in 1984, during the national election campaign for which Daniel Ortega became president, to see if conditions were as bad as the American media had reported. He discovered that this was not the case. The filmmaker was persuaded to return by two wounded soldiers from the Sandinista army. He later learned of the historical Walker from an article in Mother Jones that was largely about US foreign policy in Central America and decided to bring his story to the screen. A history professor at the University of California lent Cox a library card so he could do more research on Walker. "The more I read about him the more bizarre this seemed", Cox remembers. He hired Rudy Wurlitzer to write the screenplay because, according to Cox, "He understands American guys and the mad impulse that drives certain Americans to be great men." Cox was not interested in making what he called a long, respectful historical drama that would be shown on Masterpiece Theatre because Walker "leads a disastrous misadventure. He's a pretty bad guy. I didn't think it was possible to approach it in this normal, historical, respectful style."

The budget was set at six million dollars with most of the film being shot in Granada, Nicaragua. To get into character, Ed Harris led the entire cast in a 10-mile forced march through the Nicaraguan countryside. The actor was drawn to the challenge of playing someone "who has incredible moral convictions but turns into such an evil person in the name of spreading democracy." He was also drawn to the script's politics, claiming to be anti-Contra and anti-intervention in Nicaragua and saw making a film there as a way to possibly stop the bloodshed.

Cox got the cooperation of the Sandinista government and the Roman Catholic Church because he wanted his production to be a "force for peace and reconciliation." The dying economy of Granada received a significant boost by the production with 300 local carpenters hired to build sets, 6,000 people hired as extras and army supplied security guards and a Soviet-built MI-18 transport helicopter used in the film. Electricity poles in the town plaza were torn down leaving homes without light. Some families were left temporarily without a telephone because the production needed their lines and the government could not afford to install new ones. The central square was covered with several inches of dirt to recreate 1850s conditions. The screenplay was edited by the country's Vice-President Sergio Ramirez and Minister of Culture Ernesto Cardenal, who were also a novelist and a poet respectively. Both men, along with the Minister of Education, the country's Interior Minister, and a military commander, would occasionally visit the set. Two people were accidentally killed during principal photography, both in separate vehicular-related incidents. For one of the deaths, the movie company paid for the funeral and compensated the family. The shooting conditions were difficult because of all of the fires the locals were building, making the air thick and hard to breathe.

Even after filming was over, Cox stayed in Granada, editing the film. He said, "I think we have kind of a duty not to just be the rich gringos and come down here and spend eight weeks and then disappear."