It seems extremely unlikely that Malick would have lent himself to so bizarre an exercise as this one. But regardless of who wrote the statement, it reflects the sentiments of the people around Malick. Says Medavoy, “The [producers] were really resourceful in getting to Terry and putting the impetus into it, but I don’t think they convinced him to make the movie, maybe Ecky did. I don’t know. But one thing’s for sure: he came to it himself, and it wasn’t about money, it was about passion.”

Says Clayton Townsend, Oliver Stone’s producer, who worked on pre-production, “Geisler and Roberdeau are two guys who live in their own world. They’re very pretentious fellows and take great pride in their paper presentations. They just had a knack for putting on a lot of people along the way. I tried to stay clear of them.”

Adds one source, “There are a lot of people Geisler and Roberdeau owed money to. The fact is, they might have had the police after them if this picture hadn’t been set up. They are the great spenders of the Western world. They didn’t have enough money to pay for the office help, but you ask them to go out and get you a list of actors and they Federal Express you a book full of pictures in a $200 binder. The two guys are trying to get their careers started on Terry. They wore out their welcome.”

Adds another source, “It wasn’t that they were banned from the set. They hadn’t been involved for a year prior to the shooting, except in their own minds. They’re people Terry got involved with and wishes he hadn’t. Terry said that not only did they not bring him back, their being around was discouraging him from coming back.”

The source adds that Geisler and Roberdeau were working at cross-purposes with Phoenix. For example, he claims that the production was waiting for the delivery of uniforms, which never came. When the supplier was called, he said he had been fired by Roberdeau. (Geisler denies this.) Another source says that Geisler and Roberdeau were asked to give Adrien Brody, an actor they had recommended, a tape of Il Posto, a film that Malick wanted him to see. Instead they arranged a screening and dinner at the Royalton Hotel in New York for a dozen people. Malick was reportedly furious that they had “improved” on his instruction.

Adrien Brody plays Fife, a major character in the novel—Jones modeled him after himself. Now his scenes have been reduced, and the film, not unlike Oliver Stone’s 1986 Platoon, turns on the conflict between idealism and cynicism as embodied in the clash between two characters—Welsh, who is played by Sean Penn, and Witt, who is played by Jim Caviezel. (Caviezel and Elias Koteas, who plays Staros, are the two actors whose performances are generating advance praise.)

Although people around Malick now say that it was, among other things, Geisler and Roberdeau’s problems with creditors that estranged the director, their phone logs reveal that he was calling them frequently, often two or three times a day, as much as a year after The New York Observer went public with their financial woes, right up to the start of production.

The producers think Malick got rid of them because of their close relationship with Michèle. Says Geisler, “We and Michèle got divorced around the same time. We got the call and Michèle got the call. A chapter was closed and a chapter was opened.” Geisler and Roberdeau are contractually allowed to thank four people in the credits. Michèle Malick was one of the people they selected. According to Geisler, when Terry heard about all of this, he threatened to take his name off the picture.