|
January-February 2009
Vol. 23, No. 1
"W.", directed by Oliver Stone. Lionsgate, 2008, 129 minutes.
History Lite
Jon Harrison lives and writes in Vermont.
Oliver Stone's films have been called "melodramas for the masses," and not without reason. But there is more to Stone the filmmaker than this. Consider some of his signature productions. "Platoon" (1986), his directorial debut, was informed by his own experience as a combat infantryman in Vietnam, where he was twice wounded and decorated for valor. Despite its excesses, it remains the best treatment of the Vietnam War ever filmed. "Wall Street" (1987), while at times tiresomely preachy, looks prescient today, after Enron and the Wall Street shenanigans that brought about the current financial crisis. "JFK" (1991), though it failed to present a persuasive alternate history of Nov. 22, 1963, spurred the creation of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), which unearthed some startling facts about the tragic death of the nation's 35th president, and the coverup that followed it.
Criticism of Stone has been strongest among conservative intellectuals, many of whom, it must be said, possess far less life experience than he does. It is rather peculiar to witness lifelong public intellectuals persons who have never seen a shot fired in anger question his take on Vietnam, for example. Equally strange is their apparent failure to recognize that movies are a business, and that, therefore, compromises must sometimes be made in the name of profit. Stone long ago established a reputation for bringing his films in on budget, something conservatives could learn from, given their recent follies with the public purse.
That said, this reviewer must nevertheless give Stone's latest production, "W." a satirical and searing look at our nation's 43rd president only a very qualified thumbs-up. It succeeds as entertainment. As an accurate portrayal of contemporary history, it fails.
Stone, of course, is a technically competent filmmaker. The visuals and other production values in "W." are first-rate. So too is the acting of Josh Brolin, who plays George W. Bush, and James Cromwell in the role of W's father, George H.W. Bush, our 41st president. Elizabeth Banks and Ellen Burstyn, as the wives of W and "Poppy" respectively, turn in solid performances, but their roles lack sufficient depth to bring out their true influence on the Bush men.
I'm afraid that almost exhausts the good things one can say about this film. As an attempt to recount how the Bush 43 administration brought the country to the mess it's now in, the movie never rises above the level of a cartoon. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, are not explored. The run up to the Iraq war, and its tragic aftermath, are treated in a manner a smart eighth-grader could achieve. Assessing events and personalities without the benefit of distance both in time and emotion is a very difficult task. Here Stone fails completely. Many of the principal actors in the real-life drama Don Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Tommy Franks are portrayed in an overdrawn, baroque manner. It matters not whether Stone likes or dislikes the person. He clearly admires Colin Powell, again and again putting just the right words in the general's mouth yet undermines his hero by having him meekly knuckle under to Bush's will to war. If that was, indeed, the alpha and omega of Bush's secretary of state, then Stone should have tried to show us how Powell could embody that dichotomy and still live with himself.
Perhaps Richard Dreyfuss' portrayal of Vice President Cheney can be excluded from this general criticism of the supporting roles as written and acted. Reviewing the film for National Review Online, Tom Hoopes says that Dreyfuss "plays Dick Cheney . . . as a soulless being who will do whatever it takes to make sure it's always winter but never Christmas." Hoopes, apparently, sees this as an inaccurate or overdrawn depiction. I don‘¦t.
Hoopes also avers that Toby Jones plays Karl Rove "like a Herblock caricature of him." I disagree. I don't think that Jones and Stone succeed in bringing out the real evil that exists in this man.
The film does perform a service to history, or rather, to the great viewing public that knows history not, by refusing to pin all blame on the president. "Why wasn't I told?" W whines when he discovers one foulup after another in the implementation of Iraq policy. The message we should take from this, whether Stone intends it or not, is that we cannot blame one man for the events of the past eight years. The decider bears the first responsibility, but his subordinates must share it, and so in part do we, the larger society, which raised them up.
"W." is at its best when tracing the oedipal conflict between the two Georges, and how it motivated the younger man to reach for the highest office. Churchill was ignored and demeaned by a powerful and (until felled by sickness) very successful father, but he overcame this handicap and far surpassed the elder man in achievements and fame. Here we see character and application at work. Churchill, though an indifferent student, read deeply and had an active life in the British army and government before he achieved the first place in the state. George W. Bush, though his grades at Yale were better than John Kerry's (a fact that invariably gets brought up by some assistant professor or other, as if it meant something), was an incurious, callow youth who grew into an ignorant and troubled man. He never worked in the way Churchill did; he never truly earned anything he managed to achieve. Perhaps the late Victorian Age provided a more bracing atmosphere than postwar America. On the other hand, perhaps W's mistake was giving up drinking for religion, something Churchill would never have contemplated. Certainly, booze and agnosticism did more for Britain than sobriety and piety have done for us.
To do justice to his subject, Stone would've needed a broader outlook, and about four hours. At barely two hours running time, he spreads himself too thin. Go to the movie for Josh Brolin's performance, but don't expect to come away much the wiser about the disasters of the past eight years.
|
|