Scott Green / Bleecker Street
Thomasin McKenzie and Ben Foster in “Leave No Trace,” a Bleecker Street release.
In the new award-winning film, Leave No Trace, Ben Foster depicts Will, a veteran so traumatized by combat he seeks to escape civilization and its discontents by living in the wilderness. But Will’s attempt to become a 21st century Rousseau-ian “noble savage” is complicated by his bringing thirteen-year-old daughter “Tom” (Thomasin McKenzie) with him into the backwoods of Oregon and Washington. Although he’s a loving father, Tom is conflicted over the off-the-grid existence he imposes on her.
Trace is Debra Granik’s first feature since 2010’s Winter’s Bone, which launched Jennifer Lawrence’s stardom and earned four Oscar nominations, including for Lawrence as best actress and the best picture and best adapted screenplay categories.
In 2014 Granik directed Stray Dog, a documentary about a Vietnam vet. In the 109-minute Trace, Granik deploys sparse cinematic techniques to dramatize the consequences of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The thirty-seven-year-old Iowa-raised Foster often plays outsiders and marginalized characters, from the mutant Angel in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, to disenfranchised bank robber Tanner Howard in 2016’s Hell or High Water, or the veteran Will suffering from PTSD in Leave No Trace. During a recent phone interview, Foster, who was in New York, spoke about the roles that he’s played and reflected on the long-term impacts of trauma.
Q: Since 2009 you’ve portrayed members of the U.S. armed forces during the Afghanistan and Iraq War period in The Messenger, in Lone Survivor and now again in Leave No Trace. Why? Were you or relatives in the military?
Ben Foster: Not relatives, but it is our generation’s war. I’ve had the good fortune of meeting men and women who served, and to make friends with those who have returned and who experience the trials of reentry.
Q: How common is a character like Will in Leave No Trace? Is he based on actual veterans who seek to return to nature and leave civilization behind?
Foster: There are communities of those that have survived trauma—not just from war—who have decided that living in a more simple way is the best thing for their own mental wellbeing. There are some wonderful documentaries online about Vietnam vets who have chosen a small community of soldiers who lived out in the forests of America. Debra [Granik] and I shared those videos with each other. Then we spent some time at the VA and through our relationships we started unpacking that this is not a new idea.
Q: What can you tell us about your character in Leave No Trace? What is Will’s back story?
Foster: Well, I’d like to answer that by saying we cut it out on purpose. Debra and I decided Will didn’t need to share much of his back story. And it’s much more important what we could transmit by not saying things. We actually redlined the script of most exposition. In fact, anything that didn’t need to be said wasn’t said. So we cut out about 40 percent of the dialogue.
The suggested backstory is that Will served in the military, he’s going to the VA, and selling his own prescription drugs to support himself and his daughter living in a national park. There was a wife at one point—at least a partner; she’s no longer in the picture.
The beauty of this film is that Debra was keen to limit whatever back story there was and trust that the audience could pick up some of the signals we’d embedded within.
Q: Will sometimes wears a sort of Palestinian scarf, which suggests he’d been in the Middle East.
Foster: Yeah, and a baseball cap, an operator’s cap … and dry desert boots. There are signs throughout that we’ve suggested his operating and training experience. We didn’t want to talk about it so much—we wanted to give the audience more of a sensual experience of who these people are, rather than a thesis paper.
Q: Will struggles to adapt to civilian life, even though unlike many veterans he has access to social services and assistance.
Foster: He wants to raise his daughter well, educate her—she’s actually doing better than most students her age. Somebody who has experienced trauma will look to self medicate in whatever ways they feel works best. For Will, he doesn’t want to mask his experiences with drugs or technology or society. He’s looking for a pure life.
The film revolves around them doing pretty well out in the wilderness. This is taken away from him and his daughter and they’re put into the rules and regulations of normal society. He’s a fish out of water.
Q: Your character's relationship with his daughter Thomasin is very close, but they still clash. What would you say to a parent contending that Will is a child abuser—cutting her off from modern medical care and so on?
Foster: I could say: Look at the food you’re feeding your children. Look at the chemicals in them and how cancer has skyrocketed. Look at the phone you’re not regulating. That technology has already proven to elevate anxiety and depression. How are you letting your child’s spiritually wither in today’s toxic society, saying you’re too busy providing for them? I don’t know the answer. But I dare say somewhere in the middle is probably a good handshake.
Q: Your character in Trace shares some DNA with your role as Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery in The Messenger, who has to deliver the bad news about fallen soldiers to families back home. What has changed for veterans since that film came out in 2009?
Foster: It hasn’t stopped. Boys and girls are still out there and they’re coming home and some people fall through the cracks. How we take care of those that have served demands a lot more attention, time and care.
Q: You've often played subversives, iconoclasts or other outcasts. Is there a recurring theme you’re trying to express through your screen roles?
Foster: [Laughs.] I hadn’t thought about it. You know when you’re listening to the radio and you hear a song and it moves you in a particular way? It could be any kind of song… I don’t know how to intellectualize it… I’m afraid if I ask those kinds of questions I’ll just become too self conscious about what I do and how I do it.
Q: Of course, not putting them into harm’s way in unnecessary wars would be one way to make sure they don’t become damaged human beings.
Foster: [Laughs.]
Q: Leave No Trace is very timely because it deals with, among other things, parents and children being separated through government intervention. What do you think about the recent situation of parent/child separations at the borders?
Foster: I’m a new parent and I’ve been a stay-at-home dad the last year. I look in my daughter’s eyes every day.
It’s inconceivable to me what’s going on. When I hear statements like “tender age shelters” and “2,300 unaccounted for” and “the 20,000-plus beds that are being readied for family reunions” and “potential private prisons run by our government”—these things are upsetting, to say the least. It is marking the fabric of this country in ways that I don’t think we’ll ever recover.
It curdles my blood to think we are treating children this way. Beyond the fact that irreparable damage is being done to their development, separating them from their parents will cause lasting traumas. Unfortunately, historically, in our country, it’s not the first time we’ve done this. We have to do better. We have to do better.
Q: You were also in the 2017 Western Hostiles. What do you say about the history of what happened to the indigenous people in North America?
Foster: [Laughs.] How many years do you have to talk about that? Bringing disease, addiction, alcohol, the rape of a people, systematic annihilation, cut off from their supplies. Here’s what I’ll say … What I like about Leave No Trace is it reminds us there are good people, even in scary times. There are people willing to lend a hand, on both sides of the fence. That’s what we need to remind ourselves.
Q: What’s next for you?
Foster: Another film called Galveston, with Elle Fanning, directed by Melanie Laurent. It’s another independent, out [in August]. It’s noir-ish, noir-y. [Laughs.]
Q: Anything you want to add?
Foster: Yeah, something a little sappy: Hold the ones you love. That’s what I want people to take away from the film. This is an excruciatingly bleak time, the way families are being treated. The best thing you can do rather than just sit in a corner and grieve is love the people next to you.
Leave No Trace opens in limited release on June 29 and goes wider in July.
The third edition of The Hawaii Movie and Television Book co-authored by L.A.-based film historian / reviewer Ed Rampell is now available at: https://mutualpublishing.com/product/the-hawaii-movie-and-television-book/ .
The official trailer for Leave No Trace, showing in select theaters June 29.