George Clooney on Monday presented
his new series for Sky, Catch-22, based on the cult 1961 Joseph
Heller satirical novel on the surreal and self-defeating attempt
of a self-declared 'madman' to escape US WWII air patrols, who
is paradoxically judged sane because he wants to save his life.
"There's the absurdity of war and the awareness that you can
fight the system but it's hard to beat it," said Clooney, who
has part financed the project, has directed two of its six
episodes, and is among the stars who also include Hugh Laurie.
"It's a story that can be current at any moment in history".
Clooney said the series, to be broadcast on Sky Atlantic from
May 21, shows how "TV lets you really tell the characters'
stories, before brutally killing some of them."
Also present at the Rome press conference were Christopher
Abbott, who plays lead character bomber captain John Yossarian;
Kyle Chandler, who plays Yassarian's bugbear Colonel Cathcart;
love interest Tessa Ferrer; co-directors Grant Heslov and Ellen
Kuras; screenwriter Luke Davies; and Giancarlo Giannini, the
only Italian in the cast.
Catch-22 has passed into the English language as a term
describing a paradoxical situation from which an individual
cannot escape because of contradictory rules or limitations, for
example "How am I supposed to gain experience to find a good job
if I'm constantly not hired because I don't have experience?".
The term is introduced by the character Doc Daneeka, an army
psychiatrist who invokes "Catch-22" to explain why any pilot
requesting mental evaluation for insanity - hoping to be found
not sane enough to fly and thereby escape dangerous missions -
demonstrates his own sanity in creating the request and thus
cannot be declared insane.
Catch-22 has already appeared on the big screen.
It was adapted into a feature film of the same name in 1970,
directed by Mike Nichols.
But many fans of the novel found the adaptation
disappointing.
Oscar winner Clooney, who plays the prickly Lieutenant
Scheisskopf in the new version, said he had read the novel 40
years ago and said: "Catch-22 in America is considered a
milestone in literature and a full-fledged cult novel for entire
generations, so we really wanted to make it with Grant (Heslov),
there's so much material.
"It's not just a story about the absurdity of war, but also
one about the difficulties of fighting the system."
On playing the iconic Yossarian, Abbott said "he's a rebel
anti-hero, who tries to maintain his mental equilibrium,
fighting the military system. An existential journey of a person
that wants to be declared mad to leave the war and in the end
has an authentic and dramatic existential crisis".
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