Using Declassified History To Tell a True Story: The Brink of War

I have been waiting to see The Brink of War with more than the usual professional curiosity.

The new film, written and directed by Michael Russell Gunn, dramatizes the 1986 summit in Reykjavík, Iceland, where President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev came remarkably close to changing the course of the nuclear arms race.

The film will be released by Angel later this week. Jeff Daniels plays Reagan. Jared Harris portrays Gorbachev. J.K. Simmons plays Secretary of State George Shultz.   

For me, however, this is not simply a movie about a historical event. 

I came of age during this period and started a Soviet-Exchange program in college that was made possible by the Reagan-Gorbachev agreements of that era. The Cold War was not history yet. It was part of the atmosphere we were living within. The Soviet Union was presented as a permanent adversary. Nuclear war was a real fear. The Berlin Wall looked immovable.

My Feelings About Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan was also the first politician who captured my imagination when I was a little boy. He had been an actor. He made movies. His name was Ron. That was enough to get my attention.

By the time I reached college, my feelings about him had changed considerably. I was no longer a fan. His policies affected my family personally, and his administration’s cuts to student financial aid helped change my plans to attend film school. 

History, like people, is complicated.

I could disagree deeply with Reagan’s domestic policies and still be inspired by his willingness to sit across from the leader of a country he had described as an “evil empire.” I could be skeptical of his politics while recognizing the leadership involved in searching for common ground with an adversary.

The negotiations between Reagan and Gorbachev eventually helped open doors that reached all the way to my small college in Missouri. 

That is one reason The Brink of War feels personal to me. It is also why the film offers such an interesting lesson for anyone trying to tell a compelling true story.

The meeting that appeared to fail

Reagan and Gorbachev met in Reykjavík on October 11 and 12, 1986. The summit was initially envisioned as a relatively informal meeting. Instead, the two leaders moved toward discussions of sweeping nuclear arms reductions. At various points, they considered proposals that would have been almost unimaginable only a few years earlier.

They did not reach a final agreement.

The talks broke down largely over Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the proposed missile defense system often known as “Star Wars.” Gorbachev wanted restrictions on its testing. Reagan refused to abandon what he saw as a potentially transformative defensive technology.

Both leaders left Iceland without the agreement they had come close to reaching. At the time, Reykjavík could be viewed as a failure. In retrospect, it became an essential step toward the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed the following year. That agreement eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons and opened the door to student exchange programs and other things.

This is the first storytelling lesson hidden inside the history. An event does not need to end in obvious victory to become the decisive moment in a larger story. Great storytellers see that. 

Many of the best stories are about transformation. 

Sometimes failure reveals the remaining obstacle. Sometimes a negotiation that collapses changes what both sides believe is possible. Sometimes the turning point only becomes visible after the story continues.  That creates an inherently dramatic proposition.

Two adversaries enter a room carrying decades of distrust. They move closer to an extraordinary agreement than almost anyone expected. They can see the possibility of a different world. Then they walk away.

When history gives you the dialogue

Most writers developing a story about a private historical meeting face an obvious problem. They know the outcome. They may have public statements, memoirs, news reports and recollections. But they do not necessarily know what was said behind closed doors.

The writer must reconstruct the scene. That is not entirely the case with Reykjavík.

Through declassified records, summit transcripts, official memoranda and archival research, much of the actual conversation between Reagan, Gorbachev and their advisers have now become available. 

I’m talking about records from both countries. 

How about that? 

We can go inside the room where it happened to quote one of my favorite Lin Manuel Miranda songs from Hamilton. 

Gunn reportedly spent years researching the subject. He also interviewed George Shultz before the former secretary of state died in 2021. That gave the filmmaker something unusually valuable: access to both the official record and the memory of someone who was in the room.

But access to the dialogue does not eliminate the storytelling challenge. A transcript is not a screenplay. A transcript may tell us what people said. It does not automatically tell us what the scene is about – what is really at stake or what is behind those words spoken.

It does not identify the cleanest dramatic objective. It does not determine where the scene should begin or end (ex. screenwriters are told get in late & leave early). A transcript does not tell us which policy details the audience needs to understand.

It does not supply pacing, emphasis or emotional interpretation.

When I’m writing using a transcript on a film project I’m working on, I always go back to the video to better understand what is really being communicated. So much is conveyed beyond words on paper. Human communication is so much more nuanced. Facial expressions, posture, and other non-verbal cues can dramatically alter what is really being conveyed. 

I expect that is even more the case in this context – two leaders from very different cultures, politics, and languages - - each with an entourage of advisors influencing what is said, interpreted, and parsed. 

Real conversations repeat themselves. Negotiations wander. People revisit the same point using slightly different language. Historical participants already understand information that must somehow be explained to the audience.

The filmmaker still must find the story inside the record.

• What does Reagan want in this particular scene?
• What does Gorbachev need?
• What is Shultz afraid the president may give away?
• What does each side believe will happen if the talks fail?
• Where does the balance of power shift?
• What is the decision that carries us into the next scene?

The existence of a transcript may narrow the range of responsible invention, but it does not remove the need for structure or storyteller interpretation. I’m really looking forward to seeing how Gunn dealt with all of this. 

History can give a writer the words. The writer must still understand the meaning. It is an awesome and daunting responsibility for any filmmaker trying to tell a true story. 

Record. Witness. Place.

The making of The Brink of War appears to have benefited from three distinct layers of historical research. The first is the record.

The filmmakers could examine transcripts, government documents and other archival materials to understand what happened and what was said.

The second is the witness.

Gunn’s interview with Shultz offered access to something official documents cannot fully preserve. I’m talking about atmosphere, behavior, relationships and memory. Just to name a few. 

A witness may remember who appeared confident. Who was frustrated. Who used humor. Who controlled the room.

Who hesitated before answering. Who understood the stakes before everyone else did. Or at least how they perceived it. 

Memory is not infallible, of course. It must be considered alongside the record. But firsthand testimony can help a storyteller understand the human experience contained within the official history. And I expect it must be filtered through a recognition of that person’s point of view and  implicit bias we all have. 

The third layer is place.

The production filmed in Iceland, including at Höfði House, where the summit actually occurred.

That matters.

A room can shape a scene. Its size affects the physical relationship between characters. Entrances, windows, furniture, sightlines and distance all influence how people move and interact.

When filmmakers work in the actual place where history occurred, the location becomes more than a backdrop. It becomes another piece of evidence.

Record. Witness. Place. Together, those three forms of research answer three different questions.

• What happened?
• What did it feel like?
• How did the physical environment shape the moment?
• 
  

That is a useful framework for any storyteller working with history.

Photographing history twice

One of the most fascinating details about the production is the involvement of Pete Souza.

Souza served as an official White House photographer during the Reagan administration. He later became the chief official White House photographer for President Barack Obama.

He photographed the Reykjavík Summit in 1986.

Nearly four decades later, he returned to photograph the making of a film about that summit.

Most productions hire someone to document the recreation of history. This production hired someone who had documented the history itself.

I have not found a public account establishing whether Souza formally advised Gunn on blocking, production design or other historical details. It would be wrong to assume that he did simply because he was present. But his involvement raises intriguing questions.

• Did he remember how Reagan entered the room?
• Did he recall where advisers stood between sessions?
• Could he identify details that were never written down?
• Did his photographs help the actors or filmmakers understand the physical behavior of the people they were portraying?

Even if Souza’s official assignment was limited to photography, his presence created a rare connection between the historical event and its dramatic reconstruction. It is also a reminder that archives are not limited to documents.

The people who made the photographs, recorded the sound, scheduled the meetings, prepared the rooms and watched from the edges may hold pieces of the story that no transcript can capture. I’m curious to know if the filmmaker had access to the images taken by the Soviet photographer too. 

Accuracy is not the same as drama

There is sometimes a mistaken belief that extensive research makes the creative choices easier.

It may make them harder. The more material a filmmaker discovers, the more decisions must be made about what to leave out.

A historical drama must compress time. It must select a point of view. It may combine actions that occurred across multiple meetings. It must decide how much policy detail an audience can absorb without losing the emotional thread.

The filmmaker must also interpret behavior.

A transcript might record a statement, but it cannot conclusively tell us whether the speaker was angry, strategic, frightened, amused or exhausted. That is where performance, direction and context enter the process.

Research does not eliminate interpretation. It makes the storyteller more accountable for it.

The goal is not merely to reproduce facts. The goal is to use those facts responsibly in service of a coherent human experience.

Accuracy and drama should not be treated as enemies. The research establishes the boundaries. Storytelling helps the audience cross them.

Finding the human decision

The Reykjavík Summit is filled with policy, military terminology and geopolitical strategy. But policy alone is not a story. As I’ve said repeatedly, a topic is not a story. Topics are broad. Stories are specific.   A compelling story requires someone who wants something, faces resistance and must make a consequential choice.

The dramatic power of Reykjavík does not come only from the number of missiles being discussed. It comes from two people trying to decide whether they can trust each other enough to change the future.

Both men carried political pressures. Both had advisers. Both represented systems much larger than themselves. Both understood that any concession could be interpreted as weakness. Yet they kept talking. That is the human decision inside the historical event.

The best historical films do not reduce complicated events into simple lessons. They make the complexity understandable by showing us the people forced to act within it.

When global history reaches ordinary lives

A few years after Reykjavík, I was elected president of the student government at Lindenwood College. I spent that summer trying to determine how our school might establish a relationship with a college in the Soviet Union.