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Kim Voynar

By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com

What's the Point of W?

Went to the screening of W last night, and I feel kinda “meh” about the film. Brolin does a nice enough Dubya impersonation, there’s nothing wrong with any of the acting, per se, but I walked away from it wondering what exactly Stone’s point was in making the film. There was a lot of grumbling amongst the Seattle crowd as folks were filing out of the theater about the film; it seemed a lot of folks came expecting to see an SNL-ish lampooning of Dubya, and while the film does have those moments (the best of which come straight out of the horse’s mouth, so to speak, as part of the massive public record of Dubya’s gaffs), its intent isn’t to satirize, or mock, I don’t think, so much as it is to explore the whys and wherefores of the political ambitions of a man whose driving ambition in earlier life seemed to not be much beyond living off Poppy’s money and drinking a lot.
Stone does delve into the father-son relationship between Bush Sr and Bush (just don’t call me Junior) Jr, and his rivalry with younger brother Jeb. Stone beats the “you’re a disappointment to me, son” drum rather heavily, and maybe Dubya’s relationship with dad really is the driving force behind his presidency. I mean, I’d honestly never considered that Bush Sr might be pissed about Dubya running for governor of Texas at the same time Jeb ran for governor of Florida, because it was taking the limelight from Jeb. Nor did I consider, really, that Bush might be upset about Dubya running for (and winning) the presidency, not because he didn’t want his son to surpass him, but because he didn’t want the disappointing brother to usurp the younger brother who he considered to have more promise.
Stone shows Bush largely as a puppet controlled by Rove and Cheney, but also as a man driven by his own ambition to one-up the old man, and I suppose you could argue that he didn’t really need to show what happened after Iraq because we all know what’s happened after Iraq. I just left the film feeling uncertain as to what exactly Stone was trying to say about this president. It’s not edgy enough to be a real critique of Iraq, not in the sense that No End in Sight was a critique of Iraq; it’s not enough of a skewering to satisfy the liberals who loathe Bush, nor illuminating enough in a positive way to satisfy the conservatives who still support him. What exactly was Stone’s point in making the film? I’m not sure I know.

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2 Responses to “What's the Point of W?”

  1. I think I came away with a more positive impression of the film than you did, but I also had to ask “what’s the point?” in my review as well. The timing is bad and it just doesn’t seem relevant, thematically or historically.

  2. BlueBomm says:

    I think this whole movie was less about communicating a “take” on Bush than it was about just remembering and– maaaybe, hopefully, kind of– eulogizing him and what he represents.
    For me, I found it immensely valuable to be reminded of three things, specifically– First, this man is not a monster. Second, he was born into a position where even minor coincidences and associations were enough to coast him into the presidency. And third, this shit needs to change.
    Oliver Stone’s idea here– idea, rather than agenda– is to create a strange, no-perspective-necessary pop product that looks to just take the measure of where we are with regards to the presidency right now. This movie has no shelf life, nor do I think it’s intended to (other than as a cool time capsule for those of us who lived through it). To me, this is just a story of a man we might like, a man easily understood (even if the father/son issue isn’t totally true, it works just fine as a generally humanizing device, which is the only real point), who should have never been elected president.
    It’s almost Brechtian, this movie. “This is how it is, everybody, so… what do we do about it?”
    So on those levels, and in the fascinating balance and conflict between parody, imitation and inhabitation of the performances, I thought the movie had tremendous relevance and interest.
    It’s true, it isn’t like other movies, and it isn’t what most people were expecting… but it certainly made me think a lot, largely about how I’d felt about George W. Bush over these eight years, and I believe that if people are willing to engage with it similarly they could find themselves very stirred and sort of weirdly inspired. On the dawn of Sarah Palin’s apparent rise to future stardom, I certainly hope this country doesn’t make this same mistake.
    But I don’t know. Do people bother bringing that much of themselves to movies anymore? Or did they ever? Based on all the “shrug” reviews and responses, my guess is they probably don’t.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon