More to the point, Carville left an indelible mark on the language of modern politics with cracker-barrel catchphrases like “It’s the economy, stupid.” Above and beyond their admittedly continued relevance, these terse populist apothegms presage the domination of sound bite-friendly, round-the-clock spin cycles currently washing over the American electorate. Larry Flynt, and Stephanopoulos got a gig hosting Good Morning, America. Carville would have something resembling an acting career, popping up in various self-deprecating cameos, as well as attempting honest-to-goodness dramatic roles in films like The People vs. The buddy-film dynamic between braniac lead strategist James Carville and telegenic communications director George Stephanopoulos provides The War Room with a compelling through line and emotional cornerstone, while the film’s popular and critical success reciprocally catapulted both men to celebrity status. Moreover, the election-night finale almost didn’t come about at all the footage of Bill and Hillary in front of the Governor’s mansion was only obtained because cameraman Nick Doob snuck past security and wormed his way to the front of the crowd. The filmmakers seamlessly stitch together various pieces of archival news footage that fill in the early crises and scandals faced by the Clinton campaign, footage the filmmakers shot of the DNC in New York, and a single foray on the campaign trail, leaving viewers with the understandable yet erroneous impression that they had somehow glommed onto all-access passes, when in reality they were largely confined to the eponymous “nerve center” itself. (Given the film’s frenetic pacing, it’s often easy to forget.) The more you know about the circumstances behind The War Room, in fact, the more you’re conscious of what a crazy-quilt patchwork it really is. For a moment, Clinton and the camera lock gazes, a look that breaks the tacit agreement between observer and observed, and forces the viewer to recognize the fact that they’re watching a construct. Such overt recognition isn’t absent from the earlier film, cropping up in The War Room at unexpected moments.Įarly on, for example, we’re given a brief glimpse of candidate Bill Clinton backstage, on the phone with an unnamed aide. Tellingly, the filmmakers’ 2008 follow-up, Return of the War Room, is structured along more conventional talking-head lines, one of the most touched-on talking points being precisely the impact of the Internet and cellphones on modern politics, acknowledging the self-aware, self-cannibalizing nature of the modern mediasphere. Yet it also signals a sea change in the filmmakers’ involvement with behind-the-scenes politics, capturing the process just as quantum leaps in communication technology forever altered the ways campaigning gets done. Pennebaker’s The War Room captures all the voyeuristic you-are-there immediacy of its Direct Cinema forebears, stretching as far back as 1960’s Primary, on which Pennebaker served as editor.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |