'Death of a President' Death of Filmmaking
Ian Pugh
Issue date: 10/27/06 Section: Entertainment
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Perhaps you've already heard of Death of a President, that film you were shocked, shocked, to learn would feature a computer-generated scenario of our current president - George W. Bush, for those of you who haven't been keeping up with the headlines - being shot and killed! Why, it's an outrage! Such an outrage, in fact, that several major movie theater chains have already refused to carry the film! This controversy has me excited, and I must see this film immediately!
And there's the rub, you see. I could tell you all about this film and how it's say-nothing garbage specifically designed to provoke a reaction, and there would still be that lingering doubt, or for the more sadistic among you, that exciting little potential for schadenfreude, that would still attract you. I guess it's only natural, but I'm going to take a stab at it anyway. For all that hype, for all that pre-release controversy, Death of a President is null. Devoid of any intelligent political statement, artistic merit or general interest. I take no offense from the premise, but damn it, man, why don't you do something with it?
The film is a faux-documentary that takes place sometime in 2009; a film crew is interviewing the key players involved on the fateful day that George W. Bush was assassinated: October 19, 2007. (I was waiting for another title card, reading: "One year from now.") The President was set to deliver a speech to various bigwig businessmen in Chicago and as to be expected, the event attracted its share of protests. However, with Iraq still in "quagmire" mode and nuclear tension with North Korea only escalating, the captain of the Chicago police department remarks that there was "real hate" involved with the protesters that day, and the police had a difficult time containing them all...
If the film's first half hour contains any form of interest, it only achieves it by feeding into the morbid curiosity that has brought us into the theater in the first place - namely, by wondering how it is, exactly, that Bush will be killed. Will he be killed during his speech, Manchurian Candidate-style, with some key sentence serving as irony before the bullets are fired? Or will he be done in Lee Harvey Oswald-style, with some crazed gunman rushing in to deliver the shots? The "reality" of it is not so sensationalist, but the film manages to be sensationalist anyway by baiting us. Death of a President's method is not unlike that of Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel - the potential for tragedy is omnipresent by the very nature of its premise, to the point where it becomes oppressive. File the film as another example of how emotional manipulation is hardly the equivalent of quality.
And there's the rub, you see. I could tell you all about this film and how it's say-nothing garbage specifically designed to provoke a reaction, and there would still be that lingering doubt, or for the more sadistic among you, that exciting little potential for schadenfreude, that would still attract you. I guess it's only natural, but I'm going to take a stab at it anyway. For all that hype, for all that pre-release controversy, Death of a President is null. Devoid of any intelligent political statement, artistic merit or general interest. I take no offense from the premise, but damn it, man, why don't you do something with it?
The film is a faux-documentary that takes place sometime in 2009; a film crew is interviewing the key players involved on the fateful day that George W. Bush was assassinated: October 19, 2007. (I was waiting for another title card, reading: "One year from now.") The President was set to deliver a speech to various bigwig businessmen in Chicago and as to be expected, the event attracted its share of protests. However, with Iraq still in "quagmire" mode and nuclear tension with North Korea only escalating, the captain of the Chicago police department remarks that there was "real hate" involved with the protesters that day, and the police had a difficult time containing them all...
If the film's first half hour contains any form of interest, it only achieves it by feeding into the morbid curiosity that has brought us into the theater in the first place - namely, by wondering how it is, exactly, that Bush will be killed. Will he be killed during his speech, Manchurian Candidate-style, with some key sentence serving as irony before the bullets are fired? Or will he be done in Lee Harvey Oswald-style, with some crazed gunman rushing in to deliver the shots? The "reality" of it is not so sensationalist, but the film manages to be sensationalist anyway by baiting us. Death of a President's method is not unlike that of Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel - the potential for tragedy is omnipresent by the very nature of its premise, to the point where it becomes oppressive. File the film as another example of how emotional manipulation is hardly the equivalent of quality.
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