Few directors come with more baggage than Oliver Stone. Few filmmakers are as loved or as vilified. Stone’s films always register on the political Richter scale — liberals flock to them and conservatives recoil from them. W., his latest work, isn’t going to be any different. But it should be. W. is, to borrow a phrase, surprisingly fair and balanced. Sure, Stone’s intentions and ideology are clear (he thinks Bush is one of this country’s worst presidents), but this is no liberal hatchet job. By the end of W., you respect, root for and empathize with Bush. No small feat, considering the source.
W. is the best film Oliver Stone has made in a very long time. His last effort, World Trade Center, was little more than a Saturday afternoon special. With that film, Stone so suppressed his natural conspiratorial nature that he cut himself off from the source of his power — both creatively and philosophically. He strikes a splendid balance in W., integrating his infamous liberal ideology with a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the sitting president. W. is a drama that never loses its veneer of absurdist comedy…a comedy that can never shake its grim solemnity.
Stone plays fast and loose with fact, though not context. His version of events is one of perfect serendipity in which every important, larger-than-life talking head shares the same room and discusses policy in pithy soundbites. Screenwriter Stanley Weiser repurposes Bush’s now infamous linguistic gymnastics, reappropriating them to suit different moments and situations then when they were actually delivered. The filmmakers are true to the spirit of history if not the law.
A plot synopsis is hardly necessary. We know the story of the Bush administration because we have all lived through it. Keen to that fact, Stone plays hopscotch with history. W. leaps through time, hurdling momentous events, filling in all the stuff in between. We don’t need to see Bush run for president, but we might be interested in what drove him to do so. There is no reason to witness the events of 9/11, though being a fly on the wall in the situation room a few months later is a fascinating opportunity.
Stone jumps back in time often, showing the president as a Yale plebe, a rudderless malcontent bouncing from job to job, an untethered alcoholic and other pre-history moments that shaped the man into who he is today. W. ends with a man standing firmly by his principles, confident in the rightness of his decisions, sure to do it all over again and yet utterly befuddled by the fact that the world has spun out of his control and turned wrathfully upon him. If W.’s final act is somewhat unsatisfying, it’s because it has yet to be completely written.
Stone presents Bush not as a man of duplicity but of conviction. Right or wrong, Stone’s Bush is supremely human, endowed with all the potency and flaws that go along with that. But Bush knows he is flawed; it is fundamental to his understanding of himself as a sinner in need of God’s redemption and sustenance. Neither is Stone’s Bush a stupid man. Far from it. He may not be an intellectual, but he vibrates with an intuitive, gut-level brilliance that serves him well. The young Bush is instinctually true to himself, feral, animalistic, barely housebroken (which makes his Damascus Road moment, when he abandons alcohol, all the more impressive). The adult Bush is more domesticated, to be sure, but one always gets the sense that he might break free of his breeding at any moment.
Underpinning everything Stone and Weiser have done is a sweeping Freudian psychoanalytical examination married to what can only be described as Greek tragedy. In W., Bush is the way he is because of a deeply dysfunctional relationship with his successful father (James Cromwell). Everything “Jr.” sets his mind and hands to, from running for president to invading Iraq, is a direct effort to, at first, impress and please his father and later, get out from beneath the older man’s imposing shadow. It’s Interpretive Theory 101, as applied in literature classes across the world. A single theory cannot possibly explain all the reasons and motivations behind human complexity, but it can elevate and hope to unpack at least one.
Stone stages brilliant moments. Bush is walking the Crawford ranch with his advisors in tow and suddenly finds he has lost his way. A long shot shows the president, looking like the Pied Piper, adrift but leading the way nonetheless. Methinks Stone intends a metaphor. Another extraordinary scene takes place in the war room (complete with miniature Dr. Strangelove lights overhead) as Bush and his advisors plan the invasion of Iraq. As luxuriant classical music plays, Vice President Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss) makes the case for American Empire and the subjugation of the Middle East. His rhetoric is sublime, convincing even, despite the fact that it is hubris on a colossal scale.
Almost everyone in W. comes off far worse than the president. Stone sees Bush as a man deceived and manipulated, just like us. Stone reserves his vitriol for those around Bush, especially the soulless Cheney, the Machiavellian Karl Rove (Toby Jones) and the clueless Donald Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn). Conversely, Stone sees Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright) as the sole voice of reason and conscience. Powell alone comes across as a saintly figure, despite or perhaps because of his ultimate acquiescence to a party line he knew to be foolhardy and reckless.
Most of the performances in W. are captivating. It is fascinating watching how the various actors involved chose to interpret their parts. Actor James Brolin melts into his role, reproducing Bush’s gestures and mannerisms impeccably. His performance is mimicry without caricature, something exceptionally difficult to pull off. Just ask Thandie Newton. Her Condoleezza Rice may look and at times even sound the part, but she tries so hard to be an imitation rather than a reflection that she comes off as a cartoonish parody.
Oliver Stone’s third look at presidential politics (JFK, Nixon) isn’t going to change anyone’s mind. You’ll come out of the theater as you went in. Liberals will find lots of red meat handed to them on a cinematic platter, while conservatives, if they attend at all, will hardly find their opinion of the incendiary Stone altered. W. is endlessly interesting and thought provoking entertainment presented in a remarkably even-handed way. But by now, the choir may be the only ones listening.
© Copyright 2008 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.
