Can Oliver Stone tell the truth?
As of this writing I haven’t yet seen Oliver Stone’s “W.” though I’m looking forward to it with equal parts eagerness and dread.
Eagerness because even at his least inspired, Stone remains a brilliant technical filmmaker.
And dread because it sometimes seems that Stone lacks any self-censorship mechanism.
After all, here’s a guy who in the movie “JFK” “solved” the Kennedy assassination, or at least presented a version that became fact for millions of people. (In case you’ve forgotten, according to Stone, the Prez was murdered by a cabal of gay right-wing zealots.)
That Stone often climbs out on the wacko limb is in many ways a virtue … it makes for polarizing moviemaking that leaves none of us neutral.
But “W.” presents a particularly touchy situation. Here’s a fictionalized screen biography of a sitting president (Josh Brolin plays George W.) coming out on the eve of a national election widely regarded as a referendum on that president’s administration. And not just a sitting president, but one of the most widely disliked presidents in modern history.
There really are no precedents for this.
JFK’s war experiences were the basis of 1963’s “PT 109,” which hit theaters just five months before Kennedy’s assassination (he was portrayed by Cliff Robertson). It was a straightforward war movie with perhaps just a smidgen of hagiography in its portrayal of the future leader of the free world. Nothing controversial.
Bush look-alike Brent Mendenhall of Nevada, Mo., has portrayed George W. in several films — “Life or Something Like It,” “Postal,” the Emmy-winning HBO movie “Recount” and the upcoming “Mission Istanbul” and “Bamboo Shark.” But Mendenhall’s appearances are basically walk-on gimmicks, good for a laugh or to give a drama a bit of verisimilitude. None purports to be a full-fledged study of the man in the White House.
Of course, when it comes to comedy, our president has been the butt of jokes almost from the day he took office. He was the subject of a short-lived comedy series in 2001 called “That’s My Bush!” Timothy Bottoms portrayed him.
He has been a cartoon character in TV’s satiric “Lil’ Bush.”
And of course he has been the principal villain (or maybe fool) in a half dozen feature documentaries from the left. In fact, Michael Moore’s Bush-bashing “Fahrenheit 9/11” holds the record for the most financially successful documentary of all time.
How will Stone, an avowed enemy of the right, portray George W.?
Will he paint the president as a buffoon? As evil? As the hapless tool of despicable handlers? Will he bring out the knives and carve up this turkey?
I hope not. This is said not out of any great love for George W. Bush but rather because we’ve already seen plenty of that sort of graceless hammering. More of it isn’t going to serve any purpose.
And also because if Stone treats his subject unfairly, he runs the risk of actually building sympathy for the president and his legacy.
No, I hope Oliver Stone does something here he has never done before. I hope he gives us a fair and balanced portrait of a controversial leader who has made plenty of mistakes but at heart is dedicated to doing what he thinks is right.
That might not be as immediately satisfying as a hatchet job, but it would be closer to the truth of things.
And in this campaign season, I think we’d find the truth to be refreshing for a change.
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