Josh Brolin as U.S. president George W. Bush
in Oliver Stone's "W.", which opened across the U.S. and Canada today.
(Photo: Sidney Ray Baldwin)
THE POPCORN REEL FILM REVIEW/"W."
From The Shadow Of The Father Emerges The
Sins Of The Son, With The World Paying A Heavy Price
By
Omar P.L. Moore/October
17, 2008
Oliver Stone's filmmaking is more
impressive now than it was twenty years ago, because he allows real life events
of the American presidents he tracks to speak loudly for themselves. This
is not to say that "JFK" (1991) and "Nixon" (1995) weren't dazzling portrayals
of investigations of presidential assassinations or presidents gone paranoid by
corruption; it's just an indication that Mr. Stone, a more than capable student
of history, uses his own speculation less often these days. Perhaps that's
because C-SPAN and You Tube, big gap fillers for instant fact-checking and
indictment, are a larger force now than they were back then. The facts of
history speak loudly for themselves, and with his new film "W.", the fact is
that with "apologies" to Michael Brown, Mr. Stone has done a heck of a job.
"W.", which opened today across the U.S. and Canada (three days after Canada's
prime minister elections and less than three weeks before the U.S. presidential
election,) is Mr. Stone's evenhanded look at the current American presidency of
George W. Bush, although concentrating on the first term (2001-2004), which
seeks to explain how a lazy, incurious simpleton lacking ambition manages to
ascend to the position of the most powerful man on planet Earth. Aside
from the obvious electoral (voter suppression in Florida in 2000) and U.S.
Supreme Court (Bush v. Gore) reasons, which Mr. Stone alludes to, there are many
others.
Mr. Stone directs "W." as a fairy tale, all from the perspective of the title
character, played wonderfully by Josh Brolin, containing all the satirical
flourishes one would expect from the director. At its heart though, "W."
is restrained, using Mr. Brolin as the engine of presidential parody, and the
actor has many good moments as the 43rd president.
"W." waltzes back from 2002 to 1966, then to 1971 and back and forth between the
21st century and the late 1970's and mid-1980's and throughout builds a
persuasive case (with the help of a solid screenplay from "Wall Street"
screenwriter Stanley Weiser) that George W.'s oedipal complex, or at the very
least, envy of his father, is essentially responsible for the mess that the
world is in now -- a "hyper-muscular" foreign policy, Mr. Stone said last week
in an interview -- borne by the son's vow to show the father that he could do a
better job as president than the senior did. Constant disapproval and
damning with faint praise of the son defines George Herbert Walker Bush's
relationship with son George W., and with James Cromwell playing the 41st
president (aka Poppy, to the family Bush), the interplay between he and Mr.
Brolin is effective. Mr. Stone has fun pitting these two against each
other, and we have fun watching. "W." is a funny film, far more so than it
is a scathing, angry or indicting one. Audiences expecting to see fire and
brimstone will be sorely disappointed.
"W."'s three acts are sharply defined: the underachiever who barely makes it
through Yale, drinking his academic life away (his cheerleading days at the Ivy
League school are implied, if not barely mentioned); the man who tries to get a
political foothold in Texas and work his way up with the help of a paternal hand
never far away; and the emergence of renewed religious faith and the full-blown
culmination of insularity and stubbornness that power on the most powerful stage
of all brings to an unacknowledged eldest son.
Even Better Than The Real Thing: Left photo:
Josh Brolin as U.S. President George W. Bush, with an applauding vice president
Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss) in Oliver Stone's "W.", and the real president
and vice president during the 2003 State of the Union address, which Mr. Stone's
film replicates, an important and fateful moment in world history.
(Photos: Sidney Ray Baldwin; Getty)
A key scene in "W." -- which both in tone and meaning resembles the lengthy
court scene with New Orleans prosecutor Jim Garrison (played by Kevin Costner)
in "JFK" -- is the long scene in the war room, where all of the president's top
advisers, from vice president Cheney (a snarky and amusing portrayal by Richard
Dreyfuss), Secretary of State Colin Powell (played by Jeffrey Wright), National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (an excellent parody by Thandie Newton) and
others, all confer about whether to go to war with Iraq. It's the best and
most telling scene in the film, with the music score by Paul Cantelon playing a
large role in underlying a rueful, melancholic moment from which there was no
turning back. Even with the absence of Poppy Bush, he's still in the room,
especially as figuratively represented by one character -- and the son is still
picking a fight with him.
Style-wise, "W." can thank cinematographer Phedon Papamichael for conveying a
strong sense of isolation, hollowness and lack of identity in the title
character. There are one or two scenes where in modest close-up we cannot
see Mr. Brolin's eyes, for they are completely covered in shadow. At other
times, Mr. Brolin is enveloped in empty space and darkness, and of course none
of this is by accident. Similarly, Mr. Papamichael cheekily photographs
Mr. Dreyfuss's character in the shadows, thus visually equating the Darth
Vader-like cloak of sinister stealth and secrecy with which many Americans
identify the current vice president. After all, Mr. Cheney once said,
shortly after September 11, 2001, that: "We also have to work the dark side, if
you will. We have to spend time in the shadows." And Mr. Papamichael
dutifully obliges. The cinematography, even more than the history of
George W. Bush, is the most important part of "W.", representing not just the
stylistic tonal uniforms of the Bush Administration's major players but also a
representation of what Mr. Stone and many, many others have declared the most
secretive presidential administration in American history. With the shots
of Mr. Dreyfuss in darkness, you half expect the "Empire Strikes Back" music
from John Williams to begin on cue.
Mr. Weiser uses actual quotes from the 43rd president and puts them into the
mouth of Mr. Brolin, who as George W. Bush sometimes says them in different
situations from which they were originally spoken. Sometimes the quotes
are spoken in the exact situations as they were in reality, such as at a
presidential news conference, from which Mr. Brolin's W. finishes, trotting away
on the long red carpet down a corridor in the White House -- this isolation and
failure of a presidential figure is almost though less painfully a replica of
the late scene in Mr. Stone's "Nixon", where the disgraced president (played by
Anthony Hopkins) walks down the same corridor with his wife Pat Nixon clinging
painfully to his side. Mr. Brolin's stuttering exit walk is less operatic
but says all it needs to say by itself.
Mr. Stone is to be commended for making an entertaining, mildly disturbing,
thought-provoking film, condensing years of history into a little more than two
hours for audiences to appreciate -- and it's hard to believe that they won't.
(Even those who are ardent supporters of the current president will appreciate
this film.) Julie Monroe does great editing work here.
Finally, there are great music pieces underlying the satirical notes of the
film. "Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys", "What A Wonderful
World", and other songs make for laughs, which there are plenty of, if only to
keep from crying.
With: Bruce McGill, Elizabeth Banks, Ellen Burstyn, Toby Jones, Scott Glenn,
Stacy Keach, Noah Wylie, Rob Corddry, Ioan Gruffudd, Randall Newsome and Jason
Ritter.
"W." is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for language
including sexual references, some alcohol abuse, smoking and brief disturbing
war images. The film's running time is two hours and nine minutes.
Copyright The Popcorn Reel. PopcornReel.com. 2008. All Rights
Reserved.
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