Anti-Bush Sentiment Busts Out All Over

And it’s not just the usual suspects taking shots.
The fire is coming from feature film, theatre and TV

NEW YORK — It was an unusual occasion for a political
statement. On Wednesday morning, the day after George W. Bush
hosted a prime-time news conference to defend the fuzzy state
of affairs in Iraq, architect James Polshek took the podium
at a Brooklyn Museum preview to speak of the challenges in
completing a multimillion dollar glass-and-steel renovation
to the museum entrance.

"Building is a little like war. Once you get in it, you have
to go all the way," he said. "But in this case, we did so
successfully." Polshek paused, and a tiny smile crept across
his face while the assembled media and museum supporters
offered chuckles and light applause. "I don’t want to get
into that."

So much for architecture being a non-partisan discipline.
Anti-administration politics are busting out of their usual
homes in music, books, fine art and standup comedy, and
crossing easily over into feature films, theatre, and even
mainstream television shows in the run-up to this November’s
U.S. presidential election. At the same time, many of the
flag-waving, administration-friendly movies that Hollywood
rushed to produce in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, either
foundered in development or are bombing at the box office,
including the current The Alamo.

Writers and others say the sniping now directed at the White
House is at least partly a response to the self-censorship
they endured for more than a year after the terrorist attacks
for fear of being seen as disloyal, and the disenchantment
many have over the perception that George W. Bush
intentionally misled the nation into war.

The year began sharply when the Sundance Film Festival in
January gave an enthusiastic reception to The Hunting of the
President, a documentary version of the bestselling book by
journalists Joe Conason and Gene Lyons that exposed the well-
funded right-wing machinations - from the Paula Jones lawsuit
to the Whitewater investigation - that kept Bill Clinton on
the defensive and occasionally distracted from affairs of
state throughout his presidency. The film was made by the
television producer Harry Thomason, one of Clinton’s friends.
It will be theatrically released June 11.

"What I think is important for people to see is the
triviality of the obsessions of the right wing in those
years, when you set that in a situation that we find
ourselves in now," Conason said this week. "It does not
reflect well on them."

Sundance programmed Control Room, a documentary about Al-
Jazeera that offers a more nuanced depiction of the Qatar-
based channel than that of a Muslim extremist propaganda
outlet, which some members of the Bush administration have
suggested. The film will be released next month.

The festival also hosted a talk by John Sayles, whose latest
film, Silver City, features some characters who parallel
members of the current administration. Actor Chris Cooper
plays a grammatically challenged son of a Colorado senator
who bumbles into a murder mystery while campaigning for
governor.

The conventional wisdom, at least among conservatives, is
that Hollywood is a left-wing town that spoils American minds
with their well-financed powers of persuasion. But none of
the current crop of anti-administration films is backed with
Hollywood money or distribution muscle.

Sayles wrote Silver City in a furious two-week blast last
year and, realizing it would be best released in this
election cycle, felt he didn’t have time to wait around to
see if a studio would put up the $5-million budget. So he
just started the six-week shoot and figured the money would
find its way to him, which it did. He is racing to get Silver
City ready for a Sept. 17 release. It may play at the Toronto
International Film Festival a few days beforehand.

Sayles is well known for his politics, but has never before
made a film that so directly commented on the current state
of the country. Anger fuels him now. "I really feel like an
awful lot has gone on that is non-democratic," he explained
this week during a phone call from the edit suite. "I’ve been
surprised at how rarely I’ve heard the word ’war profiteer’
in conjunction with what’s going on."

One sign for Sayles that there’s blood in the water is that
the mainstream press and TV shows, which normally "have to
wait until the big politicians are on the run," are now in
attack mode.

And other filmmakers are joining the feeding frenzy. As
Sundance wrapped up, the Rotterdam Film Festival programmed a
slate of documentaries and animated shorts that portrayed an
anxious America, under the rubric Homefront USA. Last month,
the South by Southwest film festival in Texas followed this
with Bush’s Brain, a documentary about Bush strategist Karl
Rove based on a book by reporters Jim Moore and Wayne Slater.
The film begins with a scene of Bush emerging from Air Force
One, accompanied by the pomp of Hail to the Chief, which is
quickly deflated by the appearance of on-screen text that
reads, "How did this happen?"

Filmmaker George Butler is currently working on a documentary
about John Kerry, with the Democratic candidate’s co-
operation, that is due for release in the fall. Those who
have seen clips say it will be favourable but not an
infomercial for Kerry.

And Michael Moore’s next film, Fahrenheit 911, will take a
jaundiced look at the connections between the Bush and bin
Laden families. It is expected to debut at the Cannes Film
Festival next month.

To be sure, America’s screens won’t be exactly swamped with
films featuring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman mingling
sweet kisses with post-coital whisperings about foreign-
policy missteps, and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man is unlikely
to do battle with Donald Rumsfeld in this summer’s web-
slinger sequel.

But even on Broadway, which has lately preferred the
marmalade of Abba tunes to the meat of Arthur Miller
parables, troubling fare with an ambivalent attitude toward
authority is making at least a tentative comeback. A planned
production of Assassins, the Stephen Sondheim musical which
explores the motivations of presidential assassins through
history, was cancelled two days after Sept. 11, 2001, because
producers with the Roundabout Theatre felt it might have been
discordant with the un-ironic culture then ascendant. But
next week it will make its Broadway debut.

A few kilometres downtown, provocateur Tim Robbins’s
Embedded, a comedy about journalists and politicians and war,
has just been extended. And over in London a musical satire
about Bush and Tony Blair, Follow My Leader, subtitled Making
a Song and Dance About the War on Terror, opens Wednesday
night.

Still, theatre artists are expected to give a finger to
people in power. Now, however, even television shows paid for
and aired by some of the largest corporations in America are
getting laughs off White House troubles. David Letterman is
reinforcing George W. Bush’s public persona as a dolt more
than ever. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which four years
ago took about equal potshots at Al Gore and George W. Bush,
this time has taken off the gloves for the Republicans and
their handling of Sept. 11.

The dissension isn’t just showing up on late-night TV. A
detective on Law & Order recently made a crack about missing
weapons of mass destruction. And Larry David’s self-styled
character on Curb Your Enthusiasm rebuffed the advances of a
woman when he discovered she was a Republican.

Most creators say the anti-administration cracks are only
showing up because there’s a significant audience for them.
"This is the marketplace," said Joe Conason. "Republicans are
supposed to believe in that."

Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPPrint/LAC/20040417/HOLLYWOOD17/TPEntertainment/