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At center, the movie is a love story about happy opposites Fielding Pierce (Billy Crudup) and Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly). When they meet in 1972, Fielding is a Harvard grad doing a stint with the Coast Guard. Sarah works for a groovy, socially conscious book publisher who happens to be Fielding's hang-loose brother (Paul Hipp). Immediately, she's worried that Fielding may be drafted for Vietnam. He tells her, seriously, that he wants to be president of the United States, and that he needs to wear a uniform. She tells him that she wants "a life that makes sense."

The two move to Chicago. He studies law. She works at a Catholic charity. Their conflict is simple. They both want to do good in the world, but she believes that a corrupt system corrupts absolutely. He believes that it's impossible to be effective outside the system. They're clearly in love. The on-screen chemistry between Crudup and Connelly is sparkly without a phony glitter, and Gordon has a tasteful way of shooting the love scenes that makes the two seem sexy and passionate without groping like drunken teenagers or romance novel parodies. After finishing law school, Fielding falls in with a political king maker (Hal Holbrook) and the district attorney's office. Meanwhile, Sarah gets caught up with activists working with Chilean refugees.

The film, based on Scott Spencer's 1986 novel of the same name, cuts back and forth between the early 1970s and the early 1980s. At the start, Fielding learns from a television newscast that Sarah has died in a car bombing with the Chilean activists. The film then flashes back to when they first met, developing the love story, and then forward to the cold, sterile '80s, centering on Fielding and his first major political race.

While campaigning for a seat in the House of Representatives, Fielding has a crisis of conscience and begins to see visions of Sarah. As the stress of the campaign mounts, and as he navigates some potentially ruthless political sharks, Fielding becomes consumed by his memories of Sarah. The film plays with a magic realism that makes her as alive as Fielding thinks she is, while never fully committing to his state of dementia.

When "Waking the Dead" is at its best, it tells a very honest love story and asks moral questions that don't seem extremely popular. (One of its messages seems to be that there actually was a time in recent American history when unchecked capitalism wasn't a universal morality.) When the movie slips, it shorthands some dramatic action and relies on rote images to signify simple meanings. (A scene with an impatient governor gulping scotch and waiting for Fielding to make a major career decision feels forced and portentously obvious.) And, at least once, near the ending, the film spells out what the book's author trusts the reader will figure out on his own.

Director Keith Gordon, who made the excellent war film "A Midnight Clear" (1992) and "Mother Night" (1996), fell in love with the book at the same time he was falling in love in real life. He also adapted the screenplay, even though another writer appears in the credits. (Although Gordon never saw the other writer's screenplay, Writers Guild bylaws demand in certain cases that the first writer always retain credit.) When Gordon talks about the film, he, well, rambles a bit. When I spoke with him recently, he talked rapidly, in long, erratic sentences, as if his language couldn't keep up with the ideas running through his head.

It was a press day event in an Upper East Side New York hotel room. Gordon sat at a large, round table crowded with wires, microphones and a half-dozen radio reporters. (Oddly enough, Salon was included in this group.) Gordon was accommodating and articulate. Even though Salon is responsible for only a few of the questions below, we nevertheless thought the interview was worth running in full, rather than stripping for a few choice quotes.

You've pointed out that there are different ways of looking at this story. What is the story you tried to tell?

There were two things simultaneously. First was the idea of loss, and really dealing with loss in a story. [When I read the book] I was in the midst of falling in love with a woman who is now my wife, imagining what would happen if I ever lost her, and how devastated I would be, and whether I could go on, and whether what I had gotten with her would be enough to go on or whether there would be no point. And having those questions come up really got to me.

And I also liked the idea that the book kind of dealt with the complexities of love and how hard it is, and how infuriating it can be, to be in love with someone, and that the very things that you fall in love with about someone are the very things that can push you away from them: What attracts you to someone often makes you want to kill them. And at least those two experiences really spoke to my relationships and hadn't been done a lot in films.

Next page | "The chemistry between Billy and Jennifer was there immediately"