He Learned the Ropes

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter’s eyes were riveted on Denzel Washington. The onetime prizefighter known for fixing his intense glare on opponents in the ring was staring hard at the actor as the two sat down to lunch, trying to figure out what was different about Washington’s movement, smile, laugh, mannerisms.

It’s not that he was star-struck. Far from it. The pair had been meeting off and on for nearly a decade with hopes of one day making a movie about Carter’s remarkable life story.

But Carter, who spent nearly half his life in prison after being wrongly accused of a triple homicide, noticed something peculiar about Washington that afternoon in the spring of 1999. Washington had been inspecting himself in the hallway mirror, and when he returned to the table, something in his demeanor had changed.

Suddenly it occurred to Carter that he was witnessing a transformation, as if a spirit had passed through Washington.

“I felt this real emotional surge. I liked the way he moved, his vocabulary, his intensity, his laugh. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks,” recalled Carter, whose nickname was derived from his quick punches and forceful movement.

“He had been standing in the mirror clearing his canvas, as if to take on the portrayal of me. The difference I had noticed was that the Denzel characteristics were gone,” Carter said. “I was looking at him and I was seeing me! And I loved me! It was at that point that I said, ‘OK, my brother, I trust you to take care of me as I would take care of myself.’ ”

Now Washington’s transformation can be seen on the screen; the film about Carter’s life, “The Hurricane,” opened in December in selected cities and goes into national release this month. Directed by Norman Jewison, the film and, in particular, Washington’s performance have generated rave reviews. Washington, who received a Golden Globe nomination for best dramatic actor, is now considered one of the leading contenders for a best actor Oscar.

“This is the last great performance of 1999, and arguably the best of the lot as well,” The Times’ Kenneth Turan wrote in his review. “With power, intensity, remarkable range and an ability to disturb that is both unnerving and electric, it is more than Washington’s most impressive part, it sums up his career as well, encapsulating the reasons why he’s one of the very best actors working in film today.”

Noted Jewison by phone from his family’s holiday retreat in Switzerland: “Denzel demonstrates that he is at the peak of his talent. He became Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter. By the end of the film I didn’t know who I was talking to.”

As an actor, Washington is known for his intensity, professionalism and painstaking preparation, all of which came to bear in his startling portrait of Carter. Still, the 45-year-old star keeps his acting cards close to the vest--he’s not the type to engage in deep conversations about his method.

“It wasn’t that difficult really. It was a lot of fun,” he said, digging into a cheeseburger and potato chips at a Beverly Hills hotel during a recent interview. “I liked what I was doing, and when I like what I’m doing, there is nothing I won’t do to find out and to learn. It’s always just a search.”

The anger and angst so ingrained in Carter from years of police harassment and incarceration had to permeate Washington, a man whose brushes with the law have been limited to officers seeking his autograph. At the same time, Washington had to reach a point of grace--a place that Carter found later, almost miraculously.

“In my life, I have been hateful, hedonistic, bitter, spiteful and arrogant,” said Carter, 67, in a telephone interview from Toronto. “But my greatest joy is having been locked away literally underground and condemned by history as a racist triple murderer, and yet I was able to resist the violence, the hatred and the anger until that resistance became second nature.”

It is perhaps ironic that Washington has made a name for himself portraying the likes of Steve Biko, Malcolm X and now Carter--all men who have suffered gravely for their outspokenness and the color of their skin. He received a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for portraying Biko in the 1987 film “Cry Freedom”--one of his three Oscar nominations--and won the Academy Award in that category two years later for his performance as a strong-willed Civil War soldier in “Glory.”

Washington is not an angry black man. The son of a preacher father and a beautician mother, Washington grew up in Mount Vernon, N.Y., with a positive view of the world. Not that he is naive or blind to the injustices surrounding him, but he has not personally felt the stinging rebuke of institutional racism.

“My generation was kind of protected,” Washington said. “You think, ‘OK, the sky’s the limit,’ but then you come to the realization that not everything is going to happen in my generation and you realize that it is an ongoing struggle. You’ve got to continue to fight the fight where you can fight it.”

Ultimately what attracted Washington to the story was Carter’s path to redemption.

“I told [Carter], ‘I’m not trying to imitate you,’ ” said Washington as he recalled his meetings with the former boxer. “Frankly, I think this story is bigger than both of us. I think it’s about a spiritual transformation and what happens when people reach out to each other.

“That is the message I’m sending. It’s not about the evil [white] people and racism. There is nothing new about that. There is an inspirational side to this film that I was as interested in as anything.”

*

The trials and tribulations of Carter’s life were ripe for a movie. It was a film Washington longed to do--even though he had never heard of Hurricane Carter’s plight growing up.

Originally, David Picker, former head of United Artists, had purchased the rights to the story. But he dropped the project, and Canadian producer John Ketcham picked it up. Ketcham approached Washington eight years ago with a script and he agreed to play the part. But Ketcham was unable to secure financing.

Finally, five years ago, Ketcham partnered with Beacon Entertainment, which has a production deal at Universal Pictures; Jewison signed on to direct, and the project took off. Washington and Jewison were the first choice for Carter, Ketcham and his producing partner Armyan Bernstein.

“Denzel is a terrific actor, and he responded to the material immediately,” Ketcham said. “And Norman has had a history of doing racially themed movies, and since he is Canadian he has an outsider’s perspective.”

Jewison vividly recalls the racial turmoil of the late ‘60s and Carter’s plight. In fact, he was filming his 1967 Oscar-winning film “In the Heat of the Night” with Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger when Carter was sent to prison. It was a time when J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI routinely spied on and harassed black activists, said Jewison.

“I always believed they had been framed,” Jewison said. “It was very common in [the 1960s]. It was the middle of the civil rights revolution in the country, so there were all kinds of problems for African Americans who were speaking out.”

Carter’s story was one Jewison always envisioned for Washington. The pair had worked together in the 1984 film “A Soldier’s Story” and hoped to team up again.

After portraying a paraplegic police inspector in his most recent film, “The Bone Collector,” it was a welcome change for Washington to play a character like Carter, whose physicality was so much a part of his persona. For a little more than a year before filming the $40-million movie, Washington boxed at the Hollywood Gym on Sunset Boulevard, getting pummeled--and once in a while throwing some good punches--on a daily basis.

Washington spent hundreds of hours talking to Carter, retrieving information, watching the Hurricane, absorbing his being.

Carter recalls telling Washington last year that if “anything negative or scandalous or disrespectful comes out of this film, you are going to be the first person I step to,” but then added a deep, bellowing laugh. “We’ve seen it twice and I haven’t stepped to Denzel yet, so I guess he’s done a pretty good job.”

Depending on the scene, Washington would arrive on the set ready to pummel someone or in a deeply meditative state. For some particularly intense scenes, Washington would pump himself up to the music of DMX, a rapper who barks and growls street-conscious lyrics about police brutality, God and the devil.

On those days, Washington would arrive on the set barking out orders, yelling, acting roughshod. The crew would be shocked and confused. But Jewison knew exactly what to do. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” he would say, and the cameras would start to roll.

Perhaps the biggest challenge was condensing the story to a workable length. Originally, Carter had written a 268-page screenplay--the equivalent of more than a seven-hour film. But the final draft of the screenplay, written by producer Bernstein and Dan Gordon, was brought down to two hours, 26 minutes.

With so many themes underlying Carter’s story, Jewison initially struggled to control the length and focus of the film. Rather than making it mainly a story about racism and a crooked judicial system, Jewison focused instead on how a teenage boy and a group of Canadians successfully battled to win Carter’s freedom.

“There were all kinds of feelings that fate was in control here,” Jewison said. “The more I talked to [Carter and the Canadians], the more I became convinced that this really was a story about commitment and about belief. When you believe and when you have faith in people, I think it’s the most sincere form of respect and love.”

*

It took a long time for Carter to find that kind of faith. For more than two decades Carter waged a war with himself and the New Jersey criminal justice system.

Accused of shooting three white patrons at a bar in Patterson, N.J., Carter and a friend named John Artis were sentenced to life in prison in 1966. Both maintained their innocence.

Nearly 10 years after the first trial, a New York Times article quoted the prosecution’s two main witnesses as saying that Artis and Carter had been framed--something Carter and Artis always maintained. The story catapulted the pair’s struggle to a cause celebre. Bob Dylan immortalized their plight in his 1975 hit “Hurricane.”

Celebrities picketed, benefit concerts were held, stories were written proclaiming his innocence. But when the case was heard again, the appeal was denied.

Largely left out of the media frenzy was the serendipitous relationship between Lazarus Martin and the Hurricane. In the late 1970s, 15-year-old Martin, a youngster from the rough neighborhood of Bushwick, N.Y., was living with a group of Canadians who had adopted him.

Shopping for books one day, Martin noticed Carter’s 1974 autobiography “The 16th Round” at the top of a pile. He became immersed in the book and found it was almost as if Carter were talking to him:

“I come to you in the only manner left open to me,” read “The 16th Round’s” final paragraph. “I’ve tried the courts, exhausted my life’s earnings, and tortured my two loved ones with little grains and tidbits of hope that may never materialize. . . . For the first time in my entire existence I’m saying that I need some help. Otherwise, there will be no more tomorrow for me. No more freedom, no more injustice, no more State Prison . . . no more Carter. Only the Hurricane. And after him, there is no more.”

Inspired, Martin decided to write a letter to Carter in prison.

Having failed on his second appeal and with the light of publicity diminishing, Carter was slipping away. He turned against the world. Never a model prisoner, Carter became more of a recluse, delving deep into himself. And then came this letter of hope and wonder from this innocent boy in Canada.

“I had turned the prison into an unnatural laboratory for the human spirit,” said Carter, in a deep, rich voice. “When I received the letter I was open enough to hear it, to open my heart to that last little thread of opportunity. I had written that book like a message in a bottle that I had thrown out over the walls of prison into the ocean of life. I was hoping against hope that someone would come and help me, and that is exactly what happened. It was miraculous.”

Finally, in 1985, with the help of the Canadians (three in the film, but eight in real life) who moved to New Jersey to uncover discrepancies in the prosecution’s case, a federal judge dismissed all charges against the pair, saying that the New Jersey judicial system had “appealed to racism, rather than reason.”

Carter moved to Canada soon after his release, married one of the Canadian activists, Lisa Peters, and founded the nonprofit Assn. in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted.

Carter is, in Washington’s words, a spiritual man. At their first meeting almost 10 years ago, Carter was emaciated, recovering from a bout with tuberculosis. But within a few years, he had fully recovered not only his health, but also his spirit, said Washington.

“When I first met him he was very weak, wearing a housecoat and slippers. In fact, he looked like what I thought he might look like after everything he had gone through,” Washington recalled. “When I saw him again 2 1/2 years ago, he was this vibrant, youthful person.”

After so many years of pain and destruction, Carter found peace with himself and the world around him.

“All that has happened to me in my life was necessary for me to be where I am right now,” Carter said. “I had to go as low as I could go--which was low. But what is relevant is that one can come back and not be numbed out and whipped out. That all those 20-some years in prison will not stop me from doing whatever I can to help other people live in dignity.

“This whole story, the movie, all of it, shows that that which unites us is far more powerful than that which divides.”