Cinema Politico: hot politics, cool movies

Before Bush left office, Oliver Stone’s W premiered, films like Rendition and Stop-Loss maligned his policies, and a British filmmaker released a mock documentary about an imagined assassination of poor George.

The response time for political filmmaking has hit a manic pace. The goal of these hyper-quick artistic responses to current events is to garner relevance. Releasing a film as soon as possible after the events it details, as the logic suggests, will give its critical perspective more credibility. Perhaps this rapidity is a response to the extreme media saturation of political scandals, such as the dispute involving former Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich, who managed to mar the validity of his own impeachment proceedings with a TV appearance blitz. As politicians have sharpened their ability to manipulate popular culture to their own ends, filmmakers want to keep up. This mindset is unfortunate, as the core narratives of political life should transcend the historical moment. Crafting a successful political film has nothing to do with speed.

Perhaps the most classic political storyline is that of the naive and idealistic newcomer who succumbs to the corrupt system, which is best observed in All the King’s Men, the 1949 Oscar winner based on Robert Penn Warren’s novel. The film follows Willie Stark, a country lawyer dead-set on overthrowing the political machine that runs his state. In his climb to the top, Stark evolves into a ruthless politico. The film is overwrought at points, and the Joanne Dru, the female lead who seems to think the only way she can convey negative emotion is to close her eyes and tilt back her shaking head, does not help on that front. But the film perfectly blends Stark’s familial and political lives and resists the mainstream urge to maintain one character as a moral protagonist.

A more recent rendering of the same story is The Candidate from 1972 starring Robert Redford. Although tracking the same character archetype as King’s Men, Redford’s film is worth watching because it forgoes a heavy-handed or painful personal transformation like Stark’s. Bill McKay, Redford’s character, begins as a natty lawyer who dedicates his time to low-paying civil and environmental advocacy. But he subtly slides from honest activist to consummate faux-reformer politician. It’s nearly impossible to hate McKay for his unctuousness because he is always conscious of it. After a flood of canned political speeches disavowing politicians who play black off white and rich off poor, he starts babbling to himself.

We “can’t any longer play off black against old, young against poor,” he blathered. “So vote once, vote tuh-wice, for Bill McKay, you middle-class honkies.” Redford’s character knows his campaign is bullshit, but does that make him better than Stark?

On the other end of the narrative spectrum is the archetypal character that withstands political temptation to the point of martyrdom. The apotheosis of this tale, ingrained in America’s cinematic consciousness, is Mr. Smith Goes to Washington starring James Stewart. Smith may be a bit beleaguered by the mawkish melodrama of its cinematic age, but, much like Stewart’s other exalted Frank Capra vehicle It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith is a darker, deeper film than we choose to remember. Upon its release in 1939, U.S. senators allegedly yelled at the screen during a D.C. preview, blasting the film as anti-American.

The list of worthwhile political films is endless: All the President’s Men, Primary Colors, and the original Manchurian Candidate are a few that one can’t fail to mention. Aside from the same core narratives, the thing that all these films have in common is that they are upwards of a decade old. Great political films are the antithesis of politicians like Willie Stark—the longer they are around, the better they get.

David Berke is a Columbia College first-year. Cinema Politico runs alternate Tuesdays.