Two of my least favorite people in one project! A president with a blunt intellect, but a remarkable ability to project a simple story. And a filmmaker with the same qualities. Each would be relatively harmless as clerks who amuse at lunch breaks, but these are men whose inadequacies break worlds.
It is no wonder that this portrays Bush respectfully. No wonder that it is all about intent: the man is a good, honest, unselfish man whose only weakness was a vision of an unrealistic utopia and the accident of being surrounded by fools and devils. I believe that all of Stone's projects are autobiographical and he impresses on them his own story. Its Woody Allen, except instead of placing himself in the cosmic forces of personal relationships and self, he wanders among what he sees is a cosmos of global conspiracy. That he is able to make a living in Hollywood is, I think, because our notions of noir are close enough to this so that he (and Spike Lee) can bloviate and make a living.
As time goes on, he worries more and more about himself, so he makes his heroes basically good men, lost.
But this time history bucks him. The culpability of this man cannot be explained away by blaming Rove and Cheney. His qualms about torture are known to not have happened. We know that he pushed for policies that will be evaluated in time as war crimes. Now, he may have done that with noble intent, but more ruthless and scheming than this golden Rube we see here.
This is a disaster for history. Because so few Americans read books, instead getting their history from films and blogmobs.
The cinematic values of Stone's prior work are not even visible. The energy of "Platoon," the craft of "JFK" are gone. We have normal TeeVee movie framing here.
I think we should vote Stone out.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
